Best Onsen Ryokan and Hotels in Hakodate: 5 Editors’ Picks

Editors' comment

The main bathhouse on the upper floors is filled with a strongly saline sodium chloride spring. The salty water settles softly on the skin, and it is the kind of spring that leaves warmth deep in your body long after you leave the bath. Beyond the hinoki indoor bath and reclining bath, the open-air bath and the barrel bath, Mount Hakodate and the city lights spread out. Those who stay can spend both the evening city lights and the morning light with this onsen. The three private baths, each made of a different material (ceramic, brick and hinoki), need no reservation. If one is free, just close the door and have the onsen to yourself. The suites also come with a round open-air bath in the room, looking out over the rooftops to the Tsugaru Strait.

Editors' comment

The main bathhouse, Yugura, draws its water from Yunokawa Onsen, which has more than 350 years of history. The water is clear and colorless and feels light on the skin, and it is a chloride spring. It holds heat well, so your body stays warm long after you bathe. Besides a spacious open-air bath, there are many kinds of baths, including ceramic urn baths and reclining baths, so you can try the same onsen again and again in different positions. There are three saunas: a Bona sauna with its heater tucked under the benches, an aroma mist sauna and a steam room. After the cold plunge, you can rest in the open-air area and feel the outside air, or in the Yugura Lounge, where sofas sit on tatami. Onsen, sauna and rest all connect in a single flow.

Editors' comment

The indoor bath on the top floor and the open-air baths on the roof are filled with water from Hakodate Onsen, fed straight from the source, never recirculated. It is a strongly saline sodium chloride spring. Rich in salt, it is said to leave warmth deep in your body after you get out. On the roof you’ll find a rock bath, a tub carved from a large custom-made piece of ceramic, a barrel bath made by craftsmen and a single-person tub of natural hinoki. Each time you move to another tub, the feel on your skin and the scent change. Beyond the steam lie the Tsugaru Strait and the city lights. On the roof of a hotel in the heart of the port town, you can compare the same source in four different tubs. That is what sets this inn apart.

Editors' comment

The baths of the onsen, Kohakuiro-no-Yu, are filled with an iron-rich, reddish-brown, strongly saline sodium chloride spring. It is fed straight from the source, never recirculated, and is said to hold heat well so you don’t cool down quickly after bathing. There is an airy indoor bath, an open-air bath in a gazebo-style pavilion with the warmth of wood, and a ceramic urn bath you can soak in alone. The cold plunge sits right beside the dry sauna and mist sauna. After your bath, you can spend time at OMO Base, with its stained-glass light and the sound of a hand-cranked organ. The next morning brings a breakfast buffet laid out with seafood rice bowls and seared dishes. Guests with tattoos can use the baths.

Editors' comment

The main bathhouse on the 14th floor is filled with a strongly salty, reddish-brown spring. Salt-rich onsen water holds heat well and is said to keep your body warm long after you get out. On the 15th floor, the very top, is an open-air bath built so that its edge can’t be seen, and the surface of the water seems to run straight into the sky and the sea. At night, the lights of the bay shine beneath the stars; in the morning, the port town spreads out before you in the clear air. Next to the main bathhouse is a lounge for after your bath, where you can cool down while looking out at the night view. Spending both the night and the morning within this view is a time only those who stay can have.