A paid web magazine, chosen by one editor on foot · Issue 01
Japan's finest onsen and sauna, in 65 places.
Japan has thousands of onsen and sauna, and every list looks the same. Where do you spend a trip you may only take once? From the places I bathed in myself and those I chose through my own reporting, I kept only the ones I would go back to — and introduce them one by one.
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Foreword
“I want to come back here.” These are the only places that made me feel that way.
Japan has more onsen and saunas than anyone could count.
Some are famous, some are barely known at all. Deep in the mountains, by the sea, in the middle of the city—the onsen and saunas are different in every one.
But if you are going to travel in Japan, I don’t think that “anywhere will do.”
If you are going to spend the time to come all the way to Japan, then rather than simply soaking in an onsen, simply sitting in a sauna,
I want you to have an experience you will never forget.
That is what I made this magazine for.
I love onsen and saunas, and I have traveled all over Japan, visiting more places than I can count.
Some places I went to because they were famous. Some because someone recommended them. Some I came across by chance.
But not all of them stayed with me.
There are a great many wonderful places.
And yet,
“I want to come back here before I die”
There are very few places I can honestly say that about.
The moment I sink into an onsen.
The moment I step out of the sauna and the wind closes around me.
The hours spent looking at the mountains or the sea in front of me, thinking about nothing at all.
Even after I have left the place, the experience stays somewhere in my body.
And years later it comes back to me, out of nowhere.
Those are the places I chose for this magazine.
I went to every place in this magazine myself, got into the onsen myself, sat in the sauna myself.
Not one was chosen from photographs or reputation alone.
After going there and feeling it in my own body,
“I will never forget the time I spent here”
Only the places that left me thinking that made it into this magazine.
That is why I can put these places in front of you with complete confidence.
This magazine is not a collection of “good onsen” and “popular saunas.”
Scenery you will see nowhere else.
An onsen you will find nowhere else.
A stillness you will feel nowhere else.
I have chosen places where the land, the setting, and the place itself come together to create an experience you can have nowhere but there.
You want to know Japan’s onsen and saunas at their finest.
You want your trip to hold hours that stay with you for a long time.
If that is what you want, this magazine will help you.
As you turn the pages and look at the photographs,
“I want to go here”
the number of places that make you think that will grow, one after another.
Before long you will start to picture yourself inside the photographs.
Yourself soaking in this open-air bath.
Yourself stepping out of this sauna and taking in this view.
Yourself breathing the air of that place, feeling the wind.
And when you actually go, an experience no photograph can carry will be waiting for you.
If this magazine can connect you with the 65 places in these pages, nothing would make me happier.
Years after your trip is over,
“I am so glad I went there”
I hope that at least one experience in here becomes one you remember that way.
Contents
- Yulax · Kumamoto
- Kanigoten · Saga
- Saga no Yudokoro KOMOREBI · Saga
- Mifuneyama Rakuen Hotel · SagaFree in the preview
- OND SAUNA · Saga
- OND HOTEL · Saga
- Wellbe Fukuoka · Fukuoka
- Iyo No Tojiba Kisuke no Yu · Ehime
- Shimanami Onsen Kisuke no Yu · Ehime
- Golden Time Takamatsu · Kagawa
- Takamatsu Pokapoka Onsen · Kagawa
- Naruto Natural Hot Spring Aratae no Yu · Tokushima
- Tosa Mochizuki Onsen Himewako no Yu · Kochi
- Hotel Kawakyu, Nanki Shirahama Onsen · Wakayama