Hotels and ryokan chosen for their onsen and sauna · A paid web magazine · Issue 01
136 of Japan's finest onsen hotels and ryokan.
Choosing a Japanese onsen inn from the other side of a screen is hard. Every inn photographs beautifully, every rating looks alike, and what is real you only learn on arrival. We live inside Japan's onsen: hundreds of baths, one-by-one conversations with inns across the country, and no money taken from any inn. This issue gathers only the stays we would tell a friend to book, from Hokkaido to Kyushu.
Full magazine $16.99 · one payment · reads on your phone
Foreword
Japan’s finest inns are the inns devoted to hot springs.
If you’re going to travel around Japan, I don’t want it to end with simply soaking in a hot spring.
It may be that visiting Japan is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
That is why I hope you’ll create moments in that journey that you will remember for years to come.
Japan has countless hot springs.
Some bubble up as hidden baths deep in the forest, while others can be found at small mountain inns or even in urban public bathhouses. Of course, all of these are part of Japan’s hot spring culture.
But what we want to introduce in this magazine are the places that make you think, “I want to travel here just for this.”
As a media outlet specializing in Japan’s hot springs and saunas, we have researched thousands of hot springs and inns across the country.
From among them, we have selected further, repeated actual visits, and gathered in this single volume only the inns that made us feel, “People around the world should know about this place.”
A truly exceptional hot spring experience is not simply one with wonderful spring water.
What kind of land is the inn built on?
When you sink your body into the water, what kind of scenery unfolds before your eyes?
The sound of trees swaying? The sound of a river flowing? The calls of birds heard from afar?
The scent of the forest, or the scent of the sea, drifting through the steam.
The wind you feel on your skin.
When all of these elements overlap in harmony, a hot spring becomes more than mere bathing—it becomes a memory.
And truly wonderful inns are beautiful even after you leave the hot spring.
The local cuisine you savor after your body has warmed and your five senses have sharpened.
The tableware the dishes are served on.
The space where you dine.
The view from your room.
The quiet time that flows through the building.
The air when you wake in the morning.
When all of these connect as one, only then does the experience of “I’m glad I stayed here” come into being.
What this magazine features are not only hot springs and saunas, but inns that care deeply about every moment of that experience.
As you turn the pages, please imagine this.
If you were to sink into this open-air bath, how would you feel?
If you were to see this view with your own eyes.
If you were to greet the morning in this room.
Surely, with each article you finish, the number of places that make you think, “I want to go there too,” will keep growing.
And if, after your journey has ended,
“Which experience in Japan left the deepest impression on you?”
were the question you were asked,
I would be happy if you remembered the time you spent at the inn you discovered in this magazine.
So that you can begin your journey as soon as you find a place you want to visit, we have also made it possible to access reservation sites from the pages and check locations on Google Maps.
This is not a magazine meant only for looking at.
To learn, to be moved, to decide where to go, and then to book the trip.
We created it so that all of that can be completed within these pages.
And if this magazine inspires you to visit one of the inns featured here, please tell us what you felt there.
We hope that journey becomes a time that remains with you for a long time in your life.
Contents
- Noboribetsu Grand Hotel · Hokkaido
- Kitakobushi Shiretoko Hotel & Resort · Hokkaido
- KIKI Shiretoko Natural Resort · Hokkaido
- Premier Hotel-CABIN-Obihiro · HokkaidoFree in the preview
- La Vista Furano Hills · Hokkaido
- Yuyado Daiichi · Hokkaido
- Lakefront Inn Shikotsuko Marukoma Onsen Ryokan · Hokkaido
- Jozankei Yuraku Soan · Hokkaido
- Hakodate Yunokawa Onsen Hotel Banso · Hokkaido
- Century Marina Hakodate · Hokkaido
- Otaru Granbell Hotel · Hokkaido
- Hotel Taisetsu ONSEN&CANYON RESORT · Hokkaido
- Aonobi Yuyu · Hokkaido