The Best Onsen, Saunas & Baths in Japan

Onsen and sento

Japan has two kinds of public bath. An onsen is fed by a natural hot spring; a sento is a neighbourhood bathhouse that heats its own water. In both, men and women bathe separately and without swimwear, and everyone washes sitting on a low stool at a row of taps before getting into the shared water. Small towels stay out of the bath. Rules on tattoos differ from house to house, so it is worth checking before a visit.

Day-trip hot springs

Many onsen are attached to inns, but a large number sell day entry, called higaeri. Tenzan in Hakone is built for it, with open-air rock pools along a river and rest rooms for the afternoon. Tamagawa Onsen in Akita is known for water so acidic that it stings the skin, and people come for long stays as well as for the day. At Zao Onsen the open-air bath is a pair of rock pools beside a mountain stream, filled with milky sulphur water. In the Iya Valley on Shikoku a cable car takes guests down the cliff to baths by the river.

City bathhouses

City bathhouses are a different experience. Funaoka Onsen in Kyoto has been open since the Taisho era and keeps its tiles, carved woodwork and painted ceiling. Irifune Onsen in Osaka is a renovated neighbourhood sento. In Kinosaki, a town where visitors walk between seven public baths in cotton robes, Goshonoyu has its pools outdoors under a waterfall.

Sauna

Sauna has grown quickly in Japan in recent years, with its own routine: a hot sauna, a cold plunge, then rest in the open air. Sauna Tokyo in Akasaka has five sauna rooms and three cold pools at different temperatures. Sauna Heaven Soka, north of Tokyo, has no hot bath at all, only the sauna, the cold pool and the terrace.