Find Your Perfect Ryokan

An Akiu Onsen inn with large and open-air baths in both its buildings and three detached rooms with their own baths and gardens.

The Akiu Onsen inn run by one family for a claimed thousand years, 173 rooms in a 26,000 square metre garden, 30 minutes from Sendai.

A refined traditional inn at the base of Amanohashidate, Japan's 'Bridge to Heaven'.

Kinzan opened in 1929 as a kaiseki restaurant with rooms, and no other ryokan in Hyogo holds both a Michelin star for its food and a five-roof rating for its accommodation. The large baths use Arima's iron-rich gold kinsen water, while the East Building rooms have semi-open-air baths of silver ginsen. The 31 rooms are for adults only.

Nakanobo Zuien has received guests in Arima Onsen since 1868, and Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, once visited its Japanese garden. Eight of the 47 rooms include a rotenburo filled with golden kinsen water, and a family bath of silver ginsen is free without booking. Guests must be 13 or older, and Kobe beef appears as teppanyaki in the Kuriya chef's room as well as in the kaiseki.

Hillside Arima Onsen ryokan offering rare dual gold and silver springs with private open-air baths.

The Asaba family has run this Shuzenji inn since 1484, and Gekkeiden, a Noh stage set over its pond, was moved here from Tokyo toward the end of the Meiji era and still hosts seasonal performances. Each of the 12 rooms has a tub of koyamaki (umbrella pine) filled with hot spring water, and kaiseki dinners are brought to the room. Asaba belongs to Relais & Châteaux, and children under 7 can stay only in its Villa Tenko.

A sukiya-style inn named after an 1896 villa, with a large garden, 31 rooms and two hot spring large baths.

A Sekitei-group inn of 24 mostly detached sukiya rooms in a stone garden, with three own hot spring sources.

An Atami Station inn since 1946 with two own sources, free-flowing large and private open-air baths.

Beniya opened in Awara Onsen in 1884, burned down in 2018 and reopened in 2021 in a building by architect Tetsuo Kobori whose floors are heated by water from its own hot spring wells. All 17 rooms have a semi-open-air hot spring bath, and check-in, dinner and breakfast all take place in the room. The Michelin Guide gives it one Key, and Echizen crab kaiseki is available between November and March.

Nishiya Besso's main house is a 200-year-old farmhouse that was moved from Niigata and rebuilt in the Azumino forest, its original beams darkened by centuries of hearth smoke and kept above a working irori. Its five rooms share three private baths, a pair indoors and one in the garden, all filled with free-flowing water from Nakabusa Onsen. Dinner is eaten by the irori and includes river char slow-grilled for 90 minutes, and the inn accepts cash only.