How we choose and check ryokans

Ryokan Finder’s directory lists 260 ryokans in 47 prefectures. Our 68 best-of pages are lists drawn from that directory, by place, by season and by style of stay.

How a best-of list is chosen

Most lists are the inns in the directory that match the page’s place or theme (a town, a prefecture, a price tier, private baths), up to the number the page states, in order of a guest review score held in our catalog. Some pages set their own order, and say so in their questions: the Mount Fuji page puts the Fuji Five Lakes inns before Hakone, the winter page puts the snow-country onsen towns first, and the autumn page takes one inn in each of nine places, north to south.

Pages about a style of stay, such as private onsen, romantic, family-friendly, adults-only or meals included, list only inns that have the thing the page is about: an onsen bath in the room, children of any age welcome, a minimum age of 12 or more, a dinner-and-breakfast plan, as the inn’s own website states it, or a price tier, a cultural property or a place in our catalog. Each page’s questions say which. These pages are filled together, and an inn already on several of them is passed over for the next one that fits, so that no two of them share more than 2 inns. The accessible page lists only inns whose own site, or the Japan Tourism Agency’s certified-facility listing, describes a room for wheelchair users.

Seasonal pages for a dated plan, event or bloom, such as snow crab, fugu, New Year, snow lanterns, plum blossom, hydrangeas, fireflies and fireworks, are picked by hand. An inn is listed only when its own website, or the local tourism association, railway or event organiser, publishes the plan, event or season dates the page describes, and the description on its card is written from those pages.

The first inn on a list carries its booking button. If the top inn cannot be booked through one of our partners, the highest-placed inn that can moves to first place, and the rest keep their order. We say this because it is the one place where how we earn money touches the order of a list.

We do not show review scores. The score in our catalog comes without a review count or a source we can cite, so we use it only to order lists. Inns cannot pay to be listed, ranked or featured.

How facts are checked

For 224 inns we have checked facts on the inn’s own website: whether rooms have their own onsen bath, private baths taken in turns, tattoo rules, children, meal plans, where dinner is served, check-in and check-out, and the nearest station. We record the page each fact came from and the date we checked it. Where an inn’s site does not say, we leave the fact out rather than guess.

An inn page’s Key facts, and the answers and questions on best-of pages, use only those checked facts, plus our own price tier (Budget, Mid-range, Premium, Luxury) and, where an inn publishes one, its lowest rate per person with dinner and breakfast.

Dates

“Updated” on a best-of page is the latest date any of its inns, their checked facts or its travel notes were revised in our data. Policies change, so confirm anything that matters with the inn before you book.

The wider rules, including photos and corrections, are in our editorial policy. How the site is paid for: how we make money. See something wrong? Tell us.