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Japanese Onsen, Sapporo-shi (2026)

Designed to make planning easy and accessible for international visitors. https://japanese-onsen.com/
Expertly curated traditional Japanese ryokans and the tranquil onsens scattered across the breathtaking landscapes of Japan.

21/09/2026

J*pan in autumn is something else 🍁

From fiery mountain valleys in Hokkaido and Aomori to hidden gorges in Shikoku, lakes beneath Mt. Fuji and steaming riverside onsen, these are some of the most spectacular places to experience autumn foliage across J*pan.

The best part is that the season stretches for weeks as the colours move south and down through different elevations — meaning you can catch peak foliage from Hokkaido all the way through Honshu and Shikoku if you time it right.

01 — Onuma Quasi-National Park, Hokkaido 🍁
One of Hokkaido’s dreamiest autumn landscapes, with Mt. Komagatake rising behind a maze of tiny islands and mirror-like lakes. Walk or cycle around the lakes for reflections of the red and gold foliage — especially beautiful in the calm morning light.

📅 Best time: Late Oct–Early Nov

02 — Lake Momiji, Nagano 🍁
Its real name is Minowa Dam, but with around 10,000 maple trees surrounding the lake, “Momiji Lake” feels pretty accurate. In autumn, the hillsides turn intense shades of red, orange and yellow, with a famous maple tunnel that’s made this one of Nagano’s standout foliage spots.

📅 Best time: Late Oct–Early Nov

03 — Iya Valley, Tokushima 🍁
Deep in the mountains of Shikoku, Iya feels worlds away from J*pan’s busier autumn destinations. Think steep V-shaped valleys, emerald-green rivers, misty mountains and entire hillsides covered in autumn colour — plus the famous vine bridges hidden among the forest.

📅 Best time: Late Oct–Mid Nov

04 — Buttsuji Temple, Mihara, Hiroshima 🍁
One of Hiroshima’s lesser-known autumn gems. This historic Zen temple sits deep among old cedar trees and maples, creating a beautiful mix of traditional temple architecture, stone paths and fiery red foliage — without the Kyoto crowds.

📅 Best time: Late Nov

05 — Kamakura, Kanagawa 🍁
Autumn arrives later in Kamakura, making it perfect if you’re visiting J*pan toward the end of the season. Ancient temples, bamboo gardens and quiet pathways become framed by red and gold maples — try Engakuji, Hasedera, Meigetsuin or the temples around Kita-Kamakura.

📅 Best time: Mid Nov–Early Dec

06 — Kurobe Gorge, Toyama 🍁
One of J*p

23/08/2026

J*pan has free hot springs that nobody owns. No staff, no front desk, no one to check you in.

There are public rotenburo all over the country, maintained by local associations, and plenty of them cost nothing. (Or just a few dollars)

The best cluster is Lake Kussharo, in eastern Hokkaido.
KOTAN ONSEN is my favorite. It’s a stone bath built into the lake shore. Free, open air with no reception. In winter whooper swans gather along the same warm shoreline.
SUNAYU is nearby too. There is a stretch of sand on the same lake where hot water rises through the ground. You dig a hole with your hands and it fills.

Both sit inside Akan-Mashu National Park, so you’re soaking with a lake in front of you instead of a tiled wall.

The three questions we always get:
Is it actually free? Yes. Some free onsen in J*pan keep an honesty box for maintenance. Please drop a few coins in if there is one.

Can I go with tattoos? Here, yes. Tattoo friendly onsen are genuinely hard to find in J*pan and most ryokan will still turn you away, which is exactly why the unmanned ones matter if you have ink.

What do I bring? A small towel and a bag for wet clothes. Please note there are vending machines, no rental counter and no shop.
Same etiquette as anywhere else: wash before you get in and keep it quiet. Read the signage and follow what the locals are doing.

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17/08/2026

Onsen weren’t built for tourists.

They were medicine, and the people taking it were farmers.
Before hot springs were a holiday, they were treatment. It was called tōji (湯治), literally “hot water cure,” and it ran on the agricultural calendar: you went after the harvest, when the fields didn’t need you and your body did.

The dosage was fixed. Seven days made one round — a hitomeguri. One round on its own did little; three rounds, 21 days, was considered a real course. Three weeks in the same water, soaking several times a day.

You cooked for yourself. Tōji lodging was jisui, self-catering, so you arrived with rice, miso and vegetables and used the shared kitchen. It’s the only reason three weeks was affordable for a farming family.

The strangest part: feeling worse was a good sign. A few days in, people got headaches, fatigue, nausea. They called it yuatari and read it as the water doing its work — in some regions they cooked sekihan, celebratory red rice, when it showed up. (Modern onsen doctors are more careful here. Sometimes it just means the water doesn’t suit you.)

The kaiseki dinner, the futon laid while you’re at the bath, the ¥40,000 rate — that whole model is barely 70 years old. Over the same stretch, tōji inns fell to roughly 3% of their peak. We still have a handful of them in J*pan.

More old-school ryokan → japanese-onsen.com

08/07/2026

Comment onsen and I will send you the top 10 list with info on how to book.

These are the top 10 I’d tell a friend to book.
I run japanese-onsen.com — 1000+ ryokan listings across J*pan — and I get asked the same question constantly: “which ryokan is actually worth it?” Most people book the wrong one.

So this is my honest top 10 — traditional J*panese ryokans with onsen that I’d genuinely send a friend to. Mountain ryokans with rotenburo (open-air baths) overlooking rivers, small family-run inns, but also luxury, opulence, snow-country stays where you soak while it snows. Some are splurges, some are secretly affordable.
If you’re planning a J*pan trip — Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone, or somewhere nobody’s heard of yet — save this now. You will not find these by scrolling booking sites.
Which one are you booking?

住所

Sapporo-shi, Hokkaido