Complete with maps and extensive advice, this guide to Japan's hot springs is an invaluable resource for anyone travelling to Japan. Easier to get to than many might imagine, Japan's hidden hot springs are among the few remaining repositories of ancient Japanese ambiance and sensibility. Bucolic and charming, they bear little resemblance to the sterile, clinic-like spas of the West or to the concrete jungles of Japan's best-known onsen towns. The hot springs introduced here belong to another time but they are disappearing fast. Discover them before it's too late through this selective, personalized, and authoritative guide. In this spa guide are unbelievable gems that you would otherwise never, ever, find by yourself. Japanese people are often shocked that you found such a place. It's a very concise collection of the "true and traditional" Japanese onsen ryokan. It is for anyone who seeks a traditional experience of what onsen used to be before modernization set in.

Discard both your clothes and daily cares and enjoy a time-honoured bathing ritual with Onsen of Japan. For thousands of years, Japanese hot springs (or onsen) have been revered for their relaxing and healing qualities, and this guidebook highlights 140 of the very best places for tourists to visit around the country. Onsen experiences include super sento (large bathing and relaxation centres), local bathhouses, ultra-chic spas, forest retreats and whole towns dedicated to onsen. The how-to guide will help you navigate the complex etiquette and customs of communal bathing, and easy checklists let you know what each onsen offers and whether tattoos are accepted. One thing is for sure, taking a bath will never be the same again.

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Richly illustrated and exhaustively researched, Japanese Inns & Hot Springs is the definitive guide to Japanese spas and hot springs known as ryokans. It presents the finest ryokans in Japan, from historic properties like Hiiragiya in Kyoto and Kikkaso in Hakone to luxury retreats like Zaborin in Hokkaido and Tenku-no-Mori in Kyushu. In this Japan travel guide you will find: The 40 best Japanese ryokan and onsens for English-speaking visitors (including 13 in the Tokyo area and 11 in and around Kyoto and Nara) A description of the special features of each ryokan and what is included in your stay Tips on how to choose the right ryokan for you Practical advice on how to book a stay and a detailed etiquette guide Above all else this ryokan guide reveals the enduring traditions of Japanese hospitality, a rich heritage reaching back a thousand years to the time when Japan's hot spring bathing culture took root. The beautiful properties in this book also illustrate the unique design sensibility for which Japan is so justly renowned. Indispensable tips on booking a Japanese ryokan that is right for you and reaching each property by train, bus and taxi are provided along with a detailed etiquette guide to staying at a ryokan and bathing in an onsen, as well as descriptions of the special features of each of the inns featured.

Excerpt from The Mineral Springs of Japan: With Tables of Analyses, Radio-Activity, Notes on Prominent Spas and List of Seaside Resorts and Summer Retreats The scenic beauty of Japan is known abroad only by sacred Mt. Fuji, the grand Nikko temples, beautiful Hakone, and other such world-famous sights. These renowned beauty spots are truly typical of the characteristic charms of the Empire and it is little wonder foreign tourists never fail to visit any of these spots, but the fact that these places are so widely known is mostly due to their easy means of access and the better accommodation procurable. If you are willing to leave the beaten track and are ready for out-of-the-ordinary tours, you will find not a few fair sights and scenes, some even excelling the aforesaid places in their charms and beauty. This is especially the case with the simple rustic settings and surroundings of mineral springs. We find in remote districts not easy of access and out of reach of the bustle and noise of city life, by far the most excellent hot springs for therapeutic purposes, both on account of their good quality and healthy geographical situation. We cannot say that the medicinal value of mineral springs is in proportion to their popular fame, for in many instances the reverse seems to hold good. Accordingly it is not too much to claim, that almost all really efficacious mineral springs are hidden in distant places and unknown to ordinary tourists. But if physicians at large kept abreast of the progress of physical therapy and made full use of mineral springs with a thorough knowledge of their individual merits, so that they might be able to point to particularly suitable ones and induce patients and health-seekers to try them, the springs hitherto neglected would certainly be improved and provided with adequate facility of approach, accommodation, etc., and we believe the time will soon arrive for winning fame for Japan as an ideal health resort. Japan is among the few countries endowed with an abundance of mineral springs, and no statistics are available to show exactly the total number of them now in existence. The investigation of Japanese mineral springs was made for the first time by the Government and reported in the International Exposition held in Frankfort, Germany, in 1881, some diagrams based on the data collected from the prefectural governments being exhibited. These materials were compiled in book form and published in Japanese under the title "The Mineral Springs of Japan." Since then our Imperial Hygienic Laboratory has continued, at the request of the prefectural authorities or private individuals, to experiment on the origins of springs or analyze sample mineral waters submitted to their investigation. The mineral springs, thus experimented upon, number more than one thousand. With the recent introduction of radio-therapy, public attention has been gradually drawn to the radio-activity of mineral springs, and since 1913 the Imperial Hygienic Laboratories, both of Tokyo and Osaka, have been making researches about the radio-activity of famous mineral springs, which number up to now more than one hundred and fifty, with more than one thousand origins of springs. The present volume was compiled as an exhibit in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, in order to make known to the world the general conditions of Japanese mineral springs, and consists chiefly of the analyses of famous mineral springs in Japan and reports of experiments on their radio-activity, both based on the materials above referred to, and some other items, with an appendix of descriptions of principal hot spring resorts, their locations, communications, geography, places of interest in the neighbourhood, and some adjacent sea bathing and climatic health resorts. This book, therefore, may lay claim to be the most authentic and up to date on the subject as yet attempted or compiled in English. But there are so many minera.