OnsenQuest

Prefectures / Shimane

Chihara Onsen (Chihara Yudani Tojiba)

千原温泉 千原湯谷湯治場

Policy not published (day visit)

Can you bathe here with a tattoo?

This is the question we built the site around, so we answer it per situation.

Visiting for the day

They have not said

The tattoo policy is not stated publicly. Please contact the facility.

How it scores

Every onsen on this site is scored on the same five things.

ViewWaterComfortSettingAccess

Verified by the editor

View1
Water5
Comfort3
Setting5
Access1
△Somewhere to sit — A small rest area
×Anything else nearby — Nothing else around

One of the small number of baths in Japan where the spring comes up through the floor of the tub you are sitting in, and it has been used as a cure bath for burns, cuts and skin conditions since 1885. The water is 34C, cloudy and fizzing with carbon dioxide - a long, slow, quiet soak rather than a hot one, with a wood-fired tub to warm up in from October to May. It is bare, strict about its own rules, and there is nothing else out here: you need a car, the road is a mountain one, and in winter you check the webcam before setting off. Tattoo travellers should ring first - this is a single small tub with no private option.

Every onsen on this site is scored against the same written rubric, and every score has been reviewed by the editor. The ones marked Visited were also bathed in personally.

The baths

Indoor bath

A tub built directly on top of the spring: boards line the bottom and 34C water rises between them with carbon-dioxide bubbles, so you sit in the source itself rather than in water piped to you. Cloudy yellow-brown, and lukewarm - the house asks you to stay 30 to 60 minutes and to go to the toilet first, because the water is mild enough that it will make you need one. From October to May a wood-fired goemon tub of the same water is heated as a finishing warm-up; you are not allowed back into the source bath after using it, and you must not pour it over yourself first.

Open to day visitors

Practical details

Day visits
Yes — you can bathe without staying overnight.
8:00-18:00 (last entry 17:00) from April to October; 8:00-17:00 (last entry 16:00) from November to March. Closed Thursdays.
Day visit price
¥500
500 yen for adults and 300 yen for children, for one bath. A single admission covers one bath only - if you want to go in more than once you take a tatami room for up to five hours at 1,200 yen per person. Towels 200 yen. The spring water can also be bought to take home at 100 yen a litre.
Staying overnight
No
Getting there
Deep in the hills of Misato town. The operator's own directions assume a car - either prefectural road 166 through Sawadani or the forest road down from Sanbe-cho in Ota - and point at the town's Yudani webcam for road and snow conditions in winter. Two paved car parks 50-100 m before the bath, backing onto the river.
Official website
chihara-onsen.jp

Visit the official website ↗

Staying nearby

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Where to stay in ShimaneBooking.com ↗Day-pass tickets and coupons for ShimaneAsoview (Japanese-language site) ↗

About the day-pass link: Asoview is the main place day-use onsen in Japan sell entry tickets and discount coupons in advance. It is a Japanese-only site, so use your browser’s translation — you show the ticket on your phone at the door.

What we have not confirmed

We would rather show a gap than guess.