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
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.
The baths
Indoor bath
Town-run day-use bathhouse in a traditional-style building on the bank of the Shima River. The water is a sodium-calcium chloride/sulphate spring - Shima's water is the gentle, skin-softening counterpart to Kusatsu's fierce acid, and was historically called Kusatsu's 'finishing bath', where people went to recover their skin after a Kusatsu cure.
Open-air bath
Open-air baths as well as indoor ones; guide listings name two open-air tubs (Hyotan-no-yu and Oborozuki-no-yu) and two indoor tubs (Ogi-no-yu and Yabane-no-yu), but the town's own page does not itemise them. Below the lounge the ground drops to a riverside terrace where you can cool off in the wind off the Shima River.
Practical details
- Day visits
- Yes — you can bathe without staying overnight.Nominally 10:00-20:00, but currently on shortened hours of 10:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30)
- Day visit price
- ¥600600 yen for adults for a two-hour visit (children and disabled visitors 400 yen); each extra hour is 300 yen for adults. An evening rate from 17:00 is also 600 yen. A ten-visit book is 4,000 yen. Closed the 4th Wednesday of every month, with separate year-end closures. Check the shortened hours before travelling - the town lists 10:00-17:00 as current.
- Staying overnight
- No
- Getting there
- On the Shima River in Shima Onsen. From JR Nakanojo Station take the Kan-Etsu Kotsu bus about 40 minutes towards the Shima Onsen terminus. There is a ramp, but the toilets are western-style without wheelchair fittings, so a helper is needed.
- Official website
- www.town.nakanojo.gunma.jp/soshiki/9/1367.html
Staying nearby
The links below are affiliate links — we may earn a commission if you book through them, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we list or how we score it.
Why Agoda for Japan: it lists a lot of ryokan and small inns that the Western booking sites never picked up, and it usually prices Japanese properties in yen, so you are not paying a conversion spread on top of the room rate. Worth comparing before you book — the difference on a ryokan is often larger than you would expect.
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.
- The tattoo policy for day visits is not stated on the official website.
More onsen in and around Shima
Checked the same way: tattoo policy, private baths and day visits.