Soni Kogen Onsen Okame-no-yu

曽爾高原温泉お亀の湯 · Soni Kogen Onsen

Tattoos not allowed (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

No — tattooed guests are turned away

Tattoos are not permitted.

Source: official website · checked 2026-09-05

How it scores

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

Verified by the editor

Water4.5

Comfort4.5

Setting4.5

Access2

○Somewhere to sit — You can spend the day here

△Anything else nearby — Nearby, but off to one side

A sodium bicarbonate spring with the slippery texture that Japanese bathers call a 'beauty water', in two bath houses whose open-air tubs face the Soni grassland and the Kabutodake and Yoroidake crags. It took first place in the Yuran day-trip bathing rankings for central Japan in 2012-13 and first for water quality in 2017-18. Tattoos are refused outright, covered or not.

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

Two bath houses, one in stone and one in timber, swapped between men and women each week - so which one you get depends on the week you come.

Open to day visitors

Open-air bath

Both bath houses have an open-air bath. The stone one looks out over the Soni Kogen grassland; the timber one faces Kabutodake and Yoroidake, the two rock peaks that define the valley.

Open to day visitors

Practical details

Day visits: Yes — you can bathe without staying overnight.
11:00-21:00 from 1 April to 30 November (last admission 20:00); 11:00-20:30 from 1 December to 31 March (last admission 19:30). Closed Wednesdays - if that is a public holiday it opens and closes the next day instead - and over New Year.
Day visit price: ¥900
Adults (junior high school and above) 900 yen, children aged 3 to elementary school 500 yen. Face towels sold for 200 yen and bath towels rented for 110 yen.
Staying overnight: No
Getting there: In the Soni valley below the Soni Kogen grassland, run by the village's own tourism foundation. The operator's access page gives driving directions only - about 1 hour 50 minutes from Osaka - and warns you to route via the Hari interchange onto Route 369, because some car navigation systems send you down very narrow lanes instead. Public transport into the valley is limited, so check bus times before relying on them. 150 parking spaces.
Official website: www.soni-kogen.com/hotspring

Visit the official website ↗

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.

Where to stay in Soni Kogen OnsenBooking.com ↗Day-pass tickets and coupons for NaraAsoview (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.