Japan
Kinosaki Onsen
Willow-lined canals and seven public baths where you wander in yukata and wooden clogs.
The wooden geta clatter on stone. In Kinosaki Onsen, a hot-spring town near Japan's Sea of Japan coast, the evening ritual is to dress in your inn's yukata and wooden sandals and walk from bathhouse to bathhouse along a willow-lined canal. Seven public onsen, each with its own character, sit within a town small enough to visit them all before dinner.
Legend has it that a Buddhist monk discovered the springs here thirteen centuries ago, and the town has been bathing ever since. The seven public bathhouses — Gosho-no-yu behind its palace-style façade, Ichi-no-yu with its cave bath, and five more — string along a lantern-lit canal that forms the town's spine, and guests stroll between all seven in yukata and geta. In the crab months, November to March, the town lives on Matsuba crab hauled from the Japan Sea, served boiled, grilled, raw and in hot pot, often in the same meal. Kinosaki keeps its old streetscape by choice, and the effect is a town that looks the way it did when your grandparents' generation soaked here.
Couple
Walking between bathhouses in matching yukata, a crab dinner back at your ryokan, and the canal lit by lanterns at night — Kinosaki is designed for two.
Friends
The seven-bathhouse circuit turns onsen culture into a social evening. Groups compare each bath and refuel at the izakaya between stops.
- Seven public bathhouses strung along a willow-lined canal — walk between them in yukata and wooden geta.
- Guests stroll between all seven baths in yukata and geta, a different bath every hour.
- Matsuba crab pulled from the Sea of Japan is grilled, boiled and served raw — all in one sitting.
- Some inn rooms look straight onto the lantern-lit canal at night.
Matsuba crab in winter — boiled, grilled or raw, the legs cracked open at your ryokan table.
Tajima beef, the bloodline behind Kobe beef, seared on a hot stone at your inn.
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