Hot springs in Nyuto Onsen

Seven isolated hot spring inns scattered through beech forest deep in Towada-Hachimantai National Park. Each inn has its own spring source and character. You can buy a single pass called the yumeguri-cho that gives you access to all seven. Very few onsen clusters in Japan feel this wild or this remote.

The oldest of Nyuto's seven inns, sitting deep in a beech forest in Akita Prefecture. The large outdoor mixed-bathing pool is filled with opaque, milky-white sulfurous water. It is widely considered the most beautiful onsen scene in Japan. You come here to disappear for a while.

A small, secluded hot spring at around 1,100 meters elevation in the Hachimantai highland of Akita Prefecture, operated seasonally from early May to mid-October. The spring produces a simple sulfur water in abundant flow. The main attraction here is the ondol: heated platforms where geothermal steam rises from below, a therapeutic practice common in northeast Asia but rare in Japan.