Onsen Facility Types

The neighborhood public bath, and a local institution. Fixed price at the door: wash, soak, go home.

• The prefecture sets the ceiling on the price, not the owner, so an adult pays somewhere around 400 to 600 yen, and it barely changes from one bathhouse to the next.
• Sento is a licensing category, not a water type. Many heat plain water, but plenty of sento sit on a real source and serve onsen, especially in east Tokyo and Kyushu.
• Bring soap and a towel, or rent them at the counter. Not every sento supplies them.
• The village version, kyodo-yu (共同浴場) or soto-yu (外湯), works the same way, but the local community runs it: there is often an honor box instead of a counter, and the water is nearly always onsen.

The sento idea scaled up: a large day-use complex with many baths, a sauna, food, and somewhere to lie down.

• Nothing caps the price here, so entry usually runs 800 to 3,000 yen. What you pay depends on the complex, the day of the week, and whether the sauna is included.
• Built for a full day out: indoor and outdoor baths, sauna, cold plunge, restaurant, reclining chairs.
• Plenty drill a real source, so a super sento can absolutely be an onsen, even though the name gives you no clue either way.

A traditional inn: tatami rooms, futon, dinner and breakfast included, and baths that are usually why you came.

• The rate is per person and includes two meals, so it looks steep next to a hotel room rate until you remember that dinner is in the price.
• The men's and women's baths often swap overnight, so you get to use both.
• Many open their baths to non-guests during the day. Look for higaeri nyuyoku (日帰り入浴).
• It does not have to be wooden or look traditional from outside. A 1970s concrete block is as much a ryokan as an old timber inn, and often shares its source.

The large resort hotel, kanko hotel (観光ホテル): the ryokan idea built out to a few hundred rooms.

• Big communal baths, buffet dinners, a souvenir floor, karaoke. Built for groups and families.
• Rooms come Japanese, Western, or a mix of the two, and the building is usually concrete, put up somewhere between the 1970s and the 1990s.
• This is the easiest kind to book at the last minute, and the easiest to get a day-use bath at without calling ahead.

A family-run guesthouse. Simpler and cheaper than a ryokan, and often someone's actual home.

• A handful of rooms, home cooking, shared washrooms. The bath is often a single family-sized tub that guests take in turns, booked for a time slot.
• Often the only lodging in small onsen villages and near wild baths.
• Cash is still common, and check-in times are firm: someone is cooking your dinner.

A plain, cheap city hotel with a communal bath, daiyokujo (大浴場), on the top floor or in the basement.

• Some chains drill genuine sources, making this one of the cheapest ways to sleep above real onsen water.
• Compact single rooms, nothing included beyond breakfast, a short walk from the station.
• The bath is normally for guests only, unlike a ryokan's.

Noyu (野湯): hot water reaching the surface with little or nothing built around it. A riverbed, a beach, a hollow in the mountains.

• Free, or an honor box on a post. No staff, no lockers, often no changing room.
• Conditions shift with weather and season, and some wash out entirely after heavy rain.
• Bathing is mixed almost everywhere, and swimwear rules differ from one spot to the next. Go knowing that, and carry your trash out.

A shallow public basin of spring water you dip one part of yourself into, usually free and right on the street.

• Ashiyu (足湯) for the feet is the common one. Onsen towns also build hand baths (teyu, 手湯), and a few have a face bath (kaoyu, 顔湯) you lean into for the steam.
• Nothing to take off but your socks, and no changing room to find.
• Bring a small towel. Hardly any of them provide one.