Yugashima Onsen

1200-year-old onsen at the head of the Katsura River in central Izu. Bamboo grove, red bridges, the historic Shuzenji temple complex.

A hot-spring town on the central Izu plain, joining the ancient Kona spring — named in the Azuma Kagami and tied to the Hōjō clan — with Meiji-era Nagaoka. Gentle alkaline "beauty water," Mt. Katsuragi's Fuji-and-Suruga-Bay views, and the Genji history of nearby Hirugakojima.

A fishing port on a cape of the Izu Peninsula's east coast, where saline cliffside baths look out over the Pacific. Famous for branded kinmedai snapper and the Hina no Tsurushi-kazari hanging-doll festival, one of Japan's three great tsurushi displays.

A planned highland resort above Itō on the eastern Izu Peninsula, laid out in the 1960s on lava from Mt. Ōmuro, with mild simple-thermal springs, sea-view open-air baths, pensions and small art museums, the Jōgasaki Coast, and a cherry-blossom avenue.