Ikaho Onsen Hotel Ikaho Ginsui

The indoor bath is a single plain tub, small enough that you're rarely sharing it with more than one or two other guests. Outside, a sukiya-zukuri (数寄屋造り) open-air bath built of cypress sits among trees, using Shiraganeno-yu (白銀の湯), one of Ikaho Onsen's two source waters. It works less like a shared bath and more like a private one: women and men use it at separate times through the day, booked on the spot at check-in rather than ahead. The hotel itself is old-fashioned, plain rather than polished, the kind of place guests come back to for quiet, ordinary evenings rather than luxury. Tatami rooms look out toward the Japan Alps, a cat wanders the lobby, and reviewers keep singling out the staff for warmth. Like most of the older hotels in Ikaho, it sits on one of the town's steep hillside lanes.