Goshiki Onsen Auto Campground

Goshiki Onsen Auto Campground sits on the grounds of a former hot-spring ryokan, now rebuilt as 18 camp sites around onsen bath buildings open to day visitors as well as campers. There is one bath building each for men and women, and each has a big square window framing the distant mountains. Inside the bath buildings are Swedish-made saunas where visitors ladle their own water on the stones, with a window onto green forest from the east sauna room, and a cold plunge fed by groundwater that stays icy even in summer. A wooden deck outside has hammocks and chairs for cooling off. There's also a small free footbath made from the old ryokan's rock-carved bath, with hand-laid stone archwork overhead. The ryokan it replaced was one of Yonezawa's eight old hot springs, its water first tapped some 1,300 years ago. When it closed, a local fuel and wood pellet company took over the grounds and rebuilt around camping rather than let the spring go.