Hotel Nichinan Kitago Resort

The open-air bath looks out over Nichinan's coast and forested hills from its hillside site, with a sky full of stars after dark. Indoors there's a large bath with a sauna and a cold plunge, plus a private family bath you can book by the hour. The water feels smooth and faintly silky on the skin, and the outdoor bath sometimes runs at a lower, lukewarm temperature for long, unhurried soaks. A separate rock-bed sauna area, ganbanyoku (岩盤浴), has four rooms running from cool to hot, and it's open to day visitors as well as guests. It's a hotel and golf resort on a hillside above Nichinan, with a buffet restaurant serving fresh sashimi and local vegetables, and a kids' corner and lawn for families.