Akiu, Yumoto Kamatsuchi-higashi, inside a walled garden below the main road Ryokan

Saryo Souen

茶寮宗園

Does Saryo Souen allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Nine of the detached rooms here have their own open-air bath looking into a garden of eight thousand tsubo, each one named rather than numbered.

Souen publishes nothing about tattoos, and its shared baths should be treated as unanswered. The answer here is the hanare: nine detached rooms, each with its own open-air bath, named individually on the inn’s room page. Book one of those and you bathe alone. The tenth detached room, Saotome, has only an indoor heated tub, so it is not the same thing.

Where it is

Sendai STN Takeya Kotsu’s Sendai Western Liner 43 Yamagata STN Morioka STN Fukushima STN Hotel location
Akiu Onsen Yumoto STN
Sendai is the door to all of these. Akiu is 43 minutes on one bus from the station, with no change. Nyuto is the Komachi, JR’s Shinkansen across to Akita, as far as Tazawako, then a bus of 47 minutes, about 2 h 20 in all. Naruko is twelve minutes on the Shinkansen to Furukawa and three quarters of an hour up the Rikuu East line. Zao is the Senzan line rapid over the mountains to Yamagata, then a bus of 37 minutes up to the ski village. Saryo Souen · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · open in Google Maps

What happens when you arrive

Skip the shared baths and reserve the private one the way this page describes. Once the door is closed, the bath is yours.

How we know

Confirmed from official site — bath structure, not a tattoo policy (the inn’s own 客室 page lists 露天風呂付客室 九室 among the hanare and names each one)

Read on: saryo-souen.com/room/

Best for: A detached room in a sukiya-built garden house with an open-air bath on its own veranda

Twenty-six rooms in a sukiya-style house set in a garden of about eight thousand tsubo. The nine detached rooms with an open-air bath are Taizan, Asahi, Tsukikage, Hourai, Shikishima, Saga, Shinonome, Kakkou and Kiritsubo. Souen belongs to the Mitoya group, and readers should know that the group’s other Akiu house, Hotel New Mitoya, publishes a flat refusal of tattooed bathers on its own site; Souen publishes no such line, but it publishes no permission either. No day bathing. Kaiseki dinners built on Sanriku and Sendai Bay seafood.

Check availability

Booking through this button costs you nothing extra and sends a small commission our way — it’s what keeps this guide free for our tattoo community, and every policy on it checked. Thank you.

Others in the same group

More places in the akiu with private bath only

All akiu listings →