Awazu Onsen, Awazumachi, in the center of the small hot spring town Ryokan

Hoshi

法師

Does Hoshi allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Hoshi traces itself to 718 and to a single family whose head still takes the name Zengoro, 47th of the line. It rents a private bath with a granite tub and a tatami-floored tub side by side, and several of its rooms have spring water running into their own tubs.

Hoshi publishes no tattoo rule on its bath page, FAQ or room pages. What it does publish is a rentable private bath, two indoor tubs (granite and tatami-lined) in one room, 3,630 yen for 50 minutes, booked at the front desk after check-in in order of arrival, and a set of rooms whose own baths run on spring water. A tattooed guest should book one of those rooms or claim a private-bath slot on arrival.

Where it is

Kanazawa STN Awazu STN change to Hokutetsu Kaga bus · 8 min IR Ishikawa Railway 38 min Komatsu Airport Hotel location
Awazu Onsen STN
Kanazawa is the door. Yamashiro, Yamanaka and Katayamazu are eighteen minutes on the Shinkansen to Kaga-Onsen and then a local bus of ten to thirty minutes. Awara is the next Shinkansen stop, 26 minutes, and eight minutes on the Keifuku bus. Awazu is the IR Ishikawa Railway, the old JR line, 38 minutes, and a short bus. Komatsu Airport, with flights from Tokyo Haneda, is closer to these towns than Kanazawa is.. Hoshi · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · open in Google Maps

JR Hokuriku Area Pass Worth it only if Awazu is one stop on a longer Hokuriku trip. It covers the Shinkansen from Kanazawa to Komatsu, ten minutes, but not the one-stop IR Ishikawa ride on to Awazu or the bus into the onsen town. Sold on Klook.

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 rather than a tattoo policy (the inn’s 大浴場・貸切風呂 page and 客室 page)

Read on: ho-shi.co.jp/spa.html

Best for: Sleeping in a house that has kept one family name for 47 generations, with a spring-fed tub in the room

Private bath: not open-air, no phone booking, lock the door while in use. Rooms with their own spring water, all free-flowing: the detached Meiji-era Enmeikaku (a dedicated source), Horai (semi-open-air), Yoro (open-air plus indoor), Choyo (maisonette with open-air bath), Choga (semi-open-air, facing the Edo-period garden) and Yoshino (hot spring indoor bath). The large baths are recirculated and heated, not diluted; the private bath too. From 1 September 2026 the large baths run 15:00–24:00 and 6:00–10:00; day bathing 15:00–18:00, last entry 17:00, not taken in busy periods. The oldest-inn claim, checked on the inn’s own page: it dates itself to 718, says it was entered in Guinness in 1996 as the world’s oldest hotel, and names the current head as the 47th Zengoro (older text on the same page still says 46th). Guinness moved that record to Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Yamanashi in 2011, so the site should say “one of the oldest” or quote the inn. Open: news posts through August 2026 and rooms on sale.

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.

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