Wa-no-Yado Hotel Iya Onsen
和の宿 ホテル祖谷温泉
Does Wa-no-Yado Hotel Iya Onsen allow tattoos? In a private bath
A nineteen-room inn on the lip of the Iya gorge whose cable car drops 170 meters to a sulphur bath built out over the river, with one tub of that water kept back for sixty-minute private bookings.
The inn runs a reservable open-air bath, Yamagiri-no-yu, at 3,000 yen before tax for sixty minutes, and it sells that slot to day visitors as well as to overnight guests, which is unusual in this valley. Six of the nineteen rooms have their own open-air or view bath fed from the source. The bathing-manners page sets out nine rules for the shared baths, covering photography, drones, swimwear and hair, and tattoos are not among them, so nothing published covers the riverside baths either way.
Show this at the front desk
貸切露天風呂「やまぎりの湯」 ご宿泊： 利用料金 ／ 3,000円/回（税別） 利用時間 ／ 60分 ※ ご利用の場合はご宿泊前に メールフォームから またはお電話でご予約ください。 日帰り： 利用料金 ／ 3,000円/回（税別）※2,000円/人の入浴料が別途必要です
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
Where it is
Okayama STN
Oboke STN change to Shikoku Kotsu bus · 28 min
JR Nanpu limited express 96 min
Matsuyama STN
Kazurabashi STN 5.4 km out
Hotel location
JR All Shikoku Rail Pass Three to seven days, from 12,000 yen, on every JR Shikoku train, with non-reserved seats on the limited expresses. It starts at Kojima, the first stop on the Shikoku side of the line from Okayama, so Okayama to Kojima is a short separate fare. It covers the Nanpu to Oboke. The Shikoku Kotsu bus from Oboke into the valley, 670 yen to Kazurabashi, is paid separately. 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, not a tattoo policy. The reservable bath, its price and its day-use terms are on iyaonsen.co.jp/onsen/roten/, and the room baths are named room by room on iyaonsen.co.jp/room/. Forty-five pages of the site were read, including the bathing-manners section, and none of them mentions tattoos.
Read on: iyaonsen.co.jp/onsen/roten/
Best for: A tattooed traveler who wants the famous gorge-floor bath and can take it in the reservable tub instead
Guests who want Yamagiri-no-yu must book it before arrival by mail form or phone; day visitors cannot pre-book at all and take whatever is free once they have paid the 2,000 yen entry. The riverside baths Keikoku-no-yu and Seseragi-no-yu swap between men and women each day and run 7:00 to 21:00 for guests, shortened to 19:00 from 4 January to the end of February, and 7:30 to 17:00 for day visitors with reception closing at 16:00. The whole bath complex closes on Wednesdays. Room baths are marked 源泉・加温あり, source water reheated. The house belongs to the Nihon Hito wo Mamoru Kai.
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