Hoshino Onsen Tombo-no-yu
星野温泉 トンボの湯
Does Hoshino Onsen Tombo-no-yu allow tattoos? Yes, covered
Hoshino Onsen opened in 1915, and the operator says the poets Kitahara Hakushu and Yosano Akiko bathed in it. Tombo-no-yu is today’s walk-in bath on that spring, with an indoor tub 90 cm deep on the men’s side and a granite open-air pool joined to it and to a pond.
Allowed if it is covered. Tombo-no-yu lists bathing with tattoos among the things it does not permit, then makes one exception: if the house cover seals can hide the tattoo using no more than eight of them, you may bathe. Each seal is 10 by 8 cm and you buy them at the front desk. Anything that eight seals cannot cover is turned away, and Hoshino Resorts’ group FAQ sets the same eight-seal ceiling for every bath it runs that non-staying visitors can use.
Show this at the front desk
タトゥー、刺青がある方の入浴 ただし、指定のカバーシール8枚でタトゥー等が隠せる場合に限り、入浴可能です。カバーシールの寸法は、10 × 8センチです。受付でお買い求めください。
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
Where it is
Tokyo STN
Hokuriku Shinkansen 1 h 06
LocationKaruizawa STN
JR Tokyo Wide Pass Covers the Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo as far as Karuizawa and Sakudaira. The buses to hotels outside the center are paid separately. Sold on Klook.
What happens when you arrive
Cover the tattoo completely before you go in, to the size on this page. How the seals work, and where to buy them →
How we know
Confirmed from official site (the 禁止事項 list on the bathhouse’s own page; the Hoshino Resorts group FAQ gives the same eight-seal rule for baths open to non-staying visitors)
Read on: hoshino-area.jp/tombo-no-yu/
Best for: Bathing in the spring Hoshino Resorts was founded on, with small or medium tattoos under seals
10:00–22:00, last entry 21:15. April to November and 29 December to 3 January: adults 1,550 yen, children 1,050 yen. December to March: adults 1,350 yen, children 800 yen. Towel set 350 yen. Indoor bath, open-air bath, sauna at about 85–90°C, a cold bath fed by spring water from the Wild Bird Forest at about 13°C, and a tap to drink the spring. Every tub is free-flowing, not recirculated and not diluted, and the water is changed daily. Seasonal baths: apples in November (7–15 November 2026), yuzu at the winter solstice. Phones are not allowed in the changing rooms or the bath. The seal price is not published on the page. The group FAQ notes that the in-house baths at Hoshinoya, KAI and RISONARE are for staying guests; Tombo-no-yu is the one Hoshino bath in Karuizawa anyone can walk into.
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