Kurokawa, a four-story house in the middle of the village Ryokan

Ryokan Yamanoyu

旅館 やまの湯

Does Ryokan Yamanoyu allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

The two indoor baths you can lock at Yamanoyu are filled differently from one another, one with medicinal herbs and one with charcoal, and neither takes a reservation: you use whichever one is standing empty.

Two of the private baths here are indoor and need no booking at all: the inn says take one whenever it is free, 6:30 to 24:00, one of them filled as a herbal bath and the other as a charcoal bath. The open-air private bath is arranged on the day at the front desk, choosing a slot off a sheet. Day visitors are let into the shared open-air bath only, and nothing is published about tattoos there.

Where it is

Hakata Bus Terminal Kyushu Sanko coach 2 h 36 Kumamoto STN Kagoshima-Chuo STN Nagasaki STN Kagoshima Airport Hotel location
Kurokawa Onsen bus stop
Hakata to Ibusuki is about 3 h 25: the Kyushu Shinkansen to Kagoshima-Chuo, then the Ibusuki Makurazaki line down the coast, which the sightseeing train Ibusuki no Tamatebako also runs. Ureshino is about 1 h 20, a limited express to Takeo-Onsen and the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen one stop further. Kurokawa has no railway at all: the coach from Hakata takes about 2 h 40 by way of Hita and Tsuetate. Ryokan Yamanoyu · 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 rather than a tattoo policy (the inn’s onsen page says the indoor kashikiri baths need no reservation and are free to use whenever empty, and that the open-air kashikiri is booked on the day at the desk)

Read on: yamanoyu.net/onsen/

Best for: The cheapest bed in the middle of Kurokawa with a private bath that needs no reservation

None of the rooms has a bath: they run from a six-mat single room to a fourteen-mat room for six, most looking onto the river. The shared open-air bath has no showers, and a dryer only on the women’s side. The inn’s own day rate is 500 yen for adults and 300 for children, 8:30–10:00 and 13:00–21:00, and it asks day visitors to telephone first because cleaning can keep the baths shut until 16:00; the association board lists the inn at 600 yen with a 20:30 last entry.

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