Oku-Kurokawa, up the valley beside the Hiyakiwachi stream Ryokan

Sato no Yu Waraku

里の湯 和らく

Does Sato no Yu Waraku allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Waraku takes two adults per room and no one else, and each room carries its own bath: slide the windows fully open and it turns into a half-open-air one, well up the valley from the crowded lane.

Every room at Waraku has a bath of its own, and the inn describes it plainly: open the windows wide and it becomes a half-open-air bath, yours at any hour and for as long as you want. Rooms take two adults and nobody else, so the water in them is never shared with strangers. The two communal baths, an outdoor one among boulders and a cave bath, are also sold to day visitors, and no tattoo rule is published for either.

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. Sato no Yu Waraku · 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 room page states that every room has a bath which becomes semi-open-air with the windows open, usable whenever the guest likes)

Read on: satonoyu-waraku.jp/guestroom-2/

Best for: Two people who want the bath inside the room and the valley to themselves

Detached rooms, adults only, two to a room. The spring is a sulfur-bearing sodium chloride and sulfate water, which the inn gives as 90°C at the source and 100 liters a minute. Day visitors get the outdoor bath and the cave bath Oku-no-Seseragi, which swap between men and women by the hour: the inn’s own page gives 11:00–14:00, last entry 13:30, at 600 yen for adults and 300 for children aged three and up, while the association’s live board has listed longer hours with a break between 14:00 and 15:00, so read the board on the day.

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