Shimane · 8 min from Matsue · Onsen town

Tattoo friendly onsen in Tamatsukuri

This is one of the few onsen towns where the inns write their bathing rules down. Hotel Gyokusen admits a tattoo that one cover seal of 10 by 15 centimeters hides completely, and it sells those seals in the lobby. Choseikaku refuses tattoos in its shared baths in Japanese and again in English, then names its reservable family bath and its top-floor room bath as the way around that. The rest of the street answers by construction. Matsunoyu rents four open-air baths by the 50 minutes, Chiyonoyu keeps three family baths, and Kasuien Minami has a wing where the spring is piped into every room.

1 property

Cover seal required

Smaller tattoos accepted when fully covered by a waterproof patch. What this means

Tamatsukuri, at the upper end of the onsen street beside the garden Ryokan with a large shared bath and day-use bathing ★★★☆☆ Confirmed

Hotel Gyokusen

曲水の庭ホテル玉泉

Gyokusen sets a size the traveler can measure. A tattoo the hotel’s own cover seal hides completely may go into the large bath; a tattoo that one 10cm by 15cm seal cannot cover may not. The seals are sold at the front desk, so nothing has to be bought before arrival. Stick-on temporary tattoos count as tattoos under the same rule.

お客様の職業に関わらず、刺青・タトゥー（シール類を含む）をされている方の大浴場のご利用は、原則としてお断りしております。ただし、10cm×15cmのカバーシール1枚で完全に覆うことができる範囲の刺青・タトゥーについては、カバーシールを貼付した状態に限りご利用いただけます。カバーシールはフロントにて販売しております。なお、カバーシール1枚で覆いきれない場合や、完全に隠すことができない場合は、大浴場をご利用いただけません。

Best for: A traveler with one tattoo small enough to measure against a postcard

The same notice says the hotel sets no restriction on the purpose-made bathing garment worn for surgical scars, following the health ministry’s guidance, and asks only that you tell staff in advance. Sauna users must take a mat from the bath entrance. Mixed bathing is not allowed from age 7. The hotel also sells day-use bathing.

Hotel Gyokusen tattoo policy → Check availability

5 properties

Private baths only

Tattoos are fine in a private or in-room bath. The communal baths are restricted, or the policy is unconfirmed. What this means

Tamatsukuri, the riverside block at the lower end of the street Ryokan with a reservable family bath and one room with its own open-air bath ★★★★☆ Confirmed

Tamatsukuri Grand Hotel Choseikaku

玉造グランドホテル長生閣

The shared baths are closed to tattoos, and Choseikaku says so in both languages without hedging. What it offers instead is stated in the same answer: the reservable family bath, 45 minutes at a time for houseguests only, or the top-floor room Izumo, whose agate-lined open-air bath is used by the people staying in it and nobody else.

Can guests with tattoos use the public baths? No. We kindly ask guests with tattoos to refrain from using our public baths. Please use the private bath (reservation required) or your room’s bath.

Best for: Booking the top-floor Izumo room and skipping the shared baths entirely

The family bath is 1,650 yen for one 45-minute session, by reservation, houseguests only, usable 16:00 to 23:00. The room Izumo is the top-floor suite, renovated March 2023, and its open-air tub is lined with agate; only its occupants may use it. The house spring is blended from the hotel’s own sources, which the operator notes makes its water a simple spring rather than Tamatsukuri’s usual sulfate-chloride classification.

Tamatsukuri Grand Hotel Choseikaku tattoo policy → Check availability

Tamatsukuri, the walled garden on the east bank Ryokan with a reservable private bath and rooms with their own onsen tubs ★★★★☆ Confirmed

Chorakuen

湯之助の宿長楽園

Chorakuen publishes no tattoo rule, and its silence is not permission for the famous mixed open-air bath. What can be booked without asking anyone is the reservable private bath Seisen, 45 minutes a session from 16:00, or a room with its own tub. The operator states that every one of its baths, including the in-room tubs, is fed with the same natural spring.

Best for: Bathing in the 120-tsubo mixed open-air bath is the draw here, and the private bath is the way around it

The private bath Seisen runs in 45-minute sessions starting at 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 19:00, 20:00 and 21:00, with 15 minutes of cleaning between. The mixed open-air bath Ryugu-no-yu is 120 tsubo and the inn supplies a bathing garment for it: a wrap for women, paper trunks for men. That garment is issued for modesty, not as a tattoo cover, and the inn says nothing about tattoos. No day-use bathing is sold. The whole building went non-smoking on 2026-02-01.

Chorakuen tattoo policy → Check availability

Tamatsukuri, mid-street on the west bank Ryokan with four reservable open-air baths, also sold to day visitors ★★★☆☆ Confirmed

Matsunoyu

玉造温泉松乃湯

No tattoo rule is published here, so the shared baths are an unknown. The four reservable open-air baths are not: each is booked by one party at a time, and Matsunoyu sells them to day visitors as well as houseguests, which makes this the one Tamatsukuri bath a tattooed traveler can use without staying the night.

Best for: A day trip that ends in a tub nobody else is in

Day-use rates from 2024-06-11: the large shared bath is 1,300 yen for adults and 650 yen for elementary-school children; a reservable open-air bath is 2,200 yen per adult for 50 minutes and 1,100 yen per child. The shared bath runs 11:30 to 21:00 for day visitors. The inn describes the four reservable baths as having different concepts from one another. A face towel is 100 yen and a bath towel rents for 200 yen.

Matsunoyu tattoo policy → Check availability

Tamatsukuri, the hillside above the west bank Ryokan with rooms that have their own spring-fed baths ★★★★☆ Confirmed

Kasuien Minami

佳翠苑皆美

Nothing is published about tattoos, so treat the shared baths as closed. The answer here is the room: the Kumo-no-ne wing, renovated in 2017, has an onsen bath in every room, some open-air and some indoor, fed from the source and available at any hour of the stay. Other wings offer the same in single room types.

Best for: Never leaving your room to bathe, for the whole stay

The Kumo-no-ne wing is described as all rooms with spring-fed baths, open-air or indoor. The Kissho wing has rooms with a source-fed open-air bath and rooms with an indoor onsen bath, but the operator’s page also carries a note that Kissho is closed for renovation, so confirm the wing when booking rather than the room name alone.

Kasuien Minami tattoo policy → Check availability

Tamatsukuri, midway along the riverside street Ryokan with its own well and three reservable family baths ★★★☆☆ Confirmed

Yujin Chiyonoyu

湯陣千代の湯

Chiyonoyu publishes no tattoo rule, so its two bath halls, Senpuku-no-yu and Yakushi-no-yu, are an unanswered question. Three reservable family baths answer it instead. Ichi-no-yu pairs a hinoki tub with a ceramic one and has chairs to cool off in, Ni-no-yu is a bright granite room, and San-no-yu is cut from Kimachi stone and fitted with grab rails. Each is taken by one party for 40 minutes from the top of the hour.

Best for: A tattooed guest who needs grab rails, or a baby bed, in a bath nobody else enters

Slots run 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 20:00 and 21:00, the last of them the final booking of the night, and availability is checked by phone. Ichi-no-yu costs ¥2,500, the other two ¥1,500 each, booked ahead or on the day. Day visitors cannot use them, because the inn does not sell day bathing at all. Two of the three keep a baby bed, and the inn lends a full infant bath set. The well is on the property and the water reaches the tubs unheated, unrecirculated and undosed.

Yujin Chiyonoyu tattoo policy → Check availability

Traveler’s note

Yu-yu, the magatama-shaped bathhouse at the Miyuki bridge and the only bath in town you can walk into without a room key, publishes nothing about tattoos, so ask at the counter before you pay. Chorakuen’s 120-tsubo mixed open-air bath issues a wrap for women and paper trunks for men, but the inn supplies that garment for modesty and says nothing about tattoos. At Kasuien Minami the Kissho wing is closed for renovation, so confirm the wing rather than the room name when you book.

Getting there

Tickets for the ride in

JR Sanyo-San’in Area Pass Seven days on JR West trains across both coasts for 23,000 yen, with reserved seats on the Sanyo Shinkansen between Shin-Osaka and Hakata and on the Yakumo limited express from Okayama to Matsue. It covers the San’in line from Matsue to Tamatsukuri-Onsen; the short bus or taxi from the station is paid separately.

Sold on Klook. Booking through these links costs you nothing extra and sends a small commission our way.

Common questions

Tamatsukuri questions

Can I use a shared bath in Tamatsukuri with a tattoo?

At Hotel Gyokusen, under one cover seal of 10 by 15 centimeters that hides the tattoo completely. The hotel sells the seals at its front desk and counts stick-on temporary tattoos under the same rule. Nobody else in town publishes a yes, and Choseikaku answers no in its English FAQ.

Which Tamatsukuri inns have a bath of my own?

Matsunoyu has four reservable open-air baths, Chiyonoyu three family baths in hinoki, granite and Izumo Kimachi stone, and Chorakuen books its private tub Seisen in 45-minute turns. Kasuien Minami gives every room in the Kumo-no-ne wing a spring-fed bath, and Choseikaku keeps an agate-lined open-air tub for the top-floor room Izumo.

Can I bathe privately in Tamatsukuri without staying the night?

Only at Matsunoyu, which sells a reservable open-air bath to day visitors at 2,200 yen per adult for 50 minutes. Chiyonoyu sells no day bathing at all, and the family bath at Choseikaku is held for houseguests, at 1,650 yen for a 45-minute session.

How do I get to Tamatsukuri from Matsue?

Eight minutes on the JR San’in line local toward Izumoshi, to Tamatsukuri Onsen station, for 200 yen. Ichibata Bus route 62 covers the same ground from Matsue station in 22 minutes. From the station the onsen street is a short taxi or shuttle ride up the Tamayu river.

More places to bathe

Other guides

All twenty-three guides are live.

Tokyo area69 places → Osaka area39 places → Kyoto area15 places → Sapporo area11 places → Sendai area8 places → Kanazawa area12 places → Nagoya area16 places → Hiroshima area9 places → Hakone23 places → Kinosaki Onsen10 places → Kusatsu Onsen9 places → Nikko6 places → Atami7 places → Shirahama7 places → Arima Onsen8 places → Yumura Onsen3 places → Nachi-Katsuura2 places → Awaji Island4 places → Beppu Onsen32 places → Yufuin Onsen13 places → Kurokawa Onsen17 places → Ibusuki Onsen14 places → Ureshino Onsen14 places → Noboribetsu Onsen8 places → Jozankei Onsen13 places → Niseko12 places → Lake Toya5 places → Akiu Onsen7 places → Naruko Onsen10 places → Zao Onsen8 places → Nyuto Onsen4 places → Higashiyama Onsen10 places → Hanamaki Onsen10 places → Takayu Onsen4 places → Yamashiro Onsen14 places → Yamanaka Onsen14 places → Katayamazu Onsen6 places → Awazu Onsen3 places → Awara Onsen10 places → Unazuki Onsen6 places → Kawaguchiko17 places → Isawa Onsen18 places → Karuizawa13 places → Bessho Onsen6 places → Yudanaka and Shibu22 places → Nozawa Onsen10 places → Hakuba14 places → Myoko8 places → Echigo-Yuzawa13 places → Gero Onsen17 places → Okuhida Onsen14 places → Shuzenji Onsen8 places → Ito Onsen8 places → Shimoda12 places → Tamatsukuri OnsenYou are here Misasa Onsen11 places → Kaike Onsen8 places → Yunotsu Onsen4 places → Miyajima8 places → Yubara Onsen7 places → Yunogo Onsen4 places → Yuda Onsen3 places → Nagato-Yumoto Onsen4 places → Dogo Onsen15 places → Kotohira7 places → Takamatsu5 places → Iya Valley3 places →