Iwayagawachi, up the valley south of the main onsen street Day-use private open-air baths

Ureshino Kodachi no Yu

うれしの木立の湯

Does Ureshino Kodachi no Yu allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Eight open-air baths scattered through a stand of trees, each one built to a different idea: a gallery of timber, a deck of decking, a kamakura snow hut, a tunnel of maples. The washing space is outdoors too, which the operator warns about in plain terms before you book.

There is no shared bath here to be refused from. Every one of the eight baths is rented to one group at a time, so nobody else is in the water with you and no cover-up question arises. The operator publishes a long list of cautions about the place and none of them concerns tattoos.

Where it is

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. The blue dashes are the way here from Hakata Bus Terminal: the Kyushu-go coach, which stops in the middle of the bath district rather than at the station two kilometers out, 2 h 12 in all; 2,200 yen against 4,870 by train, and eleven minutes slower; one run of the day stops at the expressway interchange instead, a 26-minute walk out. Ureshino Kodachi no Yu · 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, not a tattoo policy (the operator’s own “before use” and price pages, which describe all eight baths as kashikiri rotenburo and list no shared bath)

Read on: kodachinoyu.com/

Best for: Choosing your own tub, from a snow-hut shape to a maple tunnel, with nobody else booked into it

Weekdays 13:00–18:00, last reception 17:00; weekends and holidays 10:30–21:30, last reception 20:00. Closed Thursdays unless the Thursday is a public holiday. Fifty minutes, from 1,500 yen per person for the four Type B baths and 1,600 for the four Type A. Reserve the day before or earlier through YUASOBI, or by phone on the day; walk-ins are taken when there is room. Twenty free parking spaces. The operator states it is a separate business from neighboring Banshokaku Shikishima and asks for reviews under its own name.

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Others in the same group

More places in the Ureshino Onsen with private bath only

Banshokaku ShikishimaIwayagawachi, in the trees above the onsen street → Ryokan OomurayaUreshino Onsen, on the river a few doors from Siebold no Yu → Kotan UreshinoUreshino Onsen, Shimojuku, a short walk from Taishoya → TaishoyaUreshino Onsen, center of the bathing district → Chashin no Yado WarakuenShimono, south end of the onsen district → Onyado TakasagoUreshino Onsen, riverside beside Hotel Koyokaku →

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