Shibu Ryokan ★★★★★

Shibu Onsen Kokuya

渋温泉 古久屋

Does Shibu Onsen Kokuya allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Two of the six springs this 400-year-old inn uses come up beneath its own floor, and the house lets any of its nine baths be locked for one party.

Kokuya is silent on tattoos, but it states that every bath in the house can be taken as a private bath, reserved at the front desk (some hours need booking ahead). About half the rooms also have an open-air bath of their own. Between the two, a tattooed guest never has to share water here.

Where it is

Tokyo STN Nagano STN change to Nagano Electric Railway · 45 min Hokuriku Shinkansen 97 min Hotel location
Yudanaka STN
Everything here is reached from Tokyo. Karuizawa is an hour on the Hokuriku Shinkansen and Echigo-Yuzawa 79 minutes on the Joetsu Shinkansen, both with no change. Kawaguchiko is the Fuji Excursion from Shinjuku, about two hours, and Isawa the Kaiji, an hour and forty. The Nagano towns change once: Bessho at Ueda, Nozawa at Iiyama, and Yudanaka, Hakuba and Myoko at Nagano.. Shibu Onsen Kokuya · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · open in Google Maps

JR East Pass Covers the Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano. The Nagano Electric Railway on to Yudanaka is a private line and is paid separately. Sold on Klook.

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 bath page: “all baths can be reserved as private baths”)

Read on: ichizaemon.com/spa/

Best for: Working through nine baths on six of the inn’s own springs, each one booked for yourself

Nine baths and fourteen tubs fed by six sources the inn owns, two of which rise directly under the building. The bath page says all of them are private all day, reserved at the front, with some hours needing advance booking. The facilities page breaks it down as one free private open-air bath, one free private indoor bath and two paid private open-air baths at 1,100 yen an hour. The room page lists nine room types with an open-air bath out of eighteen rooms. Kokuya dates its founding to 1625.

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