Yudanaka Ryokan ★★½☆☆

Yudanaka Onsen Shimaya

湯田中温泉 島屋

Does Yudanaka Onsen Shimaya allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Shimaya’s spring rises on its own at 93°C from a hundred meters under the Hoshikawa riverbed, and one of the three baths it feeds is private.

Shimaya says nothing about tattoos. Besides a hinoki bath and a large bath, it has a private bath, which it describes as a place to relax without minding anyone around you. How it is booked and whether it costs extra are not published, so ask when you book.

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.. Yudanaka Onsen Shimaya · 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)

Read on: shimaya-yudanaka.com/onsen.html

Best for: A plain, well-reviewed Yudanaka inn with a retro private bath

Three baths on free-flowing sodium chloride water that the inn says erupts naturally at 93°C from about 100 m down at the Hoshikawa riverbed, 300 m away: Hagi-no-yu (hinoki inside marble walls), Shiga-no-yu (a retro round tub looking onto the garden), and the private bath. Booking terms for the private bath are not given.

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