Yudanaka Ryokan ★★★★☆

Yudanaka Onsen Yorozuya

湯田中温泉よろづや

Does Yudanaka Onsen Yorozuya allow tattoos? Yes, covered

Cover seal required

The Momoyama bath at Yorozuya was built by a temple carpenter in the early 1950s, modeled on Buddhist hall architecture, and a palm-sized tattoo under a sticker is allowed into it.

Yorozuya’s FAQ turns tattoos away from the large baths, with one exception: a tattoo about the size of your palm or smaller, fully hidden under a tattoo cover sticker. Anything bigger goes to a paid private bath or a room with its own bath, which the English page offers as the alternative. The FAQ does not say the inn sells the stickers, so bring your own.

Show this at the front desk

タトゥー・刺青を入れてますが大浴場に入れますか？申し訳ございません。タトゥー・刺青のある方のご利用はお断りいたしております。ただし、手のひら程度の大きさで、タトゥーのカバーシールで隠して頂けましたら、ご利用頂けます。

The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.

Where it is

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 Yorozuya · 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

Cover the tattoo completely before you go in, to the size on this page. How the seals work, and where to buy them →

How we know

Confirmed from official site (the inn’s Japanese FAQ; its English FAQ says the same, and the English home page adds the private bath and in-room bath for a fee)

Read on: yudanaka-yoroduya.com/faq.html

Best for: Getting a palm-sized tattoo, covered, into the Momoyama bath, a registered wooden bathhouse

Six baths on three sources. The large ones swap between men and women by time of day: the Momoyama bath, a temple-style wooden bathhouse finished in the early 1950s and registered as a tangible cultural property, with its garden open-air bath, and the Shinonome bath and its open-air bath. The paid private option is the basement Private SPA Bon: a hot spring tub, a löyly sauna and a steam sauna, a cold bath and an air-cooling space, for one to four people, from 7,700 yen a person for two. Photographing the Momoyama bath is allowed daily 9:45 to 10:00. Staying guests only, no day bathing. The ryokan runs the neighboring Shoraiso and Kamei no Yu, whose guests use these same large baths.

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