Oyado Nurukawa Onsen
御宿 ぬるかわ温泉
Does Oyado Nurukawa Onsen allow tattoos? In a private bath
Nurukawa is a minute from Kinrin Lake and rents its baths by the hour to anyone who turns up, which is unusual this close to the tourist route. The tubs are named after what grows around them, akebi and mulberry and persimmon among them.
This is the cheapest private bath within walking distance of the lake. The family indoor bath is 2,000 yen for two people for an hour and the family open-air bath is 2,600, with 600 yen for each extra adult and 300 for each child. The doors are open 8:00 to 19:00, so a tattooed visitor can book one mid-morning without staying the night. The separate men’s and women’s baths carry no published tattoo rule.
The bath
Nine bathing places, and the inn says every one of them is 100 percent natural hot spring run straight from the source, a simple spring, alkaline and hypotonic and hot. The named ones are Sakura, Akebi, Kuwa and Kaki, and there is a large bath besides. All of them keep the same hours, 8:00 to 19:00, which is a daytime schedule rather than a ryokan one, and each has rinse-in shampoo and body soap set out.
Stay the night and all nine are free. For everyone else the large bath is 600 yen for adults and 300 for elementary-school children and under. The indoor family bath is 2,000 yen for two people for an hour and the open-air family bath is 2,600, with each additional adult 600 yen and each child 300. The outdoor baths are one men’s and one women’s, swapped over by the clock, and both can be taken privately; the inn attaches no conditions to that. Parking is free and day visitors may use it.
Two of the eight rooms, both eight-mat Japanese ones, have an open-air bath of their own. The other six have no bath, and the inn’s own two room lists do not quite agree on how those six divide between eight, eleven and twelve mats.
The hotel
Eight rooms, check-in 15:00 and check-out 10:00. The inn does not keep children’s futons, yukata or toothbrushes, and says to ask at the desk for adult ones instead.
What is good about it
- A family bath for an hour, 2,000 yen indoors or 2,600 outdoors, for two people, and you need not be staying.
- Doors open at 8:00 and close at 19:00, which makes the morning the easy time to get one.
- Two of the eight rooms have an open-air bath, and guests bathe in all nine for nothing.
Getting there
Fifteen minutes on foot from JR Yufuin STN and five by taxi. Turn out of the front door and keep going straight and you reach Kinrin Lake. About five minutes from the Yufuin interchange and 40 minutes by car from Beppu.
Yufuin STN · JR Kyudai line; the Yufuin no Mori and Yufu limited expresses
About 15 minutes; 5 minutes by taxi.
About 40 minutes by car from Beppu.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Yufuin no Mori limited express 2 h 14
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Hotel locationYufuin STN
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 operator’s hot spring page listing the family bath prices)
Read on: hpdsp.jp/nurukawa/hot_spring
Best for: An hour in your own bath between the lake and the bus, for the price of lunch
Family indoor bath 2,000 yen for two, family open-air 2,600 yen for two, 60 minutes; plain day-use bathing 600 yen for adults and 300 for children. Open 8:00–19:00. The baths carry fruit and tree names: Sakura, Akebi, Kuwa and Kaki.
Check availabilityBooking through this button costs you nothing extra and sends a small commission our way — it’s what keeps this guide free for our tattoo community, and every policy on it checked. Thank you.