Kawakami, east of Kinrin Lake Ryokan resort

Yufuin Baien Garden Resort

由布院 梅園 GARDEN RESORT

Does Yufuin Baien Garden Resort allow tattoos? In a private bath

Private bath only

Baien keeps its two rental baths as separate little buildings in the garden rather than rooms off a corridor, and puts a baby bed in each. The big bath is a rock pool set to face Mount Yufu, with a cypress tub indoors.

Two standalone kashikiri buildings on the grounds solve this without a conversation at the front desk. The operator describes them as two rental baths for family, friends or a couple, and stocks them with baby beds. The large bath, Tenshin-no-oyu, has an open-air rock pool and a hinoki indoor pool and runs 15:00 to 24:00 and 6:00 to 10:00, but the resort publishes no tattoo rule for it.

Illustration of Yufuin Baien Garden Resort in Kawakami, east of Kinrin Lake

The bath

Getting to Tenshin-no-oyu means walking about 20 meters of garden path with a slope in it. Men’s and women’s sides are built the same, down to the roofed cypress tub, and both run 15:00 to 24:00 and 6:00 to 10:00. The resort describes the water as a simple thermal spring, neutral and hypotonic, run from the source, carrying bicarbonate and sulfate components and a good deal of metasilicic acid, which is why it calls the result bijin-no-yu.

Neither a price nor a way to book the rental baths is published, so that is a question for the desk. A sauna has since been added, which the resort says is the only one in town where you pour the water on the stones yourself: an imported wooden cabin, a cold bath at 20 to 25°C drawn from Yufuin well water, and chairs outside to sit in afterwards.

Of the twelve cottages, four have an open-air bath and one a half-open-air bath; the other seven have none, and neither does any room in the main house. The four with open-air baths are the largest, at 40 square meters, a ten-mat Japanese room plus a twin room.

The hotel

The grounds run past 10,000 tsubo and about half of that is garden: cherry and skunk cabbage in spring, fireflies in summer, plum coming into flower in early March. Check-in is 15:00, check-out 10:30, and the gate closes at 20:00, so tell them if dinner in town runs long. Parking is free, thirty spaces. The shop opens 7:00 to 21:00.

What is good about it

Getting there

About 5 minutes by car from Yufuin STN and about 30 on foot, by the resort’s own figures; Kinrin Lake is 15 minutes away. Coaches from Hakata and the Oita airport bus both stop at the bus center in front of the station, and it is a short taxi ride from there.

Yufuin STN · JR Kyudai line; the Yufuin no Mori and Yufu limited expresses from Hakata, about 2 hours 10 minutes
About 30 minutes; the resort gives 5 minutes by car.

Kinrin Lake 15 minutes on foot.

Where it is

Hakata STN JR Yufuin no Mori limited express 2 h 14 Kokura STN Oita STN Oita Airport Hotel location
Yufuin STN
Hakata to Beppu is about 1 h 55 on the Sonic, JR Kyushu’s limited express up the coast (a faster train with fewer stops and a fee on top of the fare); Yufuin is the Yufuin no Mori, about 2 h 15 inland by way of Hita, and the Yufu runs the same rails when it is full. Yufuin Baien Garden Resort · 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 rather than a tattoo policy (the operator’s onsen page, 貸切湯が2棟)

Read on: yufuin-baien.com/onsen/

Best for: Families who need a bath big enough for everyone and a door that shuts

Two kashikiri baths, each its own small building, with baby beds provided; the operator does not publish the price or booking method online. Rooms split between detached cottages and the main house. Listed on Booking.com simply as Baien.

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