Hakone– category –

Not every great onsen experience in Hakone requires an overnight stay. Tenzan Tohji-kyo is a day-use hot spring facility tucked into a quiet valley near Hakone-Yumoto, and it's one of the places I'd point to if you want a genuinely relax...

Hakone Kowakien Yunessun is unlike anything else on this site, and honestly, unlike most onsen facilities in Japan. It's one of Hakone's best-known attractions for a reason: it's part hot spring, part water park, and it draws a genuinely...

Hakone-en, on the shore of Lake Ashi, is one of those places that's easy to underestimate if you only think of Hakone in terms of onsen. It's a genuine multi-purpose destination — part lakeside resort area, part aquarium, part anim...

There's a small, strange test that tells you exactly how strong a sulfur onsen is: wear a silver ring into the bath and see what happens to it. At Hakone Yunohana Prince Hotel, I found out the hard way — my ring came out visibly bl...

Gora Kadan is one of the few places in Hakone I visited not as a guest, but as part of my training when I worked in the local hospitality industry. That distinction matters, because it means I got to see the property the way staff see it...

Sengokuhara has a different rhythm from the rest of Hakone. It's quieter, flatter, and more spread out, and Hakone Sengokuhara Prince Hotel fits that atmosphere well — retro in some ways, distinctly modern in others, with a calm th...

Kino-yu Setsugekka has one of the most convenient locations of any onsen ryokan I've stayed at in Hakone: it's a one-minute walk from Gora Station. For a region where getting between towns usually means juggling trains, buses, and connec...

The first time I stepped into the lobby at Fujiya Hotel, it genuinely felt like walking into a different world — not just a different hotel, but a different era of Japan altogether, built with a kind of formality and grandeur you d...