74 Best Hotels in Japan

Treat yourself to a stay—or perhaps just a fantastic dinner—at this charming ryokan built in 1774. The rooms are intimate and secluded, and the suite overlooking the 400-year-old garden is especially captivating. You can't go wrong with the fabulous, filling, traditional dinners that incorporate the best local delicacies, from fish to fruit. The same friendly and hospitable folks run the Kurashiki Kokusai Hotel, so some English is spoken and foreigners are welcome and pampered. The hotel is across the bridge from the Ohara Art Museum.

This unique and special place mixes the best of Western and Japanese accommodations, with rooms mostly in freestanding houses in a wooded setting, making autumn one of the best times to visit. Most ryokan serve only Japanese food, but Murata has an Italian restaurant and a full bar where you can sit fireside and enjoy after-dinner drinks. If you get bored with taking baths, there is a small but elegant art museum whose well-curated exhibitions change twice yearly. The food is made of the finest ingredients, and all dishes are delicately flavored and exquisitely presented. The menu changes every month and includes options for vegetarians. 

You'll get a full dose of shitamachi (lower city) friendliness at the family run Sawanoya, where you'll feel like you're part of an old Tokyo neighborhood and where people might help you plan excursions, say, or book hotels for the next leg of your journey. It is popular with budget travelers, so reserve online well in advance. Japanese bathtubs are near small windows that overlook a small garden. Coffee and tea are complimentary, but most rooms have no TVs.

A half-hour bus ride from JR Morioka Station takes you to this quiet hot-spring town and its upscale (and expensive), traditional ryokan, which serves two meals a day in your tatami room. If you're coming here, you're coming to get away, relax, and not have to think. The walls around the premises obstruct what seem like they could be picturesque mountain views, but rooms peer out on a Japanese garden where goldfish swim in a pond. Some rooms have a private outdoor bath and some rooms, unlike many ryokan, have beds.

If you are looking for a vacation from your vacation, this simple countryside inn offers proximity to nature, relaxing baths, and the chance to get your hands dirty—not to mention accommodations for guests in wheelchairs, which is not the norm for most small inns. Meals are included here, typically served in your room, and include any number of local ingredients. Demonstrations of soba-making, cloth-dyeing, and other events happen depending on the season, so ask what is going on when you make your reservations. If you wake up early,  join the staff in the vegetable patch and pick the ingredients for breakfast, also included. The location is quite remote, but the staff will take you to the station or to Chuson-ji Temple. They will even take you to Hiraizumi Station, wait for you to put your luggage in a locker, and then drop you off at the temple, so you can enjoy your time there.  Ask in advance for a pickup if you're arriving by train.

This more-than-300-year-old Japanese inn has a sophisticated atmosphere and offers soft thermal waters, and in winter, the chance to see Zao's famous winter scenes with some of the "ice monsters" made by snow piling onto trees in frozen pillars sculpted by blizzards. In recent years, the ice monsters are struggling, but the landscapes are still striking. As you approach the inn at the top of a hill, you will be led to the low-beamed interior, which has changed little over centuries. Each room is different, but the most luxurious are the suites in the annex, recently refurbished and each with a private bath; ask about rooms with Japanese-type decor but Western-style beds.

Upon entering this cross between a luxury Western-style hotel and traditional inn, you'll remove your shoes and socks, sit at a counter bar with your tired feet resting in a hot-mineral-spring bath under the bar, and enjoy a tea or beer while checking in. There are Japanese rooms, Western rooms, and combinations of the two, with raised islands of tatami atop wood flooring; prices vary greatly depending on room type and meal (or no-meal) plans. There are two shared onsen baths, one outdoors and one indoors. Some rooms have private baths on terraces with wonderful views of the mountains.

This small ryokan in the steamy village of Yudanaka has a hinoki (cypress) bathtub that's continually fed by the hot springs. The rooms are rustic and cozy and (for a small extra fee) come with either a Western or Japanese breakfast. You can try Japanese archery (kyudo) if the owner has free time. The optional dinners feature delicious mountain vegetables and local seafood. It's a seven-minute walk from Yudanaka Station, across the Yomase River and on the left.

This ryokan feels very "Japanese," and what it lacks in big-hotel amenities it makes up for in atmosphere, albeit with some limitations, including some shared-bath rooms, that may not appeal to all travelers. A traditional ryokan, Yachiyo is in a quiet, verdant part of town close to the Heian Jingu Shrine and the National Museum of Modern Art. The least expensive rooms share bathrooms. If you prefer, you can have breakfast and dinner in your room instead of the restaurant.

In a century-old geisha house in the Eastern Pleasure Quarter, Yogetsu is a small, stylish minshuku. The owner is a welcoming hostess and keeps a neat shared bath. The guest rooms are small and sparsely furnished, but rustic exposed beams add character. Only the second-floor rooms are air-conditioned. A traditional Japanese-style breakfast is included, but the owner is happy to adapt to Western tastes.

Overlooking the town of Ito and the sea, Yokikan has been catering to visitors for more than a century. Despite being a short taxi ride from the station, this simple, comfortable ryokan feels like a secluded retreat. Take the private cable railway 30 yards up the hillside for impressive views from the open air hot spring bath.

Soak the stresses of the world away as you sit naked in the outdoor pool of the Yumerindo ryokan, eat a multicourse Japanese meal, and retire to your futon for a good night's sleep. You'll be able to listen to birds and the bubbling river as you bathe in the hot-spring waters. In the ryokan's restaurant, you'll be presented with dish after tiny dish of exquisite local delicacies, as is tradition with a kaiseki menu. You'll know you're nearing the end of the meal when you are offered miso soup and rice, which is always the penultimate course before a final seasonal dessert. While you are dining, staff will enter your room to lay out futons on the tatami matting. A futon on tatami is more solid that most mattresses, so it may take some getting used to. 

The old and new are elegantly juxtaposed in this upscale ryokan, where a century-old, four-story wooden building stands next to a newly built luxury lodging. Museum-quality art of the Edo period (1603–1868) is exhibited in public areas. Each room is unique, and all have state-of-the-art amenities like heated towel racks. Some rooms have beds instead of futons. You'll enjoy fine dining in the evenings accompanied by music in the well-restored original building. They claim that the 600-year-old onsen here was used by none other than Date Masamune himself. Beautiful, natural surroundings attract many honeymooners and couples. Call to arrange free pickup from either Shiroishi-Zao Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen line or from Shiroishi Station on the Tohoku main line.