Japan's Onsen Trail: Hakone, Atami and Shuzenji in Four Days

Hakone Open-Air Museum

📍 Ninotaira, Hakone

Ninety minutes from Shinjuku on the Romancecar, then the switchback mountain railway. Henry Moore and Rodin standing in a valley, and a foot bath at the far end fed by the same spring as the hotels.

Gora Park

📍 Gora, Hakone

A French-style terraced garden from 1914, built where the railway ran out of mountain. Greenhouses to duck into when it turns cold.

Hakone Museum of Art

📍 Gora, Hakone

The moss garden is the real exhibit — 130 varieties under maples, at its most saturated in the wet cold.

Hakone Kowakien Yunessun

📍 Ninotaira, Hakone

The unserious end of Hakone bathing: wine baths, coffee baths, and a traditional Mori no Yu wing next door if you would rather not.

Hakone Yuryo

📍 Tonosawa, Hakone

Back down at Yumoto. Open-air baths among the trees, private rooms bookable by the hour, and open late enough to be the last thing you do.

Owakudani

📍 Sengokuhara, Hakone

The ropeway crosses directly over the vents — steam, sulphur and, on a clear winter morning, Fuji straight ahead. Eat a black egg boiled in the spring; the shell blackens, the story says it adds seven years.

Lake Ashi

📍 Moto-Hakone, Hakone

Down the far side of the ropeway to the water. The replica pirate ships are ridiculous and the crossing is still the best view of Fuji over the lake.

Hakone Shrine

📍 Moto-Hakone, Hakone

The Torii of Peace stands in the lake itself. Arrive early or late — the queue to photograph it is its own attraction now.

Hakone Checkpoint

📍 Hakone-machi

A full reconstruction of the Edo barrier that controlled everyone moving along the Tokaido. The guardhouse and the lookout are worth the twenty minutes.

Amazake Chaya

📍 Hatajuku, Hakone

A thatched teahouse on the old stone-paved Tokaido, run by the same family for four hundred years. Sweet unfiltered amazake and grilled mochi by an open hearth.

Kinomiya Shrine

📍 Nishiyamacho, Atami

Built around a camphor tree over two thousand years old. Walking a full circle around the trunk is said to add a year — the tree is large enough that people mean it.

Izusan Shrine

📍 Izusan, Atami

Up the hillside above the bay, and the shrine where the exiled Minamoto no Yoritomo met Hojo Masako. The view back down the steps is the reason to climb them.

Atami Ginza Shopping Street

📍 Ginzacho, Atami

Lunch is whatever came off the boats — the aji and kinmedai here are local, not shipped. Steamed buns and himono to carry away.

MOA Museum of Art

📍 Momoyama, Atami

A series of long escalators bored into the hillside opens onto a hall looking straight out over Sagami Bay. Korin's Red and White Plum Blossoms is here, shown each February.

Atami Castle

📍 Atami

Not a real castle — built in 1959 on the ridge for exactly one reason, which is the panorama over the town, the bay and the winter fireworks if your dates land right.

Shuzenji Temple

📍 Shuzenji, Izu

Founded by Kobo Daishi in 807, and the reason the town exists. Small, dark and wooden, with a garden that runs down to the river.

Tokko no Yu

📍 Shuzenji, Izu

The original spring, in the middle of the Katsura river — legend has Kobo Daishi striking the rock with his staff. You cannot bathe in it now, but the whole town flows from this spot.

Chikurin no Komichi

📍 Shuzenji, Izu

The bamboo path along the river, with a round bamboo bench at the centre to lie back on and look straight up. Twenty minutes end to end and the quietest bamboo in Japan.

Shuzenji Onsen

📍 Shuzenji, Izu

Izu's oldest hot spring town, called the Little Kyoto of Izu for the red bridges and the river running through the middle. Day-use bathing at most of the ryokan.

Joren Falls

📍 Yugashima, Izu

Twenty-five metres of water over a basalt cliff, with wasabi terraces fed by the run-off below it. Fresh wasabi ice cream at the bottom of the steps, which is better than it sounds.