Kanagawa

Kanagawa has 36 onsen areas and 602 springs (Ministry of the Environment, FY2024). It has relatively few onsen areas, yet more than 5.37 million overnight stays a year make it the sixth busiest prefecture in Japan. At its heart are Hakone, with more than a dozen bathing quarters inside the Hakone volcano, and Yugawara, a spring mentioned in the eighth-century Manyoshu poetry anthology, both one to two hours by train from central Tokyo.

Main onsen areas

Most springs are concentrated at the western edge of the prefecture, in Hakone and Yugawara. Hakone's bathing quarters run from Hakone-Yumoto up to Miyanoshita, Sokokura, Ashinoyu and Ubako, and neighbouring Yugawara lines the Fujiki River valley. At the foot of the Tanzawa and Oyama mountains are Tsurumaki, Nanasawa, Iiyama and Nakagawa in Yamakita, and there are also springs on the coast at Miura and Enoshima.

Characteristic spring types

Chloride and simple springs are the most common in our records, followed by bicarbonate and sulfate. In Hakone the water varies from quarter to quarter: Hakone-Yumoto has clear simple and alkaline simple springs, Ubako is a sulfate spring and Ashinoyu a sulfur spring. Yugawara offers simple, mildly salty and gypsum springs, and Nanasawa near Atsugi is a simple spring. More than 40 percent of the prefecture's springs emerge at 42 °C or hotter.

Reachable by public transport

For Hakone, the Odakyu Romancecar runs from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto in about 85 minutes, and from there the Hakone Tozan Railway and buses climb to Miyanoshita, Gora and Lake Ashi. Yugawara is about 10 minutes by bus from Yugawara Station on the JR Tokaido Line. Tsurumaki is a walk from Tsurumaki-Onsen Station on the Odakyu Line, and Nanasawa is reached by the bus bound for Nanasawa from the Atsugi Bus Center at Hon-Atsugi Station.

For solo travellers

The Hakone tourist association's inn search has a 'solo travellers welcome' filter, making single stays easy to find. Hakone-Yumoto has a town-run public bath and day spas, Yugawara has a town-run day bath a short bus ride from the station, and at Tsurumaki the city-run Kobo-no-Satoyu day spa is two minutes' walk from the station.

Food & culture

Hakone has the reconstructed Hakone Checkpoint, a key point on Edo-period travel routes. Workshops of yosegi marquetry, a traditional craft, cluster at Hatajuku on the old highway, where you can try making a piece yourself. Odawara kamaboko fish cake is said to have begun as a long-keeping food for Hakone's onsen inns, which found it hard to get fresh fish. Yugawara's tantan yakisoba, spiced with sesame paste and chilli bean sauce, is the local comfort food, and Yugawara, sung of in the Manyoshu, became a retreat for many writers from the Meiji era on.