Discard both your clothes and daily cares and enjoy a time-honoured bathing ritual with Onsen of Japan. For thousands of years, Japanese hot springs (or onsen) have been revered for their relaxing and healing qualities, and this guidebook highlights 140 of the very best places for tourists to visit around the country. Onsen experiences include super sento (large bathing and relaxation centres), local bathhouses, ultra-chic spas, forest retreats and whole towns dedicated to onsen. The how-to guide will help you navigate the complex etiquette and customs of communal bathing, and easy checklists let you know what each onsen offers and whether tattoos are accepted. One thing is for sure, taking a bath will never be the same again.

Complete with maps and extensive advice, this guide to Japan's hot springs is an invaluable resource for anyone travelling to Japan. Easier to get to than many might imagine, Japan's hidden hot springs are among the few remaining repositories of ancient Japanese ambiance and sensibility. Bucolic and charming, they bear little resemblance to the sterile, clinic-like spas of the West or to the concrete jungles of Japan's best-known onsen towns. The hot springs introduced here belong to another time but they are disappearing fast. Discover them before it's too late through this selective, personalized, and authoritative guide. In this spa guide are unbelievable gems that you would otherwise never, ever, find by yourself. Japanese people are often shocked that you found such a place. It's a very concise collection of the "true and traditional" Japanese onsen ryokan. It is for anyone who seeks a traditional experience of what onsen used to be before modernization set in.

"Japanese Inns and Hot Springs takes readers on a trip around Japan, stopping at 40 of the country's best ryokan. Aiming to make your stay as pleasurable as possible, the book offers tips on travel, easy-to-follow advice on booking a stay, and a helpful etiquette guide geared toward English speakers. -- My Modern Met"

Geothermal springs constitute a major tourism resource, providing spectacular settings, recreation facilities, a recognised value in treatments beneficial for health and wellness, a sense of heritage and adventure, and links with the natural environment. Health and wellness tourism accounts for a significant proportion of the world’s tourism consumption, with components ranging from hot spring bathing for leisure and recreation, through mineral water use in health treatments under the supervision of highly specialised medical professionals, to water treatments in the wellness and beauty therapy sector and the use of mineral water for drinking purposes. This makes it an economically and socially important area of tourism demanding in-depth analysis. This book explores health and wellness tourism from a range of perspectives including usage, heritage, management, technology, environmental and cultural features, and marketing.