The Best Hotels in Atami

The reception sits on the top floor so that every guest's first view is Sagami Bay through floor-to-ceiling glass, which tells you exactly what this ryokan-style hotel is about. Every room has a private terrace with an onsen bath facing the water, communal open-air soaking pools sit one floor below, and an indoor circuit of baths and saunas handles the rest. A sushi bar and a kaiseki seafood restaurant round things out. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A rooftop onsen on the twelfth floor, spring-fed and infinity-edged, with the Pacific rolling out below. This Michelin Selected hotel in Atami keeps everything else equally calm: rooms done in a modern take on classic Japanese style, paper screens and understated finishes, none of the maximalist resort theatre you'd find elsewhere. Five restaurants and bars means you can probably avoid leaving, which, given the views, is the idea.

Every room at this small coastal resort looks straight out over Sagami Bay, and each one has its own private hot spring bath so you never have to queue for the thermal waters Atami has been famous for forever. Thirteen rooms split between Western-style suites and two traditional sukiya-zukuri suites keep things quiet, while the restaurant turns local ingredients into French dishes with the bay as backdrop. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Each suite faces the Pacific with nothing between you and open water except a cliff, which is either thrilling or clarifying depending on your mood. This small clifftop resort in Atami combines hot spring heritage with a nine-seat dinner counter where the cooking runs French in technique and Shizuoka in spirit. The waves are audible all night, which Atami's old hot spring crowd would have considered the whole point.