The Best Hotels Near Kinugawa Keisui, by the Record
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A ten-room luxury stay on the banks of the Kinugawa river, built in the modern-ryokan idiom: clean lines and organic warmth, with each room opening onto a sunroom and a balcony full of greenery. Hot spring baths come as standard, both private and communal. The concept restaurant leans into wood-fired cooking that refuses to stay in a single genre. Nikko draws crowds for the shrines; this is where you sleep when you'd rather not rush back.
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Every room comes with its own private hot-spring bath, which makes a strong opening argument for not leaving. Fufu Nikko is a luxury boutique hotel near the temples and shrines of Nikko, close enough to Tokyo to feel like an easy escape. Rooms are modern and spare, the forest presses right up against the public baths, and the restaurant, Setchu, moves between Japanese and European cooking. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.
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Each room comes with its own Zen rock garden, which feels about right for a hotel sitting on the shores of Lake Chuzenji inside Nikko National Park. This Ritz-Carlton is a long way from the brand's usual neoclassical grandeur, trading marble columns for spare contemporary architecture that reads as genuinely Japanese. Onsen baths, an expansive spa, and a picture window framing Mount Nantai keep you from ever feeling obligated to leave. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
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Beeches and cedars crowd the windows at this mountain auberge in the forests of Nasu, where the Japanese imperial family have long come to disappear quietly. A water garden wanders through the grounds, the architecture nods to local timber traditions, and the general agenda is stillness. Draw a bath, watch the trees, and resist the urge to do anything else. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
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Every room at this ryokan-style resort in the Nasu Highlands comes with its own private onsen, partly open to the forest air, plus cedar paneling and bespoke bedding for when you finally step out. Minimalist design and floor-to-ceiling glass keep the surrounding woodland front and center. The communal library stocks art books and Karuizawa whiskies beside a fireplace, which is either meditative or dangerously comfortable, depending on your schedule.
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The long main corridor bends in a gentle arc, one side all rooms, the other a continuous double-height window of forest, like an aquarium tunnel where the sharks have been traded for greenery. This contemporary ryokan in Minakami's onsen country holds a Michelin Key, and the baths, open on multiple sides to surrounding trees and mountain air, are the real argument for coming. Rooms run tatami, Western, or a blend of both.
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A Lawrence Weiner mural runs across the facade of this design hotel in Maebashi, which tells you immediately what kind of stay this is. Architect Sou Fujimoto transformed a 1970s concrete block into something closer to a contemporary art museum with rooms, including a Leandro Erlich installation filling the atrium. A newer green tower shaped after the nearby mountains is its own sculpture. The founder of Japanese eyewear brand JINS envisioned it as a living room for the whole city.