Unzen Fukudaya

Fukudaya opened in September 1968 as Hotel New Unzen and took its present name, with the tag line folk-craft modern, in 2011. It now has 27 rooms in the main building, renewed in March 2023, and seven in Sansho, an annex opened in 2017. The water is a simple acidic sulfur and iron spring at pH 2.4, and every tub runs straight from the source. There are four baths to choose from: a guests-only panoramic open-air bath, a second open-air bath by a stream, and two indoor baths, one with a hot and a lukewarm tub, with saunas in two of them. Two private baths take 50-minute bookings and are free for staying guests. Dinner is a choice of kaiseki, a guests-only teppanyaki counter, or the tempura restaurant Kofuku, which uses traditional Unzen vegetables and produce from the company's own farm. Fukudaya was listed in the 2019 Michelin Guide special edition for Fukuoka, Saga and Nagasaki. Parking is free for 40 cars, but there is no shuttle: you get here on your own.