Hi, I'

I run this site. My name is Emi Kato, and I have visited over 60 onsen across Japan. Every venue on this site has either been visited by me personally or verified by a local contact I trust. I do not list places based on a tourism brochure or a hotel concierge's guess. If a bath is on OnsenExperiences, I have either soaked in it or I have asked someone whose hands I have shaken. Tattoo-Friendly Japanese Bathing Culture Tour At Funaoka Onsen.

The Nagoya afternoon that started all of this

In 2016 I was in Nagoya for a work trip with a free afternoon, so I did what I always do in a new Japanese city. I asked the front desk for the closest sento and walked over. I paid at the counter, kicked off my shoes, picked up a small towel, and started to undress. A staff member stopped me before I reached the changing room. She pointed at my back. She shook her head. She handed my money back across the counter with both hands.

I have a full-back tattoo. I had it for nine years at that point and it had never been a problem in three countries. I stood outside on the pavement for a while, embarrassed and a little annoyed, and then I did the thing I always do when I am upset about something practical. I opened my laptop and started a spreadsheet.

The first column was the name of the bath. The second was the city. The third was a single yes-or-no question: do they let me in with visible ink? I started filling in what I already knew. I asked friends in Tokyo, in Osaka, in Hakone. I emailed old university contacts in Kyushu. By the end of that month the spreadsheet had forty rows and I had a clear picture of the problem. The information simply did not exist in English. There were Japanese-language forum threads from 2009, a couple of half-maintained blog posts, and one sprawling spreadsheet on a personal site that had not been updated in three years. Nothing current. Nothing honest. Nothing written by someone who had actually stood at the door and asked.

So I kept adding rows. The spreadsheet moved into a shared Google Doc so my friends could edit it. The Google Doc grew into a Notion page with photos, opening hours, and short notes about the water. The Notion page turned into this website, which is the first time the information has lived somewhere it can actually be found by the people who need it.

How I decide what goes on the site

My rule is simple. If I have not soaked in a bath myself, I need a named, trustworthy local contact who has, and I need to be able to ask them follow-up questions about things like the tattoo policy on a bad day, the weekend crowd, and whether the water has been renovated. "Trustworthy" in this context means someone I have met in person, someone whose opinion I have tested against my own experience, or someone who was already a regular at the bath before I called them out of the blue. I do not accept tips from venue staff, from publicists, or from affiliate managers. Those are all conflicts of interest that I would rather not have to argue with myself about later.

I go in person when I can. I ask the staff directly about their tattoo policy, in Japanese, on the day of the visit. Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it is no, and sometimes it is the famous Japanese "well, it depends on the day, on who is at the counter, and on which part of your tattoo is showing." I write down what actually happened, not what a tourism board wishes were true. If you have tattoos and you want a straight answer, that is the whole point of this site.

How this site makes money

I want this to be clear, because too many travel sites hide it. OnsenExperiences earns a small commission when you book a tour through one of the Viator links on this site. My partner ID is P00299531, and every booking is tagged with it. That is the entire business model.

I do not charge venues for a placement. I do not accept sponsored reviews, sponsored listicles, or sponsored rankings. I have never been paid by an onsen, a ryokan, or a tourism board to write about them, and I will turn down any offer that comes with conditions on what I can say. The commission from Viator is the only money that comes in, and it comes in only when you actually book something after clicking one of those links.

The practical effect is that the order I list tours in, the tours I link to at all, and the words I use to describe them are all mine. Viator does not see this site before I publish it and does not get to edit anything in it. If a tour I recommended stops being good, I take the link down. If a tour I have never linked starts being excellent, I link to it on its own merits. The money follows the recommendation, not the other way around.

I also keep this site lean on purpose. There is no banner ad network, no pop-up, no newsletter pop-in trying to grab your email before you have read a single sentence. I would rather earn a small honest commission from people who find the guide useful than a large dishonest cut from people I have annoyed into clicking.

My favourite onsen, and why I will not name it

I get asked this question a lot, so I will answer the part I can answer. My favourite onsen town in Japan, for the water itself, is Kusatsu. The source is hot, the volume is enormous, the yubatake in the centre of town smells like sulphur and minerals in the good way, and the local tradition of timed cooling means the bath water you soak in is rarely above a comfortable 45 degrees. The water has a clean, almost soft feel on the skin that I have not found anywhere else in the country at the same scale. If you go to Kusatsu for the first time, my honest advice is to ignore the listicles and just walk into three different bath houses over two days. You will feel the difference between them.

The specific bath house in Kusatsu that I love best, I am not going to name. Not because it is a secret, not because I have some exclusivity deal, and not because I am gatekeeping. I just do not want to be the reason it gets crowded. Some baths are special precisely because the people who run them care more about the regulars than about growth, and sending a wave of strangers at them based on a personal blog post would be a small harm I can choose not to do. If you go, you will find it. If you do not, Kusatsu has six or seven other public baths and they are all worth a soak.

A bit more about me

I grew up between Osaka and Melbourne, which is why my Japanese is fluent and my writing in English is more conversational than a guidebook. I came back to Japan for university, stayed for work, and now split my time between a small apartment in Tokyo and a slower base in the Kansai region. I am not a hotel reviewer and I do not take press trips. When I visit an onsen, I pay the entry fee like anyone else, I queue with everyone else, and I leave a tip in the oshibori box if the bath has one.

I started this site because the gap I fell into in 2016 should not exist. A tattooed traveller with a handful of common-sense questions should be able to find straight answers in one place, written by someone who has had the same experience. That is the entire ambition. If you read a guide here and it saves you a bad afternoon at the door, the site has done its job.

If you have a question I have not answered, a bath I should know about, or a correction to something I have written, you can reach me through the contact form on the site. I read every message. I answer most of them. I update the guide when the answer changes something.