10 Facilities
Founded in 1879, with its 1938 wooden building and curved gable, Takegawara is the symbol of Beppu Onsen. A regular bath costs ¥300 — a deep, hot pool down a flight of steps. The famous sand bath has you buried in warm sand by staff while wearing a yukata. Bring your own soap and shampoo.
A large complex where you can try Kannawa's specialties — waterfall bath, sand bath and steam bath — in one place. It once earned three Michelin stars and is used to overseas guests. Many private family baths; tattooed visitors are directed to these. A restaurant serves hell-steamed dishes. Open until 1 am.
A milky open-air bath on a hillside above Beppu Bay. Thatched 'yunohana huts' where bath salts are harvested — a national cultural property — line the grounds and can be visited free. Hell-steamed food too.
A stone steam-bath chamber in use since the Kamakura period. Lie in a yukata on a bed of medicinal sweet-flag herb and sweat heavily in 8–10 minutes. Yukata rental ¥220 (or bring a T-shirt and shorts). Free foot steaming outside.
The signature of Beppu's giant hilltop hotel: a five-tiered open-air bath cascading toward Beppu Bay, spectacular at night and dawn. Day tickets include the swimsuit-friendly outdoor spa pool 'Aqua Garden'.
Five minutes from Beppu Station, stop No. 4 on the 'Beppu Hattō Onsen-dō' trail. The building is new, but in true Beppu style there are no washing stations — you scoop water from the tub. Hot and mild pools, ¥250, from 6:30 am.
One of the Beppu Hattō 'eight springs', Horita sits on the old road towards Yufuin and its municipal bathhouse is among the busiest in Beppu's city-run network. Rebuilt in 2003, it has a bright, airy indoor hall and a seasonal open-air bath set among plantings and rock work; the two differently styled bath wings swap between men and women each week. The water is a gentle simple spring. ¥300; open 6:30–22:30, closed the first Wednesday (next day if a holiday). Afterwards, rest in the lounge overlooking Beppu Bay. Amenities are sold, so bring a towel. About 13 minutes by Kamenoi bus from Beppu Station's west exit to Horita-Onsen-mae, or 3 minutes by car from Beppu IC.
Halfway along Ideyu-zaka, the steam-wreathed main street of Beppu's Kannawa district, this communal bath is run by the local residents' association. In typical Beppu style the changing area and bath share one room, and hot sodium-chloride water rich in metasilicic acid flows freely. Visitors pay only ¥100 — technically a coin-locker fee rather than admission. Open 06:30–21:00 daily. No soap or shampoo and minimal washing space, so follow local manners: quiet and quick. There is a toilet on the little square out front, and the Jigoku-mushi steam-cooking workshop and Umi-jigoku are two minutes away, making it an easy stop on a Kannawa stroll. Counts toward the Beppu Hattō Onsen-dō stamp rally.
A city-run public bath in the Hamawaki district of Beppu, Oita - called, along with Kannawa, a birthplace of Beppu Onsen. Built in the early Showa era when the East and West Hamawaki baths merged, it still serves as a neighbourhood sento rooted in local daily life. Unusually for a municipal bath it runs from 6:30 in the morning until 1 a.m. (25:00), one of the longest hours among Beppu's eight spa areas. The 64.1°C simple spring flows free. Admission is a remarkable 200 yen for adults (junior high and up) and 100 yen for children (under elementary free), usable around a one-hour cleaning break from 14:00 to 15:00. Closed the 3rd Monday of each month (may shift on holidays). A short walk from Higashi-Beppu Station on the JR Nippo Main Line - a fine addition to a Beppu Hatto tour alongside Takegawara and the Kannawa hells.
A cure-oriented inn founded in 1973 in the Myoban area of Beppu, one of the Beppu Hatto. Its draw is a rare natural mineral mud bath - fine mud born only where steam vents, humic clay and mineral springs coincide - which you soak in across the whole body in open tubs. The water flows free from the self-springing source once called Konya Jigoku (a simple acid spring, pH 2.9, 49.7°C): milky acidic water and thick mud baths alike. The mixed open-air mineral mud bath has a partitioned women's section, and women bathe wearing hair caps. Indoors there are a sulfur colloid bath, more mud baths and a steam bath; the underground mineral mud chamber is so concentrated that elementary-age children may not enter. Day bathing runs 9:00-20:00 (last entry 19:00; indoor mud and steam baths until 19:30) at 1,500 yen for adults. There are no washing stations, only mud-rinsing showers - authentically rustic. Get off at the Nayajigoku-mae bus stop from Beppu Station; free parking, open year-round.