Ryokan in Beppu

The two reviewed Beppu inns show two very different sides of Japan's biggest hot-spring town. KAI Beppu is a 68-room inn designed by Kengo Kuma on the Beppu Bay seafront in the city centre, about 10 minutes on foot from JR Beppu Station, with shops a few minutes away and every room facing the sea. Okamotoya Ryokan, opened in 1875, is a 15-room wooden house on the hillside of Myoban, Beppu's sulphur-steam hamlet, beside the Myoban Bridge and about 30 minutes by bus from the station, with no shops nearby and its own acidic sulphur spring that turns from pale blue to milky white, 100% free-flowing with no water or heating added.

KAI Beppu (classic) suits anyone who wants sea views, sunrise over the bay and a lively evening: the lobby turns into a night market after dinner, staff play the nightly onsen jug band, and dinner is a seafood kaiseki with a hotpot of spiny lobster and fugu. It gets busy, the shared bath is small and enclosed with water added, standard rooms have a shower but no tub, and 2026 reviews of dinner and room cleanliness are mixed. Okamotoya Ryokan (classic) suits those who come for the water and the food: guests rate its baths and Oita kaiseki highest, and meals end with the inn's own jigoku-mushi pudding. Only three of its rooms have their own bath, the Meiji-era building has many steep stairs, children below primary-school age are not accepted, and one renovated room disappointed a couple in 2026.