Ryokan in Dogo Onsen

All three reviewed Dogo inns are classic-tier and within a few minutes' walk of Dogo Onsen Station and the Honkan bathhouse; Dogo Onsen Dogokan sits on a rise above the tram terminus. All three use Dogo's alkaline simple spring, and guests at all three have noticed chlorine in the baths.

Dogo Funaya is the choice for garden and food: a 1,500-tsubo garden with fireflies in early summer, highly rated breakfasts and strong service, inside a renovated building that looks modern from outside; its open-air bath is small. Dogo Onsen Yamatoya Honten is a busy 90-room house with its own noh stage, sea-bream rice with every dinner and a breakfast buffet of about 100 dishes; its baths are heated, recirculated and chlorinated, only two lifts serve all rooms, and the inn changed hands in 2024. Dogo Onsen Dogokan, also 90 rooms, is the choice for architecture and dinner: Kisho Kurokawa's 1989 postmodern take on an Edo-period townscape, with a lobby waterfall and a nail-free tea room, a seasonal Ehime kaiseki that also always ends with sea-bream rice, attentive room attendants and free mikan juice in the lounge. Only its nine seventh-floor rooms have their own open-air bath of Dogo spring water; the large baths are recirculated and reached by stairs, and 2026 reviewers mention an ageing building and thin futons.