Ryokan in Kaga Onsen

The nine reviewed inns are in Awazu, Yamashiro and Yamanaka, and all run free shuttles from Kaga Onsen Station. Kaga kaiseki is the common thread at four of them, with nodoguro and, in winter, crab, which can push prices sharply higher; Hanatsubaki serves kaiseki in a dining hall built on Kaga vegetables and fish from Hashidate and Shioya ports, and Yuzankaku an all-you-can-eat buffet instead, while Hatori in Yamashiro serves a ginger-and-koji kaiseki in private rooms, with winter crab adding ¥4,400–33,000 per person. At Kagari Kisshotei in Yamanaka, dinner is a restaurant meal with free drinks and unlimited tempura or Noto-pork shabu-shabu, with nodoguro and crab plans in season. Tawaraya, also in Yamanaka, serves its Kaga kaiseki on Yamanaka lacquer and Kutani porcelain, with menus that explain each dish and its producers and tagged Kano crab plans from November to March. Also in Yamashiro, Rurikoh, Hatori's larger 116-room sister, stands five minutes' walk from it and about ten from the Sōyu and Kosōyu public baths, 15–20 minutes from Kaga Onsen Station by its free shuttle; a booking site lists its shared baths of Yamashiro's alkaline simple spring as water-added, heated and recirculated, and only the Hoshi wing's Type A suites have onsen in their outdoor tubs.

Houshi (classic) in Awazu is the history pick, with a registered garden and a family line going back centuries, but its buildings are tired and its shared baths are recirculated and chlorinated. In Yamashiro, Beniya Mukayu (premium) gives every room an open-air bath of source-fed water and cooking reviewers call outstanding; the trade-offs are stairs, outdoor walks to some rooms and an open dining room. Araya Totoan (premium) has the most generous free-flowing water, three swapping baths and private dining rooms, though some top-end winter stays disappointed on value. Yuzankaku (value), a big 1952 inn in Yamashiro now run as an all-inclusive house for families and groups, wins on price at most often ¥10,000–22,000 per person, with free drinks and oden from 15:00, a buffet with all-you-can-eat snow-crab legs, sweet shrimp and Ishikawa sake, and plenty for children; but its water is heated and recirculated, the building is worn and musty, the crab is often thin, and its baths were repeatedly out of action in 2026. Also in Yamashiro, on the main street about five minutes' walk from the Sōyu and Kosōyu public baths, Hatori (classic) is the mid-priced middle ground: a 67-room house with a free self-service lounge serving drinks and snacks from 15:00 through the night, a Kaga ikkō-ikki taiko show on Friday to Sunday nights, free bathing at its sister inn Rurikoh and eight single rooms for solo travellers, with a standard room and the basic kaiseki at about ¥50,800–53,200 for two. Unlike Mukayu's source-fed room baths, though, the outdoor tubs in its six suites are filled from the tap and are not onsen, its shared baths use Yamashiro's piped town-supply water and are not free-flowing, and 2025–2026 guests report worn suite tubs, thin walls, mould in air conditioners and rushed explanations. In Yamanaka Onsen, Hanatsubaki (value), a 48-room inn at the far upstream end beside the Shinsenkyō gorge, is built around the Yubatake: fifteen small riverside tubs fed by its own spring, where everyone bathes together in the inn's bathing robes. Rooms are big and renovated, and the standard two-meal plan starts at ¥17,710 per person; but the Yubatake is 65 steps below the lobby, its tubs were too cool or too hot for guests in 2025–2026, and its women-only section is closed for construction with no reopening date. Also in Yamanaka, Kagari Kisshotei (classic), a 48-room inn opened in 2009 and stepped down the Kakusenkei gorge beside Korogi Bridge, with every room facing the river, is the lively family alternative: from about ¥22,000 per person with two meals, it adds free beer, wine and local sake at dinner, 24-hour lobby coffee, an evening pudding and weekend taiko drumming. Unlike Hanatsubaki's shared Yubatake, its two riverside baths are separate and never swap; the women's side has a one-metre-deep standing bath, while the men's outdoor bath is small. Only three top rooms have a free-flowing spring bath (from about ¥37,000) and three more an onsen-fed tub (from about ¥29,500), the two private baths cost ¥3,000 for 45 minutes, and 2026 guests mention dated rooms, worn unit baths and thin walls. Also on the Kakusenkei gorge, five minutes' walk from Ayatori Bridge and the Kiku-no-Yu public bath, Tawaraya (classic) is Yamanaka's history pick: the only one of the spa's twelve founding inns still operating, it is now a 43-room house built down the gorge, with the lobby on the fifth floor and the baths at river level. Its draws are Kakusen, a big open-air bath right beside the river, and inventive Kaga kaiseki for a fair price, at about ¥17,000–41,000 per person with two meals, and Japanese guests rate it 4.7 across 1,238 reviews on one major site. Unlike Kagari Kisshotei's, its two large baths swap between men and women overnight, and since 2023 it has added suites with their own open-air spring bath; but a booking site lists its water as heated and recirculated, the cheapest old-wing rooms have no bath, nobody shows you to your room, and insects get into the in-room baths in late summer. Rurikoh (classic) is the big, lively choice for families and groups: a free taiko show at 21:00 every night, free lobby drinks around the clock, karaoke, a summer pool and huge baths open 24 hours, with a standard room and two meals at about ¥19,800–26,000 per person (Hoshi suites above ¥30,000, winter crab ¥4,400–33,000 extra). The catches are a long flight of stairs down to the baths that several 2026 guests with older parents found hard or impossible, and complaints from late 2025 to October 2026 of dust, a changing-room floor patched with tape and food some found merely average.