Magoroku Onsen Rokuan

Nyūtō's old self-catering hideaway, reborn in 2025 as a six-room inn with a barrel sauna, robed mixed baths and counter kaiseki — beautiful, remote and pricey, with early reviews still mixed

Magoroku has been a hot-spring retreat at the far end of the Nyūtō valley since a man named Taguchi Kyūkichi built a bathing hut here in 1906; for most of a century it was a famously rustic, inexpensive inn. It closed in 2022 for lack of a successor, and with backing from the other Nyūtō inns it reopened in 2025 under new operators as Magoroku Onsen Rokuan: just six rooms for up to 12 guests — three detached rooms with private open-air baths and three Japanese-Western rooms — each with its own bath, toilet, heating and Simmons beds, a barrel sauna with cold plunge, and a counter-style kaiseki dinner with a sommelier. The baths are the inn's own sulphur and simple springs, free-flowing with water added; the open-air bath and the cave-like Ishi-no-yu are mixed, with bathing robes required, and the hiba-lined Karako-no-yu is separate for men and women. There's no car access: you walk in from the parking or bus stop, about 15 minutes in winter on a snowy path. Early guests rate it 4.38 across 17 reviews on one leading site, praising the setting, rooms and creative dinners, while others found it overpriced for what it delivers — an ordinary breakfast, a counter where every conversation carries, cooking slips, and service still finding its feet. Expect about ¥45,000–76,000 per person with two meals.