Shima Onsen Toshimaya

A 15-room riverside inn whose every bath — shared, private and in eight of the rooms — runs on its own springs with no water added, no heating and no recirculation; the catch is no lift, a modest dinner for the price and signs of thin staffing

Toshimaya has run as an onsen inn in Shima since the Edo period, according to the village's tourism portal, and today it's a compact 15-room house built right over the Shima river. The draw is the water: the inn owns three springs, and its main source rises on site at about 60°C and 200 litres a minute. Instead of adding cold water, the inn cools it through a heat exchanger chilled with mountain water, then lets it flow through every tub without heating or recirculation, draining them daily — it says it's the only inn in Shima where all baths work this way. Eight rooms have their own spring-fed bath, and there are riverside open-air baths and two bookable private baths. Japanese guests rate it 4.5 across 759 reviews on one major site (baths 4.6, dinner 4.3) and 4.51 across 977 on another (baths 4.66, facilities 4.30). Most recent evidence comes from these booking-site reviews; two 2024 blogs, one written in February snow, back them up. Guests in 2026 praise the sound of the river from bath and room, the fresh water, home-grown rice and attentive staff, many of them from overseas. The complaints repeat: no lift and steep stairs to the basement baths, a satoyama kaiseki some find plain for the price (pork rather than beef, river fish rather than tuna), small shared baths, insects in summer and, in 2024–2025, signs of a short-staffed front desk. Two-meal stays run about ¥19,000–30,000+ per person on 2026 reviews.