Chorakuen

Japan's biggest mixed open-air bath in a 10,000-tsubo garden, made approachable with bathing wraps for everyone — at a big, dated, Showa-era inn with so-so food

Chorakuen was founded in 1868 by the family who managed Tamatsukuri's hot spring in the Edo period, and it is famous for one thing: Ryugu-no-yu, a 1909 garden bath of 395㎡ that the inn calls the largest mixed open-air bath in Japan. Unusually, it's easy for first-timers — wraps for women (in several sizes, including children's) and paper trunks for men are provided, and women reach it from a women-only indoor bath with its own powder room — 'you wear a wrap, so it isn't intimidating even for women', one guest wrote. Japanese guests rate the baths highest (4.6 across 3,626 reviews on one site; 4.47 across 1,935 on another) and praise the garden and staff. Everything else is more mixed. It's a large inn of around 60 rooms that reviewers repeatedly call old — rotary phones, a musty old room bath, a moldy shared toilet, confusing extensions, hot corridors without central air-conditioning — and the food, served in banquet halls unless you pay for a private room, is often described as set out in advance and unremarkable. There is also a gap between the 'no heating, no dilution' claim and a posted notice at the indoor baths listing chlorine, recirculation and added water. Basic plans start around ¥18,150 per person with two meals.