Unzen Miyazaki Ryokan

Unzen's 1929 inn, rebuilt from scratch in 2022 as a dim, design-award-winning 39-room house above the steaming Jigoku — milky free-flowing sulphur baths and widely praised local cooking, but most rooms have only a shower and the shared baths close at 9am

Miyazaki Ryokan opened in Unzen in 1929 and, after a full rebuild, reopened in December 2022 with fewer than half its old rooms — 39 in all — as a modern inn that bloggers say won a 2023 Good Design Award. Every room faces the Japanese garden, laid out at the founding and steaming with three small jigoku vents, and the sulphur-fumed hills beyond; lighting is kept deliberately low so the view stands out. The baths draw a milky, acidic sulphur spring from Daikyōkan Jigoku next door, and the inn says every bath is free-flowing. Japanese guests rate it 4.92 across 850 reviews on one major site, 4.78 across 168 on another (meals and baths 4.80) and 4.7 across 24 on a third. Bloggers who stayed in February 2024, August 2024 and one spring before Golden Week loved the garden views, a creative course of local seafood, Nagasaki wagyu fillet and kamado-cooked Unzen rice, free in-room drinks, and on the top floor a lounge with wine at any hour. Know before you book: the 32 standard twins have a shower booth but no tub, and only the seven fourth-floor rooms have an onsen bath. The shared baths shut at 9:00, so there's no soak after breakfast. Complaints in 2025–2026 mention rooms, corridors and washrooms that are too dark, a compact main bath, dinners that felt over-elaborate, serving staff who couldn't answer questions about the fish or sake, and one guest who found it poor value. Two-meal stays start around ¥30,000 per person; one blogger paid about ¥108,000 for two in a top-floor room.