Kyukamura Nyuto Onsenkyo

Nyuto's easy option: a modern 38-room resort lodge with two free-flowing springs, an outdoor bath in the beech forest, Akita buffets and the bath-hopping bus at the door — comfortable and easy to book, but short on old-inn atmosphere

Kyukamura Nyuto Onsenkyo is the odd one out among Nyuto's seven inns: a 38-room lodge in the Kyukamura chain of 35 resort lodges, set in beech forest inside Towada-Hachimantai National Park. Formerly called Kyukamura Tazawako Kōgen, it opened in 1965, according to a 2026 travel blog, and stay reports describe it as modern and spotless — 'not a hidden spa at all', one solo traveller wrote in December 2024. What it offers instead is ease: a bus stop at the door, the Nyuto bath-hopping bus out front, rooms that can be booked online, and two free-flowing springs under one roof — a lukewarm sodium bicarbonate bath and a hotter, milky simple-sulphur spring that also fills the outdoor bath in the trees. Japanese guests rate it 4.5 across 797 reviews on one major site (baths 4.8) and 4.51 across 566 on another. Reviewers in 2025–2026 praise the water, snow and starry skies; a dinner buffet of Akita dishes, with kiritanpo and mountain-yam hotpots ladled by staff and tempura fried to order; rice with Hinai-jidori egg at breakfast; free 24-hour drinks; and staff who lend towels and bear bells for bath-hopping. Two-thirds of the rooms are tatami and yukata are fine everywhere, but this is not an intimate ryokan: meals are buffets in a shared restaurant, there are no private baths, and the indoor sulphur tub holds about three people. Recent complaints include fewer buffet dishes than before, overflow seating on busy nights, rooms showing their age, a long walk to the baths, horseflies at the outdoor bath in midsummer and one 'poor value' verdict. Expect about ¥18,000–23,000 per person with two meals.