Hakone
Hakone Gora Byakudan
箱根強羅 白檀
Katsushika Hokusai, “Kajikazawa in Kai Province (Kōshū Kajikazawa), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)” — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0
Byakudan opened in July 2016 at Ninotaira, in the Gora part of Hakone, on roughly 3,700 tsubo (about 12,000 square metres) of deciduous scrub woodland. There are sixteen rooms, Japanese and Japanese-Western in style, from 35 to 100 square metres and all non-smoking. Every one has its own open-air bath fed directly from the source.
The water is the ryokan's own, drawn from a well tower on the grounds at a depth of 480 metres. The house describes it as a golden-tinged spring, unusually concentrated even by Gora standards. The analysis is a weakly alkaline sodium chloride spring at pH 8.0, arriving at 88.9°C at 55 litres a minute — volume enough, as the ryokan itself puts it, to run every bath on flow-through. The communal bath, one for each gender, is half-open to the air and was rebuilt in December 2021.
Dinner is kaiseki, built on fish from nearby Manazuru and Sagami Bay and mountain produce from the Hakone and Izu area; the menu changes about ten times a year, and rice is cooked in a clay pot for each room. Breakfast is a Japanese set meal. Both are served in a dining room rather than in guest rooms. Vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy requests are met as far as the kitchen can manage.
Check-in is 15:00, last arrival 18:00, and check-out 11:00. Free pick-up from Kowakidani Station on the Hakone Tozan Railway can be arranged in advance. Children are accepted. There is also a treatment spa, Kodan.
Why we chose it
Sixteen rooms, each with its own open-air bath, on a plot with its own well 480 metres down. The ryokan draws the connection itself: 88.9°C at 55 litres a minute is volume enough to run the room baths and the half-open communal bath on flow-through. Worth knowing before you book that both meals are served in a dining room, not in the room.
What it has
- Room with private hot spring bath
- Kaiseki dinner
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Prices are indicative and change with dates and availability.
Sources
- Official site (Japanese)
- Official site — hot spring and water analysis (Japanese)
- Official site — guest rooms (Japanese)
- Official site — kaiseki cuisine (Japanese)
- Official site — basic information (Japanese)
- Official site — spa (Japanese)
- Official reservation system — plan list (Japanese)
- Rakuten Travel — facility information (Japanese)
- Ikyu.com — facility page (Japanese)
- Hakone Tourist Association (Japanese)