Jozankei Yuraku Soan

Yuraku Soan is a 102-room hot spring inn in the Jozankei valley south of Sapporo, opened by the Kyoritsu Resort group in November 2022 and fully from February 2023. Rooms are Japanese in feel with Western beds, 35 to 89 sq m, facing the gorge and the Toyohira River or the road. Every one has its own natural hot spring bath cut from hiba cypress; a button outside the bathroom door draws the water.

The spring is a sodium chloride water (ナトリウム-塩化物温泉), and the inn is direct about it: the source runs too hot, so it is diluted, and bathhouse water is recirculated rather than free-flowing. The men’s and women’s bathhouses each hold indoor cypress and rock baths, an open-air bath, a dry sauna, a cold plunge and a seated bedrock sauna (岩盤浴); one tub is plain hot water. Four private open-air baths — hiba, hinoki cypress, ceramic and stone — sit on the ground floor, free and unlimited. They cannot be booked at all: a lamp at the door tells you whether one is free.

Dinner is 和会席, a Japanese kaiseki course of Hokkaido produce, served downstairs at 17:30 or 20:00 in sittings set at check-in. Meals are not served in rooms. Free soy-sauce ramen (夜鳴きそば, night-call noodles) is put out from 22:00 to 23:00.

Check-in 15:00, last arrival 19:00; check-out 11:00. A free shuttle leaves Sapporo Station’s north exit at 14:30 and returns at 10:30; book ahead, seats limited. By car, about 45 minutes from central Sapporo.