Yunomine Onsen Yoshinoya Ryokan

Yoshinoya is a small inn in Yunomine Onsen, in Hongu, Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture, northwest of Kumano Hongu Taisha. Yunomine is said to have been discovered in the fourth century by Oato no Sukune, governor of the Kumano region, and with roughly 1,800 years of recorded use it ranks among the oldest hot spring settlements in Japan. Pilgrims on the Kumano Kodo bathed here in the purification rite known as yugori, and at the center of the village lies Tsuboyu, the only hot spring bath in the world inscribed as a World Heritage site. Yoshinoya stands along the valley within walking distance of Tsuboyu, one minute on foot from the Yunomine Onsen bus stop.

The official site posts the water as a sulfur spring of the sodium chloride and bicarbonate type, classified as a sulfur-bearing sodium chloride and bicarbonate spring. The Wakayama Prefecture Hot Spring Association records a source temperature of 83.0 degrees Celsius and a mildly alkaline reading. The inn states that both the indoor bath and the open-air bath are free-flowing from the source, and flakes of mineral bloom drift in the indoor tub. Listed benefits include neuralgia, rheumatism, diabetes, gastroenteritis, gout, skin complaints and gynecological conditions.

There are two bathing places, one indoors and one outdoors. The open-air bath is reserved for private use, up to forty minutes per group, and the indoor bath can also be used privately depending on the hour and how busy the inn is. Bathing is available continuously from check-in at 15:00 until 09:00 the following morning. The inn lists eight guest rooms, all in Japanese style and all non-smoking, with television, yukata, safe, hairdryer and free Wi-Fi. Parking for ten cars is free and both cash and cards are accepted. Rooms with two meals start at 11,000 yen per person for two sharing, tax included, on weekdays, and day-use bathing is offered by prior arrangement at 600 yen for adults and 400 yen for children, bathing tax included.