Ine Onsen

Ine Onsen is an intimate thermal facility in the remote fishing village of Ine on the northern tip of the Tango Peninsula, where the extraordinary funaya (boat houses)—traditional wooden dwellings built directly above the sea with boat garages at water level, dating from the Edo period—line the sheltered cove of Ine Bay in an architectural tradition designated an Important Preservation District for Historic Buildings that is unique in Japan. The thermal mineral waters warm bathers in a fishing community of around 230 households that sustains one of Japan's most photogenic and least-changed traditional coastal lifestyles, where fishing boats pull out each morning under the same dawn that fishermen have greeted here for four centuries. Ine's extraordinary boat house village, its wild Sea of Japan coastal scenery, and the quiet authenticity of its thermal bathing culture make this one of Japan's most genuinely remote and rewarding onsen experiences.