Shikotsuko Marukoma Onsen

Shikotsuko Marukoma Onsen is located on the shores of Lake Shikotsu in the Shikotsu-Toya National Park near Chitose in southwestern Hokkaido, where chloride-rich thermal waters emerge along the caldera lake shore and the historic Marukoma ryokan offers open-air thermal bathing directly beside the lake—one of Japan's deepest and clearest volcanic caldera lakes—in a setting of exceptional natural beauty. The sodium-chloride mineral composition of Marukoma's lakeside onsen waters carries properties valued in Japanese bathing culture for warming the body, conditioning the skin, and the deep relaxation of saline mineral immersion enhanced by the visual drama of bathing at lake level with views of the steam-venting Tarumae volcano across the water. Lake Shikotsu—known as one of Japan's clearest lakes for its exceptional transparency and kept ice-free year-round by geothermal heat from its volcanic caldera—frames this lakeside onsen within one of Hokkaido's most dramatically beautiful volcanic landscapes, where the clarity of the water and the mineral warmth of the earth below create an onsen experience of exceptional natural character.