Waita Onsen Oguni

Waita Onsen Oguni is located in Oguni Town in Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu, in the Kuju Highlands adjacent to Aso-Kuju National Park — a highland plateau of rolling grasslands, volcanic peaks, and Japan's most extensive caldera, the Aso Caldera, which at 25 kilometres across is one of the largest active volcanic calderas on Earth. The calcic thermal waters of Waita emerge from the rich geothermal activity beneath the Kuju Mountains, and the Waita area is celebrated for its concentration of traditional yudamari onsen where locals manage cooperative bathhouses fed by communally shared hot spring water. Oguni is also famous for its sugi cedar forests and the Hinokuma Shrine surrounded by ancient Japanese cedars, making the onsen area one of the most authentically rural and communally rooted thermal destinations in all of Kyushu.