Where to stay in Kagawa

Three kinds of nightWhere to stay in Kagawa

The choice is really about what kind of night you want. A hot-spring inn feeds you twice and stops you moving. A city hotel is the right answer if you are arriving late or leaving early.

A ryokan or hot-spring inn旅館・温泉宿

Dinner and breakfast brought to you, a bath, and floor bedding laid out while you eat. The price is per person and includes both meals.

Includes 2 meals Book ahead

See ryokan and onsen inns › How an onsen works

A city hotelホテル

Clean, small, reliable and priced per room. Right for early trains, late arrivals and anyone travelling with a large suitcase.

Per roomNear the station

See hotels in Kagawa › Getting around

A guesthouse or minshuku民宿・ゲストハウス

Family-run, cheaper, and often the only option in the countryside.

Ask about cashRural areas

See guesthouses and minshuku ›

Our first choice in Kagawa is named below.

Looking for a room in Kagawa tonight?

MAP How an onsen works

BookingSix things worth asking before you pay

Ask about these

Meals: Whether dinner and breakfast are included, and what time dinner is served. Inns often serve at a fixed time and will not wait
Tattoos: Ask whether the bath admits them, and ask about a private bath
Private bath: Kashikiri. Many inns have one, and it removes the question of bathing with strangers entirely
Payment: Card or cash. Rural inns are often cash only
Arrival time: Tell them. Inns lock up earlier than hotels
Luggage: They will hold it before check-in and after check-out. Just ask

What a night at an inn is like

Shoes: Off at the entrance. Slippers inside; nothing on the straw matting
The robe: A cotton yukata is provided and is worn to dinner and to the bath. Left side over right
Dinner: Many small dishes, often in your room or a dining room at a set time
Bedding: Laid out on the floor, usually while you are eating
Bathing: Before dinner and again before bed is normal here
Breakfast: Rice, fish, egg, pickles. Ask the night before if you need it early

How an onsen works

Our first choice hereThe one we would book

Benesse Houseベネッセハウス — Be-ne-sse Ha-u-su

This is the one to aim for in Kagawa, and it is a museum you sleep inside. It opened in 1992 as one building that is both gallery and hotel, and every part of it was designed by Tadao Ando. Four wings — Museum, Oval, Park and Beach — sixty-five rooms in all, on a headland in the Inland Sea national park.

Guests may look at the art until 23:00, and pay no admission. That is the reason to stay rather than visit. Day visitors are gone by late afternoon, and after that the galleries are open to the people sleeping in the building — including a gallery that is only open to guests.
Standing in a Tadao Ando concrete room at ten at night, alone, with the work in front of you and the sea outside, is not something you can buy as a ticket.
The Oval wing is reached by a private monorail up the hill and has only a handful of rooms around an open water court. Say which wing you want when you book — they are completely different buildings at different prices.
The island is small enough to cycle. The other museums and the works standing outside on the shore are a short ride away, and the famous pumpkin on the pier is free to look at.

Where: On Naoshima island, at Kotobuki-ji on the south coast. Ferries run from Uno in Okayama and from Takamatsu in Kagawa.
Address: Kotobuki-ji, Naoshima-cho, Kagawa-gun, Kagawa 761-3110
Telephone: 087-892-3223
Booking: Through the official site, or the booking services below

Worth knowing

Check the last boat before you go. Boats are not frequent, the last one back to the mainland is early by city standards, and the island museums close on different days from one another — a day trip that ignores this ends with closed doors. Staying the night removes the whole problem. Reservations are taken on the telephone 09:00–18:00.

Checked 2026-08-17

MAP Call Official site

Where to stay & onsen