⚠Emergency
Home› Nagano›Where to stay
Matsumoto Castle

Where to stay & onsen

We recommend one night at a hot-spring inn.

Three kinds of nightWhere to stay in Nagano

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

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

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 Nagano › Getting around

A guesthouse or minshuku

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

Ask about cashRural areas
See guesthouses and minshuku ›

Our first choice in Nagano is named below.

Looking for a room in Nagano 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

Kanaguya

This is the one to aim for in Nagano, and the building is the reason. The inn has been in the same family for about 260 years, and its main wing, Saigetsuro, is a four-storey wooden building put up in 1936 by a named master carpenter and now a registered cultural property. Two of the buildings here carry that listing. Only 28 rooms. Eight baths inside the building, fed by three different springs.

  • You are staying in the village nearest the monkeys. That matters because the image people come for — snow settling on a wet monkey in the steam — only exists in the coldest weeks, and the best light is early. Coming out from Nagano city for the day means arriving after the coaches.
  • Eight baths, three springs, all inside. You can move between them in a cotton robe without going outside, which is what you want after a morning in the snow.
  • The street outside is the point in the evening. Shibu is a village of bathhouses and people walk between them in cotton robes and wooden sandals, on stone, in the snow.
  • The wooden building is not a replica. It was built in 1936 and it is listed. Floors creak, corridors are narrow, and that is the reason to be here.
Where
Shibu Onsen, Yamanouchi — the closest hot-spring village to the snow monkey valley. From Yudanaka station, a bus of about 10 minutes to Wago-bashi, then two minutes on foot.
Address
2202 Hirao, Yamanouchi-machi, Shimotakai-gun, Nagano
Telephone
0269-33-3131
Booking
Through the official site, or the booking services below
Worth knowing

The walk in to the monkeys is about thirty minutes on packed snow and ice, and there is no way around it. Ask at the desk about the road and the shuttle on the morning; the inn knows the conditions and the bus times better than any website.

Checked 2026-08-17

MAP Call Official site

Where to go next

Places to see› Food & restaurants› Where to stay & onsen› Getting around› With children / with parents› Back to Nagano› Yamanashi› Gifu› Niigata› Toyama›
Photo: Matsumoto Castle by Syced (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credits and licences
⚲Map ✉Call ⚠Emergency