Where to stay in Nara

Three kinds of nightWhere to stay in Nara

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 Nara › 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 Nara is named below.

Looking for a room in Nara 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

Nara Hotel奈良ホテル — Na-ra Ho-te-ru

This is the one to aim for in Nara, and it is a building worth sleeping in. It opened in 1909 as a guest house for the region, and the main wing was designed by Tatsuno Kingo — the architect of Tokyo Station. It is a tiled Japanese roof over a Western interior, and it stands inside Nara Park. 127 rooms.

If you have seen Tokyo Station, you have seen this architect. Here he did the opposite: a Japanese roof and Japanese timber outside, Western rooms inside. You can stand at the entrance and see both ideas at once.
Being inside the park is the whole reason. Nara Park is free and never closes, and the deer come down out of the woods at first light across empty lawns with mist still on the grass. Sleeping here is what puts you on the lawns at that hour.
Todaiji opens at half past seven for much of the year — earlier than almost any other great temple in Japan. From here you can be at the gate when it opens and go up to Nigatsudo, which is free and almost always empty, afterwards.
It is a classic hotel, not a modern one. Corridors are wide, ceilings are high, and there is a piano in the lounge that has been there a very long time. Come for the age of it.

Where: Inside Nara Park itself, on the hill at Takabatake — the deer, Todaiji and Kasuga Taisha are all on foot from the door. About five minutes by car from Kintetsu Nara station, eight from JR Nara.
Address: 1096 Takabatake-cho, Nara
Telephone: 0742-26-3300
Booking: Through the official site, or the booking services below

Worth knowing

Nara deserves a day, not three hours. It is forty-five minutes from Kyoto and most people treat it as an afternoon — which is why the lawns near the cracker sellers are shoulder to shoulder at midday and empty at seven in the morning. Staying here is what turns Nara from a stop into a day. Put maps and paper bags away when you walk out — the deer eat them.

Checked 2026-08-17

MAP Call Official site

Where to stay & onsen