Where to stay in Shimane

Three kinds of nightWhere to stay in Shimane

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 Shimane › 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 Shimane is named below.

Looking for a room in Shimane 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

Takenoya Ryokan竹野屋旅館 — Ta-ke-no-ya

This is the one to aim for in Shimane, and the reason is one minute. It opened in 1877 on the shrine’s own approach street, and the main gate of Izumo Taisha is a minute’s walk from the door. Twenty-one rooms. It was refurbished in 2016, so the building is old and the plumbing is not.

The inn offers an early-morning worship plan with a breakfast served afterwards. That is exactly the right way to see this shrine: the grounds are free and open early, and the row of small halls behind the main building — where the quiet actually is — is two minutes past where most visitors turn round.
You are on the approach street, not out at the station. In the evening the shops shut and the avenue of pines empties, and you can walk it with nobody on it.
Twenty-one rooms means it is small. Book early, particularly around the lunar month when this province claims all the gods gather here.
Ask for warigo soba somewhere on the street — cold buckwheat noodles in three small stacked round boxes, with the sauce poured on rather than dipped. It is the local way and it is only served like this here.

Where: On Shinmon-dori, the approach to Izumo Taisha — about one minute on foot from the main gate
Address: Shinmon-dori, Taisha-cho, Izumo, Shimane
Booking: Through the official site, or the booking services below

Worth knowing

At this shrine you clap four times, not twice. Two for yourself and two for the person you hope to be with. Nobody will correct you if you get it wrong — and now you will not have to be corrected. There is no shinkansen to this prefecture; see the getting-around page before you plan the day, because people consistently underestimate how far Izumo is.

Checked 2026-08-17

MAP Official site

Where to stay & onsen