We stayed in a traditional Japanese Ryokan with a PRIVATE onsen!

We stayed in a traditional Japanese Ryokan with a PRIVATE onsen!

We’ve spent the last week roadtpping around part of Japan in the cutest little camper van. But for the next part of our Japan adventure, we’re taking a quick break from van life to stay in a Riaon. Riaons are traditional Japanese ins that date back centuries. Here you’ll find tatami mat floors, Japanese style beds. It feels like we made a pillow fort. We’re having a slumber party to sleep. Elaborate kiaki meals and relaxing hot springs called onens. And for the next 48 hours, we’re going to be staying in our first Riaon with our own private onen for the ultimate relaxing Japanese experience. [Music] Staying in a Rioon is one of the experiences we wanted to have the most here in Japan. And while you can experience these all over the country, we are in Akon, a picturesque mountain town that is known specifically for its riocons and natural hot springs. There are so many riacons to choose from here across many price points, but we decided to stay at Hakon Suo, which is that building right there right on the river. [Music] Very nice. This is very cool. One of the features of a Rioon is you get a yucata to wear. So before we give you the tour, we’re going to get properly dressed. There it is. Okay. I read that you do right and then left. If you do left then right, that’s what they do for funerals. So you need to make sure you get it the correct way here. And then wrap it around just like that. And just have it go around the other side. Oh, and then you tie it. Okay. Knot it. And then you spin it around. Ta. Now we’re ready to reon. Hakon Suesso has a handful of different room types, but we are staying in their Japanese style room with open air bath. And when you first walk in, you enter this little room, which is where you store your shoes because you’re not allowed to wear your outside shoes in the room. And this is also where you’ll find the toilet, which is separate from the rest of the bathroom. And just like basically every single toilet here in Japan, you have a seat warmer, which is the best, as well as a bedet. And then you enter the main room, which you’ll notice is super simple and open. We have tatami matte floors which is a traditional Japanese flooring made out of grass and straw plus wooden accents which are common features of riacons. And all that is in this room is this low table and chairs which have some tea making supplies plus this sweet little treat called onen mju which we’ll share about later on. And then on this wall we have a TV, a kettle and a fridge. So you may be wondering where is the bed? Some of the rooms here do have western style beds, but we decided to go the more traditional Japanese route, and we will be sleeping on futons, which we’ll show you later once it gets all set up. And then through this door is the rest of the bathroom. In this section of the bathroom, we have the sink, which comes with quite a few amenities. You have different lotions and soaps. And then in this drawer, you have a toothbrush, a razor, shower cap, all sorts of little goodies. And then if you push this door, you enter the shower. So the common way to shower at an onen is to sit on a stool. In the shower, we have both body soap, shampoo, and conditioner that you can either fill up this little bucket to rinse yourself off or we have a traditional shower head as well. And you may notice that we have another door in the shower. And this leads to our favorite part of the entire room, the patio. Our patio not only overlooks the river and a waterfall, but we also have our own private onen. Not all of the rooms here offer this, but if you get a room without one, they do have a shared onson as well as private ones that you can reserve. One of our number one requirements when picking a Rioon was to have our own private onen. That way we had flexibility on when we can use it as well as it would be much easier to share the experience this way. But you may be curious what the privacy situation is like because part of this patio is exposed to the outside world. But for the most part, I don’t think anyone ever really hangs out on that side of the river. We did just see a man walking over there. So, we’re going to have to be careful cuz we will be naked. Um, but we also have this partition that kind of helps create some privacy. And if they see something, I hope you enjoy the show. That about does it for the room tour. But a couple more important things to know about staying in a Rioon. Some of them don’t open up for bookings until closer to the date. This one wasn’t bookable until 5 months out. They also aren’t the cheapest experience. We spent about $425 per night for the two of us, which is the most expensive lodging we have ever booked. And I’ll say this is about mid-range for this area. We saw some with less amenities for cheaper, but many for $500 to even $1,000 per night. Yesterday was our 11-year wedding anniversary, so we figured we’d use this as an excuse to splurge a little bit. But one perk is that the price we paid includes both breakfast and dinner. There are set times for the meals, and we have a couple hours until dinner, so we’re going to go for a soak. But before we do, there are some important rules to know before soaking in an onen. I know this feels very infoheavy, but there is just quite a bit to know before staying at a Rioon or soaking in an onen. So you know what to expect and you can respect the culture. And the first rule is many onins do not allow tattoos. So if you have tattoos, you will need to research which ones do allow them. Also, you are required to shower beforehand to wash off your body. And you also need to make sure that if you have longer hair that you put it up so your hair does not touch the water. And then lastly, the proper way to soak is naked. This is so you don’t contaminate the water with any other kind of materials. And this is the case at public onins as well. So, if you’re in an onen with strangers, you will all be naked. However, we did visit an onen on the IU Peninsula in our last video, which was a mixed onen, and so they actually required bathing suits, but that’s normally not the case. So, we’re going to have to uh get a little bit creative with the angles to film parts of this video. Oh, yeah, baby. That’s hot, but it feels so nice. What a view too. Waterfall over there. The views, the sounds, just peaceful. [Music] This is absolutely amazing. So relaxing. [Music] [Music] Oh my gosh, we have so much food. There’s no way we’re going to be able to eat all this. So, at some Riaons, you eat in your own room or you go to a shared dining space, but for our room, we actually go to a separate private dining room. And we have quite the spread here. When we first walked in, there was a good amount of food. And then she came back and brought more. And then she came back and brought even more. So this kind of dinner is called a ki, which is basically a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. And it has all sorts of things. It focuses a lot on local and seasonal ingredients. So the menu is constantly changing. And they have this nice little cheat sheet to kind of help walk you through it. There’s nine different courses on this table and we have everything from fresh fish to vegetables to simmering beef to soba to rice. There is so so much food. We’ve never had a meal like this where there’s tons of courses. We’ve maybe had like a three or four course meal. This one, like Catherine said, is nine courses. And then everything is like one bite of everything. You don’t have just like a big steak or a big piece of fish or something. Everything is completely different. If I’m being completely honest, the meals here at the Riaon are going to be a little out of my comfort zone as someone who doesn’t eat a lot of fish, but I’m gonna embrace it and I’m gonna try everything. And first, we have this taro with a miso sauce. M. Wo. I thought it was going to be like much gummier. It kind of just like melted. I have a feeling I’ll be saying this a lot, but that was unlike anything I’ve ever eaten before. Lots of different textures. Yeah, a lot of different textures and flavors. That duck is pretty good. Mhm. The duck is good. Every single dish and individual bite to eat is so beautiful. It’s very colorful and it’s plated very nicely and it’s even decorated with little flowers. You almost don’t even want to eat anything. Very big guy. Got some good tuna. Now it’s time for the main course. And this is probably the thing that’s most familiar to us. We have some beef here. There’s eggplant. There’s some pumpkin in here. These mushrooms. That’s a really good sauce and really good beef. It’s like meat butter. So good. And now it is time for the dessert. Another beautiful plate. We have five different little dishes here. Some are just some fruits. This is some grapes. This is some pear, I believe. This is a pimmen dish. This is a mini apple, which it’s like a frozen little handmade apple thing. And then we have some sweet potato ice cream. One fruit that I’ve noticed a lot of here in Japan are grapes. We’ve seen them everywhere and they just look so big and so juicy, but we have yet to try one. This one, this is the largest grape I’ve ever had. Oh, wo. It’s so juicy. It was almost like a water balloon. I bit into it. It was just delicious grape juice. Such a strong grape flavor. I totally see now why grapes are everywhere here. I think we did a pretty good job. I am so stuffed. I’ve got to loosen my belt. While we were eating dinner, they came into our room and turned it into bed mode. These are our futons that we’re going to be sleeping on tonight. It’s basically just a maybe 4 in pad on the floor with sheets, a pillow, and this comforter, which I just think this looks like it has six-pack abs. So, every time I look at it, I smile. All right, let’s test out how comfy this is. It’s actually really comfortable. Pretty good cushion, but then it’s got the firmness of the floor underneath it. But this is pretty nice. Although all this so far away, these are actually a lot larger than I thought they would be. I thought they’d be a lot skinnier and we’d be closer together, but I think together it’s probably at least a king bed. Oh, yeah. It’s really large. And I’ve read mixed reviews on the comfort level of these. Some people love them, some people hate them. We decided if we’re going to do this, we’re going all in on traditional and we’re going to sleep on the floor. And we just thought it sounded way more fun. And yeah, it’s honestly not bad. We’ve been sleeping in a van the last week, which has been pretty comfortable. I would say this feels actually really similar to it. Yeah. So, I don’t know. Maybe our comfort standards are different than other people. It feels like we made a pillow for it. We’re having a slumber party. It’s like a sleepover. Good night. So early. I was slightly nervous about sleeping on the futons. We have camped dozens and dozens of times. So, I’ve slept on the ground many times before, but I just wasn’t sure how I would like it. And I slept fantastic. I also had a great night’s sleep. These futon mattresses have a good amount of cushion, and the sheets are nice and soft. This AC was blasting, so it was cold in here, so the the comforters were nice and warm, and I just slept like a baby. This morning we’re having our first ever traditional Japanese breakfast, which is unlike any breakfast that I have ever had before. Unfortunately, this one did not come with a little menu or a cheat sheet, so I’m not 100% sure what everything is, but we have a whole fish to enjoy. Tons of little small dishes. It looks like we have some raw fish. We have some teeny tiny the teeniest little fish I’ve ever seen right here. some vegetables, miso soup, and then for dessert, we have this delicious looking fruit. [Music] Considering we normally do not eat this early in the morning, and some of these foods were definitely a bit adventurous for us, I think we did a pretty good job tackling our first Japanese breakfast. You do not have to eat the meals if you stay here. We paid extra to have that included in our package. You can also just choose to have one dinner, one breakfast. just kind of pick and choose what you would like. But even though some of the food here has not been necessarily things we would normally eat on our own, we wanted the full experience. So, we decided to eat all of our meals here. And I’m really glad we did because we could go get ramen or something else any other time in Japan. But this really just adds to the experience to get to eat the very traditional food. The one food I know I’m for sure going to like is this dessert. She told us to pour this honey on top of it. Oh yeah, it tastes just like a key lime pie. Besides staying in a Rioan, there are a bunch of other things to do in the area. Yesterday before checking in, we enjoyed tea and mochi at Hakon Amasake Tea House, which is an incredible traditional Japanese tea house. We also grabbed coffee at a cool spot called Coffee Camp and Big as your face burgers at Boxburger. And it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in my life. And we went to the Open Air Museum, which is this outdoor museum with gardens, tons of sculptures, including some that you can interact with and also ones that move. It was amazing. But this morning, we wanted to experience some of the volcanic activity that makes this area perfect for onen. So, we’re off to Awakani. And to get there, we’re going to utilize some of Hakon’s public transportation. [Music] Hakon has quite a few different transportation methods to get around. They have a train, buses, a ropeway, cable car, and even a boat. And to get to Oakuani, we’ll be taking the train, then one of the cable cars, and then the Hakon ropeway. And we’re using a pass called the Hakone Free Pass, which despite its name is not free, but it does give you unlimited access to all the public transportation for either two or 3 days, plus the option to add on a train to and from Tokyo. [Music] So, this train has to climb up the mountains, but it’s too steep to go directly up. So, it has to go on some switchbacks. So, we just went forward, switched the track, and then now we’re going up. I think we’re going to switch around again so then we can go up this way. So cool. Never seen that in a train before. This is such a steep train ride. We’re apparently going at an 80% grade right now, which is the steepest in Japan and the second steepest in the world. [Music] So, a rookie mistake. I dressed for the weather at the Riaon, not the weather up in the mountains. Thankfully, I did bring a jacket, but I’m wearing shorts and it’s kind of cold. So, learn from my mistakes and just remember it gets colder the higher up you go and bring layers. [Music] It’s stinky. Smells like sulfur and rotten eggs. Awakani means great boiling valley and is a volcanic valley that was formed around 3,000 years ago during an eruption of Mount Hakon. Today, the area is still an active volcanic zone, which is evidenced by the steamy sulfur vents that fill the air and the sulfur mine below, plus the dead trees from an eruption in 2015. So, this area is known for a few fun different food items. And first, we have black hardboiled eggs. And these are black because they are cooked in hot spring water. And there’s a chemical reaction that happens that turns the shell black. And apparently these are supposed to extend your life by 7 years. I’ve got four of them. So I’m going to be here for 28 years longer. 128. Here we go. Yeah. So even the outside is black. The inside is just like normal. Peels pretty easy. So they know how to cook them. It’s also fitting to eat these considering how it smells up here. It’s It smells just like a hard-boiled egg factory in here. Or everybody’s just got really upset stomachs. They’re still nice and warm, too. That’s a really good hard-boiled egg. Unfortunately, our microphone stopped working for a second. But another must try food item here is black ice cream. And as you can see, we had a lot of laughs while eating this. So, we had signed up for this tour that they offer where you can get closer to the geothermal features, but they do cancel it in bad weather. And unfortunately, it was cancelled today. So, instead, we’re going to head back to the Rioon because we have hot green tea and a steamy onen calling our names to help warm us up. [Music] As we mentioned, our room came with some an onsen mju, which is a steamed bun with a sweet bean paste inside, and it has a little hot spring imprinted on the outside. Has a good sweetness to it. The bun is nice and kind of sticky on the outside and then pretty soft and and cushy. [Music] [Music] After a relaxing afternoon, the doorbell rang, signaling it was time for dinner. And just like last night, we had a nine course feast, but this time with all new food items, including lots of fish, a delicious creamy cheese bake, and so much more. But what I’m most excited for is the shaboo shaboo, which is Japanese hot pot. We’ve got some beef in there, some mushrooms, all kinds of greens, and other goodies. Cooking up right now. It’s cooking right now. That beef is so good. Yeah. Seriously, it melts in your mouth. We’re ending our day by having a little movie night. We’re watching Kiki’s Delivery Service, which is a studio Ghibli film, which is a Japanese animation studio. And this movie is kind of what inspired naming our adorable little mini camper van Kiki because it’s delivering us all around Japan. [Music] It’s about time to check out of the Riaon and that was a wonderful experience. It’s exactly the type of experience we love to have while we’re traveling. We get to immerse ourselves in the local culture and just do something new for us. We loved everything about it. But I think our favorite part was just how relaxing it was. We got to spend so much quality quiet and relaxing time together. And I don’t think I have ever been cleaner from how many showers I took to get into that onsen. But from here, we’re heading back into our beloved camper van, Kiki, and heading to the famous Mount Fuji. [Music]

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One of the top experiences we wanted to have in Japan was staying at a ryokan. These are traditional Japanese inns that feature tatami mat floors, Japanese style beds, elaborate kaiseki meals, and often have onsens (hot springs) to enjoy as well.

And one of the most popular towns to stay in a ryokan is Hakone! So for 48 hours we traded our mini campervan for a room at Hakone Suimeisou, a ryokan located right on the river, with our own private onsen on our patio. We enjoyed many relaxing soaks, sipped on tea, wore yukatas, ate beautiful 9 course dinners, and slept on futon beds on the floor.

It was a relaxing and rejuvenating couple of days, filled with many new experiences that made us feel more connected to Japanese culture.

📅 This video was filmed in mid October 2025
♨️ Stay at Hakone Suimeisou: https://booking.tpx.gr/dYiBj9rx

📍Locations in this video
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/3/edit?mid=1wuxKTWo1sKAxi6gdu5q-cPMKmE-mn4Q&usp=sharing

⌚Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:42 Ryokan room tour
04:28 Things to know before booking a ryokan
05:11 Soaking on our PRIVATE onsen (+ rules to know!)
07:00 Our 9 course kaiseki dinner
10:25 We’re sleeping on the floor!
12:06 How did we sleep?
12:42 Trying our first traditional Japanese breakfast
14:20 Fun things to do in Hakone
15:05 Visiting Owakudani
19:07 A relaxing afternoon at the ryokan
20:00 Tackling another massive feast!
21:13 Our final thoughts on staying in a ryokan
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👋🏼 About us
Hi y’all! We’re Adam, Kathryn, and Kona, an adventurous married couple (+ pup!) living on the road in our self-converted sprinter van! You can often find us driving all around the US and Canada, scoping out the best coffee shops, eating tacos and ice cream (we’re a 5+ taco and 2+ scoop household), and enjoying nature.

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