13 Places To Visit In Beppu

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Hot Spring (8)
Wildlife (1)
Viewpoint (1)
Things To Do (1)

1. Umi Jigoku

4 km from city center

Hot Spring

The largest and most photographed of Beppu's hells, a cobalt pond at 98 degrees whose colour comes from dissolved iron sulphate rather than anything living in it. Nothing survives in that water. Around it are lotus ponds and a greenhouse heated by the steam, and there is a free foot bath at the exit. If you only see one hell, the blue is the one people picture when they think of Beppu.

Top Attraction

7 km from city center

Hot Spring

A pond of red clay-laden water, the oldest natural hot spring recorded anywhere in Japan, appearing in documents more than 1,300 years old. It is the only one of the seven that is red, which is reason enough to make the trip. Note that it sits in the Shibaseki cluster about 3 km from the five hells in Kannawa, so you need a bus between them rather than a walk.

Top Attraction

4 km from city center

Wildlife

A forested mountain between Beppu and Oita where around 1,500 wild Japanese macaques live in two troops, with no cages and no enclosures. Staff put out food at set times to bring them down to the viewing plaza, and the monkeys come and go on their own terms. Visitors are asked not to touch, feed or make eye contact. Buy the plain 520 yen ticket rather than the bundle that includes the aquarium.

6 km from city center

Viewpoint

A 1,375 m volcano behind the city with a ropeway to a summit deck, and the only place you can see the whole bay and the steam rising off the hot spring districts in one view. Cherry blossom in spring, rhododendron in early summer and hoarfrost in winter each change what you go for. The ropeway is 1,800 yen return and closes in strong wind, so check before making the trip up.

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5. Kamado Jigoku

4 km from city center

Hot Spring

Six pools of different colours and temperatures in one compound, with staff demonstrations that make steam billow on cue, drinking spring water, steam inhalers and a free foot bath. Of all the hells this is the one you interact with rather than simply look at, which makes it the best single stop if you are only doing one. The name means cooking pot, after a rice offering once steamed here.

1 km from city center

Hot Spring

A bathhouse first opened in 1879 and rebuilt in 1938, with a heavy tiled roof and a wooden interior that has not been modernised. The draw is the sand bath: you lie in a shallow trench while attendants shovel naturally heated black sand over you for around ten minutes. It is the oldest and most atmospheric place in the city to do it, and the queue reflects that.

7. Myoban Onsen

4 km from city center

Hot Spring

A hillside hamlet above the city where thatched huts have been used for 300 years to crystallise yunohana, the mineral bloom that forms as steam cools. You can walk among the huts and watch it being harvested. The baths here are milky and sulphurous rather than clear. Where Kannawa is about looking at hot water, Myoban is about what people have made from it.

4 km from city center

Things To Do

A municipal kitchen where you rent a steam chamber and cook your own food over a 98-degree geothermal vent, the way Kannawa households have done for centuries. Buy a seafood, vegetable or egg set at the counter, or bring your own ingredients and pay for steamer time. Prawns take about 10 minutes, sweet potato closer to 30. Expect a queue at lunch, and the chambers stop taking orders well before th (Read More)e building shuts.

13 km from city center

Day Trip

An onsen town on the far side of Mount Yufu, 50 minutes and about 1,100 yen away by bus, built around a 1.5 km lane of craft shops, galleries and cafes that ends at Lake Kinrin, where hot springs feed the water and mist rises off it on cold mornings. Where Beppu is a working hot spring city, Yufuin is the polished version, and the contrast is the reason to go.

7 km from city center

Hot Spring

A geyser that erupts every 30 to 40 minutes and runs for six to ten minutes, in a small landscaped garden with tiered seating around it. A stone slab caps the jet for safety, so it does not go as high as it naturally would. It is the only hell where the thing you came for happens on a schedule, so plan a short wait. Next door to Chinoike in the Shibaseki pair.

4 km from city center

Hot Spring

Water that leaves the ground clear and turns milky blue-white as it cools and loses pressure, held in a formal Japanese garden of clipped pines and stone lanterns. It is the quietest and most conventionally pretty of the hells, and the one that looks least like a geological curiosity and most like a garden. A short walk from Umi and Kamado in the Kannawa cluster.

3 km from city center

Hot Spring

A day-use bathing complex in Kannawa with waterfall baths that fall on your shoulders, indoor and outdoor tubs, a sand bath and private family baths, and a Michelin listing that is unusual for a public onsen. This matters because the hells nearby are for looking at only. If you want to actually get into Beppu's water while you are in that district, this is where you do it.

1 km from city center

Garden & Park

A large free park in the middle of the city with cherry avenues in spring and a ginkgo walk that turns yellow in November. After a day of sulphur and steam it is the one green, ordinary place on this list, and it is where Beppu itself goes rather than where visitors are sent. Open all hours, no admission.