Japan's Hidden Hot Springs Paperback – January 1, 1995

Japan has a lot to offer its visitors: exquisite food, masterful handicrafts, beautiful landscapes and throbbing metropoles, to name but a few. For those who like me enjoy the Japanese traditional hot springs - this epitome of sensual relaxation - Neff's guide leads you to treasures off the beaten path. The few that I've tested have absolutely lived up to expectation and I hope to visit a few more once travels to Japan are in the cards again.If you're headed to Japan, and have the time for real relaxation, plan with this book.

My wife and I used this guide to plan several onsen trips during my ten years in Japan. It is well written and fairly accurate but at times somewhat misleading. Some of the springs have closed their doors since the book was first published while others have gone into gentle decay... That said, there are some real gems among the recommended onsens and half the fun is getting there...

This book promises remote and hidden hot springs, but in fact many of the onsen in this book are well known, even famous. I have personally visited several of them and I am by no means an onsen afficionado, having visited only a handful of onsens in Japan.The book is also extremely opinionated, and he dismisses many fine locations in favor of the obscure and run down. For example, he dismisses Shibu onsen as "horrific" (we stayed there and really enjoyed it. Chances are you will, too) in favor of Jigokudani - a place many reviewers describe as run down, cold and rustic, and which offers the dubious pleasure of bathing in a rotenburo filled with monkey feaces.The problem with being so critical and holding such strong opinions is that many people, maybe most people, may not agree with you. And once you do find that you disagree, his other reviews become untrustworthy.The book is also very outdated, published 20 years ago and never updated. How much of what he writes is still true today?

This book is somewhat like the dead sea scrolls of onsen -- it is cryptic, out of date, idiosyncratic -- yet nonetheless powerful.In this book are a unbelievable gems that you would otherwise never, ever, find by yourself. Japanese people are often shocked that you found such a place. But they can be hard to find; and sometimes disappointing or abandoned.The date of this book has had its effects. I place that was "slow" 15 years ago can now be a spooky crumbling ruin (especially in Hokaido). Other places have sometimes gotten better.Bottom line: a manual for the onsen purist. You really don't know what kind of place you'll reach using this book, but I can guarantee it will be a real adventure.

"Hidden" is the opperative word here. Unless you're a backpacker with lots of time to take local buses AND are able to speak Japanese, I don't think your average tourist could find any of these places. They seemed really off the beaten track, many in the mountains or up in northern Japan.The book (I had the 1995 edition) didn't even have a good map of the country! I found the organization very confusing with little guidence as to good hot springs visits outside the major tourist cities.A British friend and hot spring enthusiast who spent six months in Japan also said this book was too difficult to use.If you're a backpacker get the Lonely Planet and if you can afford a few $300 nights in an Onsen (it's worth it), get the Price book "Classic Japanese Inns.If you actually live in Japan, with a car and some language skills, you might like this book.

After reading almost every book that is out there on Japanese onsen, I always come back to this one. It's a very concise collection of the "true and traditional" Japanese onsen ryokan. It is for anyone who seeks a traditional experience of what onsen used to be before modernisation set in. His selection stays away from the modern, overpriced, and ugly. Of course you have to be willing to do the extra work to find these onsen, but what the other review says that these are "impossible" to find places, is simply not true, you just have to be willing to look at a map. The book also includes one. Some onsen are in fact very close to Tokyo. My only negative: the rating system is a bit confusing. Overall I highly recommend this book. It's a jem.

I say hidden as books in English on traditional Japanese hot springs (onsens) are rare. Neff is a real traditioalist at heart and refuses to recommend any onsen that has tried to fit in with the modern city-driven development of Japan. His enthusiasm for finding peaceful, beautiful locations, with onsens set in natural locations knows no bounds! Locations given in the book live up to their expectations. This is certainly the best onsen guide showing a side of Japan that has resisted change, and will hopefully continue to do so - see it before it does!