Ichinoyu Onsen - Toyooka

Excellent yakiniku, the beef was amazing and overall prices were much lower than we expected. Fantastic ice cream after our meal was a pleasant surprise. Great service, five stars

Only other public bath I tried in Kinosaki. I particularly enjoyed their cave pool. Water temperature was perfect and the cave setting was interesting.

Too crowded. They do have a cave theme but it is not that special. So many ppl here and the toilet wasn’t clean. It is stinking. The other public bath in Kinosaki was much better.

Great relaxing Onsen in the morning! Very empty around 11:30am on a weekday. The cave bath was smaller than expected but the temperature was just right. The indoor bath was initially too hot but after being in the cave bath, the indoor one was okay. Pretty shocked by how scorching hot some of these baths can be! The rest area feels kind of old and outdated.

1st onsen on my trip: Fantastic place to relax and unwind. Warm feeling inside when you are at the onsen. You can rent a private onsen closure around $4000 Yen. Great place

Very historical onsen place. The onsen in a cave is very spiritual and relaxing. If you like onsen you should visit. Mizuburo (cold onsen) is not here, that's the only disappoint point but it is not a big problem. Overall, very recommend place !!

Getting To Kinosaki Onsen There are direct trains to Kinosaki from Osaka and Kyoto, depending on what time you leave. I happened to have a JR pass so I wanted to get reserved seating to Kinosaki and back to Osaka. I've been in situations where seats are not available for long train rides and it's not something I wanted to experience again. I went to the JR station in Osaka to make seat reservations.  Unfortunately I missed the train leaving from Osaka to Kinosaki so I had to take the train from Kyoto station.  The tough part was that I had only 20 minutes to make the transfer! Getting from Osaka to Kyoto station is easy.  There are so many trains that go in that direction that it's hard to go wrong. Unfortunately, I went wrong. I took a slower train to Kyoto which left me only 10 minutes to make my transfer. Anxiety was high. Finding the Kinosaki track with 10 minutes to spare before departing was the tough part! I got lost in the station trying to find track 31.  From the Osaka trains, you have to go UP the escalator and then back down another set of escalators (this was my path, probably no escalators necessary).  You won't see another sign for track 31 until FAR down after the last sign you saw. Just believe and keep walking!  I made it by the time they were boarding. There were a lot of people and I'm glad I got an assigned seat. Pack light! I don't remember if there's luggage storage on the train like the Shinkansen, but there's not much room in the car for large luggage. It's dangerous for luggage to be in the aisle and very inconvenient for other people when they walk by. Kinosaki Onsen Town The town is pretty small.  It's composed of several streets and the main street consists of mostly restaurants, cafes and gift shops. It's all they need though since I went to a restaurant, a cafe and a gift shop while in Kinosaki. There are several hot spring (onsen) facilities in Kinosaki. I wanted to go to Goshonoyu but it was closed the day I was there. I did not plan well. It was also raining pretty hard while I was there so I rushed to pick the next best onsen available that day, Ichinoyu. Ichinoyu Hot Spring Review When you enter the facility, you need to take your shoes off, put them in a locker and then take the key. The locker is 100JPY to use but the coin is returned to you after. Next, you go up to the counter and pay the onsen fee.  There's different prices for one-time and multiple visits.  I went with the one-time pass.  You'll also need a large towel and a small one for the bath.  I had neither so I rented a large towel and purchased the small one. I've visited an onsen before in Sapporo so I was familiar with the process.  They had this easy to read guide before entering the locker rooms: You are not allowed to take pictures in the hot spring. The lockers were free to use and the key wrapped around your wrist or ankle.  It was day time in the middle of the week so there were only two other people using the hot spring facilities. The hot spring was "open air" cave style, but there was very little of the open air. I thought the cave and general area was going to be much bigger but was small and confining. The cave did provide good coverage from the rain, but that water was HOT! I left after 15 minutes because that's all I could stand. I really pushed it to that 15 minutes only because the journey there took 3.5 hours. After getting out of the hot spring, showering and changing I went to the lounge area.  There are vending machines and massage chairs (for a fee).  I helped myself to a yogurt drink, but purchased it because I thought it was milk.

CASH ONLY - both indoor and outdoor bath, outdoor bath is covered to look like a cave - water is maybe 2.5’ shallow, women’s section is directly adjacent to men’s section so you can hear what is said on the other side. Water outside is warm not HOT, you barely feel like you are outside except the air is much colder. Inside is bigger than Yanagiyu Onsen, so that’s a plus ?. Indoor bath water is hotter than outside, maybe 3.5’ at deep (hot) end w small jets at shallow end.