About11 SAUNAS & SAUNNER2026.11.11 11:11　Totonoe no hi

An outdoor sauna standing in a birch forest 1,450 meters above sea level in Koumi, Nagano. The log cabin sauna, completed in May 2026, is a "white smoke sauna" heated with firewood for six to seven hours, storing heat to the core of more than 600 kg of sauna stones. It builds on the mechanism of a traditional smoke sauna, adding a chimney, a lid, and firebricks for greater safety. For löyly, water is gently dropped onto a single point of the stones; the steam bursts into fine particles, gathers beneath the high ceiling, and slowly envelops the whole body.
A "Herbal Ritual" led by a herbal meister is built into the sauna experience. The scents of birch and Japanese oak from the forests of Koumi fill the room, and time flows as you breathe in the forest air deeply.
The cold bath uses underground water that has taken about 50 years to filter through the land of Kita-Yatsugatake. Moving from the kakeyu rinse and a lukewarm tub on to a wine barrel, the water grows colder while keeping its soft feel, so you can cool your body to your preferred temperature. In the open-air rest area, you can gaze at the sky and the Yatsugatake mountains through the birch trees. In the crisp, clear highland air, lean back in an infinity chair and let the breeze gently stroke your flushed body.
*Closed in winter. The 2026 winter closure is scheduled to begin in late November, so please check the official website for the latest opening information.

A public sauna right in front of Kamakura Station, a three-minute walk from the West Exit, where men and women bathe together in swimsuits. The bandai-style counter at the entrance is a front door open to the town, expressing respect for Showa-era sento culture through new design.
The sauna, supervised by the academic sauna label "madsaunist," is equipped with "MAD ENGINE," an electric steam generator introduced for the first time in Japan. On the left and right sides of the room, guests can experience saturated steam and superheated steam, each generated separately. Combined with a proprietary air intake system, both kinds of steam are truly hot and moist, yet never make breathing difficult. "Human Löyly," a unique bathing method in which you pour cold water over your whole body once your body temperature and heart rate have risen, lowers your surface temperature so you can keep bathing and warm up deep inside.
The indoor rest area has low benches, round tables, and plants, where post-sauna conversations naturally arise. The rooftop open-air rest area was designed by Makoto Tanijiri (SUPPOSE DESIGN OFFICE), who imagined "the comfort of Nobita relaxing on the rooftop in Doraemon." Lie back on the wide deck overlooking Kamakura, and your view fills with sky. The breeze passes through a quiet you would never expect in front of a station, carrying the occasional sound of temple bells and trains. Wrapped in sky and wind, you lose track of time.

A private sauna nestled in Tsunaba-machi, Hakata, Fukuoka. It has six fully private rooms, each meticulously designed down to the heat, humidity, light, scent, and feel of the water; the moment the door closes, the world turns to stillness. With löyly using your choice of herbs or tea leaves, aromas unfold in layers and deeply unwind the mind. Every cold bath is deep enough for full-body immersion, filled with weakly alkaline, silica-rich ultra-soft water that gently envelops the body. A level of completion that makes you feel every element has meaning forms the foundation of this place.
The signature room is 2-A, "HIILLOS (Memory of Fire)." Inspired by a ship sailing over white waves bathed in light, the room features, in addition to an electric stove, a Finnish wood-burning stove, the first of its kind in Japan. Fed with firewood from outside the room, it fills the space with the crackle of burning logs, rising heat, and a faint lingering scent, and guests can watch the flickering flames while they rest.
With fire added to an already complete space, the quality of time spent here has deepened even further. Continuing to move beyond completion, SAKURADO receives the award for the second consecutive year.

A small luxury hotel on Saiwaizaka overlooking Hakodate Port, created by renovating the former Russian Consulate. It consists of two buildings: the Consulate Building, which retains traces of its past such as a grand staircase and coffered ceilings, and the Wellness Building, surrounded by 200-year-old Japanese elms. All six guest rooms are suites of over 100 square meters. Every room has a private sauna and cold bath, and four rooms in the Wellness Building also feature semi-outdoor open-air baths.
For dining, guests can choose between "Byakuya," serving French cuisine featuring ingredients from southern Hokkaido, and "Funami," offering Ezo-mae sushi at an eight-seat counter. In the evening, "Hakodadi," a bar opening in the former consulate's dining room, serves seasonal cocktails. In September 2026, it became the first hotel in Hakodate to be awarded One Key in the MICHELIN Keys selection.
"Sanctuary Wellness," the wellness space exclusive to hotel guests, is a vast atrium with a ceiling height of over 7 meters, open from 9 a.m. to midnight. At its center stands a löyly sauna glazed front and back; seated on the wave-like wooden benches, your gaze passes through to Hakodate Port, the mountains, and the green of the elms. Below are a jacuzzi and a small pool, along with a mist sauna. At night, the illuminated sauna seems to float in the darkness.

In 2023, "Sauna Tokyo" in Akasaka drew attention as one of the largest saunas in the Kanto region; in 2022, "Mainichi Sauna" began in Maebashi, Gunma, as a wood-fired sauna specialist. Following their merger in 2025, this facility was born in Makuhari, Chiba, in May 2026.
It houses five sauna rooms, each with a different heat source. The signature "Wood-Fired Sauna" holds up to 34 people and features a custom wood stove by Ken's Metal Work with about 400 kg of stones, while a proprietary steam generator keeps humidity even. The lineup continues with the "Kelo Joki Ranbu Sauna," equipped with the Finnish iki Pro stove; the "Herbal Todana Steam Bath," a reinterpretation of the Edo-period todana-buro cupboard bath; "Meditation Magma Steam," where guests immerse themselves in steam in individually partitioned seats; and "Reiwa Enseki," a constantly humidified far-infrared sauna. Guests can choose their heat according to preference and mood.
There are three cold baths: the "Natural Water Falls," which pours natural groundwater over the body, along with "Cold Water" and "Cool Water." The baths also include an extra-concentrated carbonated spring. In addition to a rest area with about 70 seats, an annex called "Hanare," holding around 20,000 manga volumes, opened in June 2026.

The second location of "Koganeyu," a long-established sento in Kinshicho, Sumida Ward, opened by taking over "Kanazawa Yokujo," a 50-year-old sento in Higashi-Shinjuku. The interior was designed by architect Yuko Nagayama, who preserved fragments of the past such as the original tile paintings and curved ceiling while adding new layers. The bathing area includes a high-concentration carbonated spring at 36–37°C, a medicinal bath at 41–42°C, and a cold bath using natural groundwater.
The sauna zone, "THE CAVE," is divided into two rooms with different characters for men and women. The men's "THE ABYSS" is a cave-like space lined with lava tiles, where two auto-löyly systems and curated music create a sense of immersion. The women's "THE COCOON" is a round room enveloped in curves, where guests can enjoy daily-changing scents through self-löyly. Both sides have "Biho" cold baths, where bubbles rise up from the groundwater; the women's side is kept at 15–16°C.
The bandai (front counter) area features a bar serving house-brewed craft beer and a DJ booth. Its solar water heating system, which warms water for the baths and showers, was installed as the first by a private company to receive approval for a Tokyo Metropolitan Government subsidy.

A day-use bathing facility inside "Kyujitsu Building," a complex in Jozankei, Sapporo. Adjacent to "Jozankei Daiichi Hotel Suizantei," it uses a sodium chloride spring that blends several sources gushing naturally from the bed of the Toyohira River. The source averages about 69°C and is kept as close to free-flowing as possible.
The indoor bath is simple, with a single main tub, but the outdoor area offers the "Sanshin-yoku no Yu," where you can move between full-body, half-body, and quarter-body bathing; the "Asayu," a reclining bath set at a 12.8-degree incline; and even an electric bath. At the center of the sauna, in front of the stove, sits the "Nushi," a ceramic creature resembling a beckoning cat. Though the room is a spacious 25 square meters, capacity is deliberately limited to 15 people (not counting the Nushi), creating a comfortable sense of distance. In addition to auto-löyly from two stoves, it uses aroma water distilled in-house from plants picked at a nearby herb garden.
The cold bath, named "Abiru Mizuburo R18," is limited to guests aged 18 and over: water drips from natural black silica ore from Kaminokuni, Hokkaido, while mist falls from the ceiling. In the men's bath, the tub deepens in six steps from 24 cm to about 130 cm, so you can choose within a single bath anything from easing in at the shallows to sinking up to your shoulders. The building also houses a small art museum set along a 29-meter corridor.

An urban spa inside OIMACHI TRACKS, a complex directly connected to JR Oimachi Station. The men's bath features Japan's first "Tram Sauna," inspired by the train depot at Oimachi Station: a space recreating the interior of a wooden streetcar, where pressing a button by your seat releases steam along with the scent of Western red cedar.
The other sauna, the "Wöyly Kelo Sauna," uses rare kelo wood from the benches to the walls, with a unique structure in which water running down the walls releases fragrance each time it touches the kelo. The women's "Woven Sauna" arranges herbs, medicinal plants, and flowers in woven baskets and flasks, so the steam gathers up their scents.
The men's side has two cold plunges, a "single" bath below 10°C and one at around 15°C, allowing guests to enjoy "cold-cold contrast bathing" between plunges of different temperatures. The building also houses a coworking space where you can head straight to your desk after the sauna, and a restaurant that carries on popular dishes from its sister facilities.

Opened in Yobuko, Saga, this is the final chapter of a trilogy by Amina Collection, an endeavor to express the livelihoods and culture of each place as a sauna experience across three settings: city, nature, and sea. It follows "HARE-TABI SAUNA & INN" in Yokohama Chinatown and "SATOYAMA TERRACE" in Futtsu, Chiba. The name comes from Nakao Jinroku, a whaling master who ran a whaling operation here in the Edo period. Sauna supervision is by Hiroshi Ota, known as "SAUNA OU" (the Sauna King).
The facility has three sauna rooms, each with a distinct character. The squid-themed "Squid Sauna" has large windows overlooking the harbor, and löyly made with herbs and squid ink carries the scent of the sea. The "Kiln Sauna" reuses bricks and clay actually used in a Karatsu ware kiln, with self-löyly using Karatsu tea spreading a toasty aroma. The "Whale Sauna" is a dark space evoking the inside of a whale; during the "spout time" held every 30 minutes, water shoots up onto the stove, wind and steam rush through the room, and a cold mist envelops the heated body: a moment of surprise mixed with pleasure.
There are two cold baths: the "Fish Tank Cold Bath," which uses an actual squid holding tank, and the glass-walled "Sky Cold Bath" floating above the harbor. Reaching it feels like walking out toward the sea, and the moment you sink in, you are wrapped in a sense of floating on the harbor. For resting, there is a foot-and-hip bath that warms only the legs and lower back while you gaze at the harbor, and the "Deep Sea Room," where you sway gently on water beds.

An urban sauna facility located in NEWoMan TAKANAWA North. Its overall producer is Katsuki Tanaka, best known for the manga "Sado," and it is the second location following SAUNAS in Shibuya, opened in 2022. Under the concept of "rest and recovery in the city," it layers a wide range of retreat programs on top of the fundamental experience of sauna, cold plunge, and rest.
The baths comprise five sauna rooms for men and three for women. On the men's side, each room has its own idea: "SOUND," a large sauna holding up to 40 people; "HAMON," an installation space where ripples of water play across the ceiling; "ARC," a spiral structure where the temperature changes with height; "VALO," where aroma diffuses from the walls; and "PANORAMA," overlooking the streets of Takanawa. The women's side offers "LEAVES," dedicated to herbal experiences; "MAALI," for retreats using scrubs and mud; and the same "PANORAMA." A private sauna for whisking, "HUONE," is also available.
At the aroma lab, which houses its own distillery, the essential oils used in the saunas are extracted in-house. With a plant-based restaurant, a workspace, and a nap area also on site, the facility is designed for spending an entire day with the sauna as its starting point.

An urban spa that opened inside Meiji Park in front of Hakata Station. Following TOTOPA MEIJI PARK, the flagship that won SAUNACHELIN two years in a row, this second location is the first to bring the world of TOTOPA to Kyushu. At its core is a single giant Western red cedar from Alaska, estimated to be 800 to 1,000 years old with a trunk 1.37 meters in diameter, which had lain unused for 50 years.
In the men's sauna, a section of the trunk stands at the center as a symbol tree, and even the stove is wrapped in its bark. The heartwood became single-plank benches and a ceiling installation, while the sapwood and offcuts were used for the walls and fixtures: not a single part of the tree went to waste. The women's sauna is also fitted with single-plank benches from the same timber, offering an authentic experience regardless of gender.
The bathing area is finished with tiles from Tajimi in Gifu Prefecture, and features a poppy tile mural created especially for the space by Fukuoka-born artist KYNE. On the men's floor, the cold plunge is a full 120 cm deep, deep enough to fully submerge. An open-air rest area lets guests feel the outside breeze, while an air-conditioned indoor rest area offers a cool place to linger after bathing.