What’s a normal onsen experience for Japanese

Hey everyone,

I'm interested as to what is the normal onsen experience for Japanese families and couples. Do families go on onsen vacations although out the year or only on school break? Is it normal to stay for two nights or is only one the norm? Controversially, what is the least crowded day for ryokan ?

Thanks!

Japanese families, couples and friends go on onsen holidays. It's kind of like a beach holiday on the west, it attracts many different types of people.

Saturday night is almost always the busiest night for touristy areas in Japan - apart from Obon, NYE and Golden Week.

From booking, I've found Tuesday and Wednesday nights tend to be the quietest but this changes from location to location. For example, big package hotels will not change as retirees don't care which day it is!

I can't comment on if people stay 1 night or 2, but I do know that it's very common for many package resorts to have 1 night, food and transport included. There are many onsen reports which have a very different clientele. Some are for package tourists, while some are the height of luxury. I've stayed at both - well apart from the $1000 USD a night ones....

I'm sure others will have plenty to say as well....

Thanks for the insight, mfedley!

I had no idea that friends also tend to go on onsen trips! It's interesting that specific places specialize to certain groups, although that does make sense now that I think about it.

Just wondering about your use of the word "controversially" - "controversial" means something that is often debated or where people have differing opinions. It makes no sense in the context of your question. Why would asking the least busy ryokan nights be controversial?

Sorry, I meant "conversely." I wrote this last night, and I was pretty tired-as you can obviously see, lol.

Places we (a couple) go for hot springs (along with other attractions) are places like Hakone, Kawaguchi-ko, and Nikko, so relatively close places from Tokyo, where we live. We would go on the weekends or take a day off and go Friday - Saturday, as places tend to get packed on Saturday evenings. It might be a day of hiking around, or visiting museums and other places, followed by a good soak in onsen and a meal in a relaxed environment. We tend to stay just one night.

(I'm not Japanese, but) I can't see that staying more than one night in the same onsen ryokan would be a common experience.

To a certain extent, you're just repeating the experience, which will most likely mean diminishing returns. It's a pretty special thing to do, and it's not cheap, so I'd imagine people would look for the best value for money experience, which would not be doing (essentially) the same thing twice.

If I was staying in a hot spring area for more than one night I'd move ryokan, just for variety. In fact, we've done that several times. You get to try another chef's cooking, and you get to try a different selection of baths and rooms.

Another observation is that you come across groups of colleagues sometimes, and sometimes groups of retired people on trips together.

I think that group trips must be fairly common, as, for example, some ryokan have large karaoke rooms which can be booked for big groups.

In fact, we once unwittingly walked into a karaoke room when the singing was in full swing and we didn't realise that it was a group booking until they all got up and left at the same time - about half an hour later, after encouraging us to sing several songs and join in the fun.

In my country at the time, karaoke was really rare, and was generally done in public bars where anyone could walk in and put their name down to sing a song. Groups of friends would go, as would complete strangers. We had no concept of a private booking for karaoke, and so we just thought it was a free for all. I don't think we offended anyone, but we may never know. We exchanged drinks, smiles, and basic greetings, but maybe they all left and asked themselves what on earth those ignorant Europeans were doing gatecrashing their party! Anyway, that's a bit off-topic. Sorry.

Ooh, AK, do you have any recommendations for onsen in Nikko please?