Who are we?
behind the scenes
Hi there! We are Martin & Chinami, behind the Discover Onsen. As you might have guessed, our main aim is to bring the world of “Japanese Onsen” little bit closer to everyone. We are highly passionate about all things related to onsen. Ever since coming to Japan myself (from Europe), I have been feeling that from the many things Japan has to offer, onsen is by far my favorite.
Yet there always seems to have been little info regarding them (in English at least):
- history of places/areas
- water quality (and where to find them)
- how to best choose your next destination
Having more intimate knowledge about the various aspects of onsen opens up a new world on how we look at “onsen”, the culture, history, societal aspects etc.
We hope to shed more light into all of that. Since this is currently a side project then updates might take some time.. but they are slowly coming! 🙂
info and data
We are part of the Japan Onsen Association, which is the foremost authorative entity in Japan regarding all things “onsen”. Highly recommend giving their website a look as well, although the English site has somewhat limited infromation (compared to Japanese).
Lot of specific information related to all things onsen are from their site. We hope that with Discover Onsen we can dissiminate information from various trustworthy sources and bring the culture, history and smaller nuances of onsen to the wider world!
Being onsen enthusiasts ourselves, we like to collect and travel around various places in Japan (so far mostly around Kanto area.. those precious weekends) and bring more detailed informaton to you one place at a time. The information on the map, is based on pure search hours, but our aim is to grow this as well (there are thousands of places!).
Main aim is help You find the next onsen place to visit! Whether to find a place nearby for a quick jump-in (day use) or to help you plan your next visits and get a better idea as what really is “onsen”. If you like onsen and find this website helpful, then please let us know as well and we are more than happy to get more feedback and things you would further like to know or see when searching for onsen 🙂