Staying in a Ryokan: The Traditional Japanese Inn

A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn, and a night in one is one of the defining experiences of travel in Japan — quite different from a Western hotel. You sleep on a futon laid on a tatami-mat floor, bathe in communal or private hot-spring baths, and are served two elaborate seasonal meals, often in your own room. The whole stay runs to a gentle, prescribed rhythm.

For a first-time guest, that rhythm can feel opaque: when do meals come, where do the shoes go, how does the bath work? It is all far simpler than it appears, and the staff will guide you. This article walks through a ryokan stay from arrival to departure, so you can relax into it rather than decode it.

Arrival, and the rhythm of a stay

A ryokan stay follows a set shape. You typically arrive in the mid-to-late afternoon — earlier than a hotel check-in, because the evening is part of the experience. At the entrance you exchange your shoes for slippers; the genkan, the lowered entry area, is the boundary, and street shoes go no further. A member of staff, sometimes the room’s own attendant, shows you to your room and often serves a welcome tea and sweet.

From there the evening unfolds: a bath, then dinner, then sleep on a futon that staff lay out while you eat. In the morning, breakfast, a final bath if you wish, and a check-out that is usually earlier than a hotel’s — often around 10 or 11am. The compressed, full evening is the point of a ryokan; it is not a place to arrive late and leave at dawn.

The room: tatami, futon and yukata

A ryokan room is a calm, largely empty space floored in tatami — woven straw mats — with a low table, floor cushions, and often a small alcove, the tokonoma, holding a scroll and a seasonal flower arrangement. You do not wear shoes or even slippers on the tatami; socks or bare feet only. During the day there is no visible bed: staff lay out the futon, a quilted mattress and bedding, on the floor each evening and clear it each morning.

In your room you will find a yukata, a light cotton robe, and often a heavier jacket for cooler weather. The yukata is genuine ryokan dress, not pyjamas — it is entirely proper to wear it to dinner, to the baths and around the inn. Wrap the left side over the right (right over left is reserved for dressing the dead), tie the sash, and you are correctly attired.

The bath: onsen and sentō etiquette

Bathing is central to a ryokan stay, and many inns, especially in hot-spring areas, have an onsen — baths fed by natural geothermal water. The etiquette is straightforward once learned. You undress fully in the changing room; bathing suits are not worn. Before entering the communal bath, you wash and rinse thoroughly at the seated showers provided, so that you step into the bath already clean. The bath itself is for soaking, not washing.

Baths are usually separated by gender, marked with noren curtains — and the small towel you carry is for modesty and for washing, not for the bathwater; most bathers rest it on their head or the side. One genuine consideration: visible tattoos are still restricted at some traditional baths. Many ryokan accommodate guests with private or in-room baths, and Viajes Globales can arrange this where it matters.

Dinner and breakfast, the ryokan way

Meals are a highlight rather than an afterthought. Dinner at a good ryokan is typically a kaiseki-style banquet — a long sequence of small seasonal courses — served either in your room by an attendant or in a quiet dining room, at a set early-evening hour. Breakfast is generally a traditional Japanese spread: grilled fish, rice, miso soup, pickles, and small dishes, though some inns offer a Western option.

Because the kitchen plans around each guest, meal times are fixed and dietary needs must be communicated in advance — at the time of booking, not on arrival. This is also why a ryokan rewards an unhurried evening: dinner is not a refuelling stop but the centre of the night.

Where a ryokan fits in a Kyoto journey

Kyoto and its surroundings hold some of Japan’s most celebrated inns. Arashiyama in particular is known for riverside ryokan along the Ōi River — tatami rooms with river views, hot-spring bathing, and elaborate kaiseki half-board — and one famous retreat upriver is reached only by the inn’s own boat. A night in such a place is a fitting close to the slow Arashiyama day on The Long Way East.

A practical word: one or two nights in a ryokan is, for most travellers, the right amount — long enough to absorb the rhythm, not so long that the fixed schedule and floor-sitting lose their charm. Pairing a ryokan night with hotel nights elsewhere in Kyoto gives a journey both the tradition and the flexibility, and that is how a thoughtful itinerary is usually built.