{
 "slug": "hotel-iyaonsen",
 "name": "Hotel Iyaonsen",
 "url": "https://ryokancatalog.com/inn/hotel-iyaonsen",
 "location": "Miyoshi (Iya Valley)",
 "prefecture": "Tokushima",
 "region": "Shikoku",
 "geo": {
  "lat": 33.85,
  "lng": 133.8
 },
 "tier": "B",
 "score": 7.9,
 "score_scale": "1-10",
 "unscored": false,
 "confidence": "low",
 "evidence": {
  "units": 2,
  "op_stays": 1,
  "member_stays": 0
 },
 "kinrt_rank_claim": null,
 "rooms": 20,
 "property_type": "Onsen ryokan",
 "style": "Kaiseki",
 "features": {
  "in_room_onsen": "Top room #505 (open-air)",
  "meals_in_room": "—"
 },
 "summary": "A 20-room hotel perched over Shikoku's remote Iya Valley that KI-NRT calls a great experience even though, as luxury ryokans go, it is on the lower end of the scale: the incredible gorge setting (astonishingly gorgeous in fall foliage season) and the cable-car ride down to the riverside baths on the valley floor more than make up for the minor shortcomings, and both the service and the kitchen impressed him more than he expected. He would return. Try for Tamayura (Room #505), the only room with an en-suite open-air onsen bath.",
 "aspect_scale": "1-5",
 "aspects": {
  "cuisine": {
   "label": "Food",
   "score": 4,
   "text": "The kitchen focuses on local ingredients and recipes. The first dinner blew KI-NRT away, with salt-grilled amago (a river trout) that was full of flavour and edible from head to tail, Iya soba made from 100% buckwheat, pike conger, and raw konjac and raw yuba served like sashimi, which he called sublime. The second dinner dipped, with a frozen-tasting udon, and he suspects most guests stay one night so the kitchen has few Plan B dishes."
  },
  "onsen": {
   "label": "Bath",
   "score": 4.5,
   "text": "The baths to use are down on the valley floor, reached by cable car: separate men's and women's communal onsen plus private rental baths, all on natural hot-spring water that KI-NRT found amazing, soft and slippery, with the river flowing right in front of you. The open-air bath on the deck of the top room Tamayura is not free-flowing, so you fill it from scratch each time, and the shower is outside too, painful in the dead of winter."
  },
  "service": {
   "label": "Service",
   "score": 4,
   "text": "KI-NRT came away impressed by the level of service over a two-night stay, which more than met his expectations for a hotel this remote, though he does not single out any one gesture or member of staff."
  },
  "room": {
   "label": "Room",
   "score": 3.5,
   "text": "Of the 20 rooms, the one to try for is Tamayura, a top-floor corner suite and the only room with an en-suite open-air onsen bath. At 47 square metres it is not massive and smaller than top rooms elsewhere, but the open layout (living room, a nook for the valley view and the sleeping area) made it feel bigger than the number suggests. The decor is Japanese but modern, in earthy tones with plenty of natural light, and it seemed fresh and new."
  },
  "setting": {
   "label": "Place",
   "score": 4.5,
   "text": "The hotel is perched over the Iya Valley, a remote mountainous part of rural Shikoku, and the view down the gorge is incredible, astonishingly gorgeous in fall foliage season. Getting there is part of the adventure: the road in is twisty and in places only one car wide, and you need a rental car, since nothing except the Peeing Boy statue is within walking distance. KI-NRT found the hassle added to the charm of being somewhere so remote."
  }
 },
 "transit": {
  "cities": [
   {
    "city": "Okayama",
    "hours": 2.3,
    "time": "~2h20",
    "transfers": 1,
    "estimated": true,
    "text": "Limited Express Nanpu from Okayama to Oboke Station runs about 1h40 via the Seto bridge and Dosan line, then roughly 30 min by car into the Iya Valley."
   },
   {
    "city": "Tokushima",
    "hours": 2,
    "time": "~2h",
    "transfers": 1,
    "estimated": true,
    "text": "Limited Express from Tokushima to Oboke via the Dosan line is about 1h20, then roughly 30 min by car to the onsen."
   }
  ],
  "note": ""
 },
 "photos": [
  {
   "url": "/img/nc_hoteliyaonsen-0-301e5476.jpg",
   "tag": "bath",
   "width": 400,
   "height": 266
  },
  {
   "url": "/img/nc_hoteliyaonsen-1-3e8d84e9.jpg",
   "tag": "setting",
   "width": 400,
   "height": 266
  },
  {
   "url": "/img/nc_hoteliyaonsen-2-d3cc0d42.jpg",
   "tag": "room",
   "width": 400,
   "height": 266
  },
  {
   "url": "/img/nc_hoteliyaonsen-3-f3381d67.jpg",
   "tag": "setting",
   "width": 400,
   "height": 267
  },
  {
   "url": "/img/nc_hoteliyaonsen-4-098c1b69.jpg",
   "tag": "food",
   "width": 400,
   "height": 266
  }
 ],
 "links": {
  "website": "https://www.iyaonsen.co.jp/en/",
  "map": "https://www.google.com/maps?cid=2908702172802416910",
  "jp_site": null,
  "flyertalk_reviews": [
   {
    "post": 1,
    "author": "KI-NRT",
    "url": "https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34617783-post1.html"
   }
  ],
  "flyertalk_discussion": [
   {
    "post": 634,
    "author": "KI-NRT",
    "url": "https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/37294049-post634.html"
   }
  ],
  "tripadvisor": [
   {
    "rating": 4,
    "stay": "November 2021",
    "url": "https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g1023595-d1084138-r819889154-Hotel_Iya_Onsen-Miyoshi_Tokushima_Prefecture_Shikoku.html"
   }
  ]
 },
 "as_of": "2026-09-07"
}