Some of my best childhood memories are tied to Japanese onsen.
Every summer, I'd visit my grandparents in Hokkaido and soak in the local hot springs with my family. There was nothing better than stepping into the steaming, mineral-rich waters, letting the stress melt away, and then finishing it off with a cold bottle of coffee milk, my absolute favorite childhood drink.
Onsen culture has always been more than relaxation to me. It's wellness, tradition, and bonding all at once: a moment where everything else disappears and you come out feeling completely refreshed, inside and out.
Tokyo, 2022
In 2022, I spent a year planning the perfect family trip to Japan, packed with food, family time, and plenty of onsen. Just after we landed in Tokyo, my brother casually dropped this:
“By the way... I've had this massive tattoo since 2014.”
He'd hidden it from us for eight years, worried about how taboo tattoos can be in Japanese culture and how my parents would react. I spent the rest of that trip madly researching tattoo-friendly onsen. It was confusing, frustrating, and even with my native Japanese and my cultural background, it wasn't easy.
The same wall, again
A year later I faced the same wall bringing my tattooed partner to Japan for the first time. I contacted ryokan, browsed forums, and visited onsen in person, only to be met with signs prohibiting tattoos or staff politely turning us away at reception. For the first time in my life, I felt disconnected from my own cultural heritage. I wanted her to fall in love with it the way I had. Instead she was the one being turned away.
If this is hard for me as a Japanese American... how hard is it for everyone else?
That question wouldn't leave me alone. So I made it my mission to build Tattoo Friendly Onsen: a guide to help tattooed travelers soak without stress. No one left out.
What it is now
Japan's onsen culture is beautiful, historic, and deeply cherished. It's also changing, as more of the world arrives with ink.
We help tattooed travelers find the onsen that say yes. We show the industry that saying yes brings good guests through the door. And we do it one researched policy at a time, because that's how trust is built and how traditions open up.
