Kusatsu Onsen — photo: おにく · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Can you onsen after eating or drinking? When to soak, how long, and how many times a day
Not straight after a meal, and not after drinking. That is not folklore: it is on the notice every onsen in Japan has to post, and it is the one rule about timing that applies everywhere. The rest is the shape of a ryokan evening — check-in in the afternoon, dinner at a fixed time, a bath that closes late and opens early — and it fits more soaks into one night than most first-timers expect. This guide covers what the notice says, where the bath goes around dinner, how long people stay in, and how many times a day is normal.
The notice on the wall
Under Japan's Hot Springs Act, a facility that lets you bathe in spring water has to display the water's analysis and a list of cautions for bathing. Look for a framed sheet in the changing room, often next to the water analysis, headed something like 入浴上の注意 (nyūyoku-jō no chūi), "cautions for bathing", or listed with 禁忌症 (kinkishō), the conditions for which the water should not be used. It is in Japanese and nobody will point it out to you.
The current standard for that notice, set by the Ministry of the Environment in 2014, says to avoid bathing immediately before or after a meal and after drinking alcohol, and to avoid bathing drunk above all. The same list asks you to rest for about half an hour after exercise, and to drink a glass of water before bathing in situations where you may be short of fluid, such as just after waking up. It also names groups who should avoid water of 42 °C or more. If you think that list may include you, it is a question for your doctor before the trip, not for this guide.
The words to recognise are 食事 (shokuji), meal, and 飲酒 (inshu), drinking. Some inns put a separate, plainer sign at the entrance: 飲酒後の入浴はご遠慮ください, "please do not bathe after drinking".
Before or after dinner?
Both, with a gap. The word that matters in the notice is immediately. It is about the half hour either side of eating, not the whole evening.
A ryokan evening usually runs like this. Check-in is commonly from 15:00. Dinner is served at a set time, often 18:00 or a choice of two sittings, and it is long: a set course with beer, sake or wine on the table. The bath you take between check-in and dinner is the easy one. You arrive, change into the yukata, go down to the bath, and come back with time to cool off before the food arrives. Leave a little time between getting out and sitting down; going straight from the tub to the table is the thing the notice is talking about.
The second bath is the one people get wrong. After a two-hour dinner with drinks, the bath is not going anywhere, and most large inn baths stay open late. Give it a good while, walk the 温泉街 (onsen-gai) if the town has one, and go back in later in the evening once you have sobered up. If you drank a lot, skip it and go in the morning instead. The water will be the same.
The morning bath before breakfast is the third, and for many Japanese guests the best one. Breakfast is usually at a set time too, so the same rule applies on a smaller scale: bathe, dress, and leave a gap before you eat.
Bath hours at an inn
An inn's shared bath is not open all night in most places. A common pattern is open from check-in until around midnight, closed for a few hours for cleaning, and open again early in the morning. The times are on a sheet in your room or on a sign at the bath entrance, and they are worth checking on arrival, because they decide when your second and third soaks can happen.
At inns with two big baths, one for men and one for women, the sides often swap once a day, typically overnight. The sign for it is 入れ替え (irekae). It is one more reason for a morning bath: it is likely to be a different pool from the night before. See onsen etiquette for how to read the curtains so you walk into the right one.
A bookable private bath works to a timetable of its own, usually slots of an hour or less that you reserve at the front desk. If you want one, book it at check-in for a slot that does not sit right against dinner. See private onsen baths.
How long to stay in
Much less than you might think, and less still in hot water. The 1982 version of the government's cautions for bathing, which is where most Japanese sources take their numbers from, suggests starting with about three to ten minutes at a time and staying longer only once you are used to it. Most people get out, sit on the edge or rinse at the shower, and get back in, rather than staying in for one long stretch.
How hot the bath is matters more than any number of minutes. In our records, 1,167 onsen towns have a source temperature on record. In 573 of them the hottest source is 42 °C or more, and in 218 it is 60 °C or more. Most baths cool that water before it reaches you, but a bath fed straight from a hot source can be well over 42 °C. In Kusatsu, where the sources run from 44.9 to 94.5 °C, the town cools some of its water by stirring it with long wooden boards; see the Kusatsu guide. Nozawa (42 to 90 °C) and Dōgo (42 to 51 °C) are other towns where the water comes out hot. In a bath like that, a few minutes is a full soak, and the cold-water tap, where there is one, is covered in the etiquette guide.
At the other end, 237 towns have no source warmer than 25 °C on record. That water is heated for bathing, and the bath is set to whatever temperature the inn chooses.
The simple rule: get out before you feel you have to. If you feel dizzy, get out slowly and sit down. Floors around the tub are often wet and sometimes slippery.
How many times a day
The same 1982 cautions, written for people staying to bathe over several days, suggest about once a day for the first few days and up to two or three times a day after that. On a one-night trip, the evening pattern above already gives you three — before dinner, later in the evening, before breakfast — and that is what most guests do. Very few people need more than that to feel they have had their money's worth.
If you are on a day trip without staying the night, one or two visits to a single bath is normal, with a rest and a drink of water between them. In a town with several public baths, such as Kinosaki or Kusatsu, the temptation is to try them all in one afternoon. Spread them over the evening and the next morning instead. Many people take only a short dip in each.
Water, and what to bring
Do not take a drink into the bath area; most baths ask you not to, and a dropped glass on a wet stone floor is the last thing anyone wants. Drink water before you go in and after you come out. Many inns put a water dispenser or a jug of cold water by the changing room for this reason, and most have a vending machine nearby.
The small towel goes with you to the pool but not into the water. Long hair is tied up. Both are in how an onsen stay actually works.
Three things not to do
Do not go from the dinner table to the bath. Even with no alcohol, give it a while.
Do not take the late bath drunk. If the evening went long, the morning bath is the better one anyway.
Do not try to beat the closing time with one long soak. Check the bath hours when you arrive and plan the evening around them, not the other way round.
First onsen night? Start with planning your first onsen trip and onsen etiquette. Want to know what dinner involves? See ryokan meals. Wondering what the water sign means? See reading the water sign.