Tokachigawa Onsen

十勝川温泉42°56′ N 143°18′ EOnsen town¥1,300

Tokachigawa's amber moor water comes up through ancient peat under the Tokachi plain and leaves skin slick and soft.

Photo pakku · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0 and others, credited in the gallery

Know before you bathe

Sasai Hotel: face towel ¥150, bath towel ¥300 to rent; it reopened for day bathing after a boiler repair in 2026. Kangetsuen is listed as refusing visible tattoos. Garden Spa requires swimwear; the first rental is free.

Getting there

On the Tokachi River in Otofuke, about 20 minutes by car from JR Obihiro Station and 40 minutes from Tokachi-Obihiro Airport.

Millions of years ago the Tokachi plain was a bay ringed with marsh, and the peat from those marshes turned into lignite deep underground. Water rising through it picks up the plant matter and comes out amber. Japanese bathers call this moor onsen, and Tokachigawa is the onsen town built on it.

It's a soft sodium chloride and bicarbonate spring, weakly alkaline, and after a week of Hokkaido's acid and sulphur baths the slick feel of it on your skin is a surprise. Sasai Hotel traces its bath back to 1900, when the first bathhouse of the onsen town went up on its site, and it sells day entry for ¥1,300 from one in the afternoon.

Stop here on the drive east from Tomamu or Sahoro, or on a storm day out of Obihiro. Kangetsuen's garden rotenburo looks out over the river, and the Garden Spa at the roadside station runs a moor-water pool where mixed groups bathe in swimsuits. From late January the riverbank lights up for the Sairinka swan festival.

Wicker chairs gather round a stone outdoor fireplace at a Tokachigawa Onsen hotelPhoto 663highland · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.5

Quick answers about Tokachigawa Onsenよくある質問

Can you visit Tokachigawa Onsen without staying the night?

Yes. Tokachigawa Onsen sells day entry at ¥1,300 (2026).

What are the opening hours of Tokachigawa Onsen?

Tokachigawa Onsen: sasai Hotel 13:00–21:00, last entry 20:00 (¥1,300). Kangetsuen 13:00–21:00 plus 5:00–8:00 (¥2,000). Garden Spa swimsuit pool 9:00–19:00 November to April, closed Tuesdays (¥1,500).