A holiday to Nozawa Onsen

In February 2025, Helen and I spent a week in Nozawa Onsen (野沢温泉村) (Sometimes written as Nozawaonsen) and enjoyed the town and slopes. Here is a collection of information about the town and our stay that hopefully people can find useful.

Travel

Getting to Nozawaonsen is easy. Take a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Iiyama and then take a bus to Nozawaonsen from the Iiyama train terminal. There are a couple bus stops in Nozawaonsen, so just get off at the stop closest to your accommodation!

For the shinkansen, you can either book a day or two in advance and get good seats, or book at the station on the day, and you might have to wait a train of two to find one with spare seats. Once at Iiyama, follow the extremely obvious signage to the bus stop just outside the station, and wait for the Nozawa Onsen Liner! You can find the timetable here, but it comes ~hourly while the sun is up. Buy tickets at the ticket machine outside. It's ¥600 per adult at the time of writing.

Travelling here is really easy, and not worth stressing about. No advanced booking is required and a spur-of-the-moment day-trip would be easy to pull off. On the other hand, something you will have to book in advance is your...

Accommodation

There are a limited number of hotels in Nozawa Onsen, and if you come in peak snow season to enjoy the consistent Japanese snow, you'll be competing with lots of tourists (and what seems like the entire population of Australia) to book the best spots.

We booked 4 months in advance, and most accommodation had already booked out. The cheapest accommodation by far was the "Berg Marukaneya", which is where we booked. It's a small, 2 star hotel. I think it was available and inexpensive because it's: on the far side of town, the ad says it doesn't have individual bathrooms (it does have individual toilets, just not showers), and has little to no online presence. This is enough to spook a classic western tourist, but spurred on by the promise of good value, we booked it.

The hotel was incredible, and I'm half tempted to not write any more about it so nobody else figures out how good of a deal it is. Let me address some of its best features:

But it's so far away from town!

Sure, it's a good 15 minute walk to the center of the town, but if you're booking yourself a ski holiday, you're probably physically fit enough that a 15 minute walk doesn't scare you. There are also plenty of food options closer than the centre of town, so you won't have to walk into town if you don't want to.

Additionally, the ski resort area can be accessed from multiple locations. If you're staying in town, you'll have fairly easy access to the Hikage or Nagasaka area gondolas. You'll probably have to walk up a steep hill, but it's not far. These feel like the "main" ski areas with the most popular gondolas, big green slopes for learning, and the main ski resort building for ski lessons.

If you stay on the south side of town (where Berg Marukaneya is), you have access to the Karasawa slope and its lift. You can take that, and then do a nice traverse to the main area! The walk from Berg Marukaneya to the lift was significantly shorter than the trip from most hotels in town to the main area.

(Check out this (https://en.nozawaski.com/pdf/gelandemap2023-24_en.pdf) link to find the high resolution version of the 24/25 ski slope map).

And in an attempt to give you some perspective on where things are in Nozawa, here is Google Maps annotated with the base of the lifts.

Here, A is the center of town, and the entrance to the main ski area. B is the Karasawa chair lift. There is another set of car parks and lift between these, but it was closed when I was here, so I'm leaving it out. From the ski map, you can see that accessing the whole maintain from Karasawa is possible using only green slopes if you're a beginner.

Staying at the south side of town is not far away from the ski lifts at all, and I'd argue even easier to get to the slopes. 😊

It doesn't have bathrooms!

Booking.com says: "All rooms are fitted with a shared bathroom", which gives the wrong idea and probably scares people away. All rooms have their own toilets + sink. If you want to shower, the hotel has a large shared bathroom downstairs where you can clean up after a long day on the slopes. In this room, there are 4 separate shower stations where you clean yourself with supplied soap + shampoo + conditioner, before getting in a big hot bath to relax. It's very Japanese, so you have to get naked with the homies. If that scares you, fair enough, but in Nozawa Onsen the public baths (onsens) are kinda one of the main draws of the town, no? So you should embrace it!

Breakfast

Obviously I am not privy to the management structure of the hotel, but it feels like a small family owned affair. Breakfast starts at 7:30am, and was different every morning. When you walk in, you'll find your plate already served up at the table with a variety of tasty Japanese goodies, so don't be late or it'll get cold. Here are some pictures of our breakfasts!

Yummy spam

Misc veggies and hash brown

Fish, eggs, and sausages

Salmon 🤤

There is also unlimited toast, muesli, cereal, and coffee/juice off to the side.

The chair lifts start at 8:30am, so a 7:30am breakfast is perfect timing. Berg Marukaneya also lets you book dinner here, but you have to book in the morning, and at ¥3800/person that's a lot steeper than getting something in town for ~¥1500 or less.

In conclusion, I highly recommend staying at the Berg Marukaneya. It was excellent accommodation at a reasonable price.

Other

There are a number of other cool things the hotel has:

• Excellent and easily accessable ski room.

• Big traditional room with tatami mat floors and futons for sleeping.

• Nearest public onsen is <50m away.
• Can buy ski lift pass from the front desk. (I recommend this over attempting to pre-order. It's easier and the front desk even gives a discount).
• Nearest ski rental is across the road. (Although they don't have the best prices, it sure is convenient)

• Nice view.
• In-room hanging space for wet clothes.

Critiques

The Berg Marukaneya doesn't supply humidifiers. I don't know why, but no ski resorts I've tennanted in Japan have ever provided humidifiers. Almost all hotels in the city provide them, but in the snow, a colder and even less humid environ, they're never provided? Consequently I spent the first hour of each day attempting to rehydrate my poor withered sinuses. If you're making a weekend trip from Tokyo and own a humidifier, or have bountiful luggage space, I'd recommend bringing one. Maybe my nose has just acclimatized to Brisbane's swampy weather though, and this isn't a problem for everyone.

Onsens

One of the main draws to Nozawa Onsen are, well, the onsens. On the south side of town, there was only really one that was a short walk, but in the centre of town there are loads. If you specifically came to sample all the onsens, I'd recommend staying further in town.

Before you go, brush up on your onsen etiquette first. But here are some additional tips for specifically these onsens from an uncultured Australian who didn't know what he was doing:

• You have to clean yourself before you use the onsen. If you want to do a good job of that, you'll have to bring your own soap/shampoo to the cleaning station, because unlike fancier onsens, it's not provided here.
• The cleaning stations have a single tap which ejects absolutely freezing mountain water. Unless you want to clean yourself with 0 degree water, you're supposed to get a bucket and scoop scalding water from the onsen, and then add cold water if you want something more tepid, and use that for washing. Don't give yourself an ice bath like me.

As an Australian who swam a lot growing up, we'd all bring flip-flops to the pool so your feet wouldn't touch the ground in the showers, because it always felt gross and unclean. The onsens here are cleaned regularly and everyone sits their bare ass on the ground and it's normal.

Also, you might go home smelling slightly like eggs. That's just part of the fun.

Skiing and the Mountain

Downhill Skiing ⛷️

The Nozawa ski resort was excellent. There are long easy green runs and tough ungroomed blacks. It's a big mountain, and it took probably 4 days before I'd skiied the whole mountain a few times. I'm no expert skier, but my take on this mountain vs others I've been to are:

• If you're hardcore and planning a long ski trip (longer than a week) maybe consider Hakuba or some other resort where you can bus between different mountains that are part of the same resort. If you were here for two whole weeks, you'd probably get a little sick of the same runs by the end of it.
• If you're big into hitting the park and love your jumps, maybe come later in the season, or consider going somewhere else. It snowed all 6 days we were here which was incredible, but the jumps and small park isn't maintained while it's dumping, and the single park is serviced by quite a slow chairlift.

Luckily I don't like the park because I enjoy my bones un-fractured, and I'm easily entertained skiing the same run over and over, so I had a blast.

Lessons 🎿

If you want to book some lessons, you can do it here, but if you'd rather pay for these things in person and not on a website of dubious reliability, you can go to the main building at the base of Hikage station and book it at the counter with English speaking staff. This is very easy, and also nothing to worry about.

Lessons can be booked in the very obvious main building shown above.

You can get here either by skiing over from any other part of the mountain, or from the town, walk up the very long rubber escalator.

Cross Country Skiing

Cross country skiing was a surprise highlight of our trip. Nozawa Onsen is home to the Olympic Sports Park, about 200m further south than the Karasawa chairlift, which hosted the Biathlon at the 1998 Winter Olympics. While we visited, we were told it was hosting a national cross country skiing event, and the number of teens jogging around the village indicated this was true. We walked over one afternoon and watched these guys zoom around the course at maximum speed.

If you want to give your shins a break for an afternoon, and try your hand at cross country skiing, the only shop in town that offers cross country ski rentals is Kanamori sports. It's not hard to find in real life because they have a giant sign, but it's name on Google Maps is: "(株)金森スポーツ" which is a little confusing.

We rented two sets of cross country skis/boots/poles for a day, and the total cost was $25 AUD per person, so it was easily worth it. Also, XC skis and boots weigh almost nothing, so carrying them to and from the slopes is very easy.

When you're at the cross country ski course, you'll need to enter and pay something like $6 to get a bib, and then you're free to use the course. If you arrive outside the hours of the course, you'll only be able to ski on the flat area (essentially just a soccer field covered in snow), but if you're here when it opens (I think 1pm or 1:30pm or something) then the entire course through the forest is open.

Food Options

There are a miriad of options in town, and if you simply walk around you'll find a collection of favourites for yourself. Some favourites of ours that I can recommend are:

If you're looking for a cheap and quiet night, our favourite was "Restaurant". The name of the place on Google Maps is literally "Restaurant". It's レストラン シャンテル in Japanese though which is "resutoran shanteru". Either way, it's inside the "Sparena" complex with the day-use onsen. You take your shoes off to enter, and there is a cafeteria with a vending machine to order. The food was delicious, and a lot cheaper than in town. It has an incredibly cosy atmosphere.

If you want a louder more social atmophere, we can recommend Food Village Kongou which is a loud and warm food hall with ~5 different Japanese food options + ample seating. The selection is large so you're bound to find something tasty, and it's cheaper and tastier than most options I found in town.

Other

Laundry

We used the Fuwara Coin Laundry once to do all our clothes, and they have fantastic machines that wash and dry 15kg (right?!) loads for ~$15 AUD. Better machines and pricing than most huge hotels I've found in the city. Very convenient, and definitely recommend for washing your stinky ski underlayers.

What are these cute birds with wheels?

As you walk around Nozawa, you might see a few recurring characters. There is this strange pidgeon with wheels:

On a manhole cover.

In city hall.

In our hotel.

It's the hatoguruma, or "dove cart", a folk toy made in Nozawa Onsen village since the 19th Century. Here is an old painting of a Hatoguruma from 1847 posted by the Nozawa Onsen page on Facebook.

Here is a modern representation from Helen herself:

Ain't he cute?

Why do I keep seeing this symbol everything?

After walking around a lot you might see this symbol a few times:

Found online.

Found in the background of my image at "Restaurant" if you zoom in a little bit.

This symbol is the 湯 kanji. You might find it on the welcome sign to the village, the onsen towels from the information center, or on lamp posts. This kanji means “hot water” or “hot springs” and is pronounced "yu". The symbol was designed by the world-renowned avant-garde artist Taro Okamoto. After being commissioned to design a statue of Austrian skier Hannes Schneider — the pioneer of ski technique in Japan — Okamoto fell in love with Nozawa Onsen and was made an honorary resident.

Who is this?

You also might see this cute fellow.

This is Nasuki, the mascot of Nozawa, and he's a pickle!

Who is THIS?

This is Arukama. He is a bear with an apple for a head, and is the mascot of Nagano Prefecture. You'll probably see him in a lot of souvenir shops.

Is there a best place to get alcohol?

While I didn't go searching for it too much, the cheapest alcohol I found in town was at the Yamazaki in town. It's the closest I could find to a regular convenience store in Japan. (Sadly there is no Famichiki).

Conclusion

Nozawa Onsen is an amazing location for a fantastic Japanese ski holiday. 10/10, I hope to be back some day.

Assuming you're good enough to ski reds, even if you're not on the south side of town, I recommend skiing the skyline route at least once on a clear day.