Every onsen town has baths. Kurokawa turned its baths into a game, and the tegata is the playing piece. More than a discount ticket, it is the physical form of the agreement that saved the village in the 1980s, when the ryokan association decided every inn would open its outdoor baths to every other inn's guests. Understanding how it works, and the handful of unwritten rules around it, is most of what separates a smooth Kurokawa day from a frustrating one.

What the tegata actually is

The price, posted. Adult 1,500 yen, child 700.

The pass is a disc of local Oguni cedar about the size of a drink coaster, branded with the village crest and strung on a cord so you can carry it like a talisman, which is roughly what it is. The name means "bathing pass" in the old style: tegata were the wooden permits Edo era travelers carried through checkpoints, and the reference is deliberate. You are being issued papers for a small, steamy country.

On the reverse are three round stamp spaces. At each participating ryokan you hand the disc to the front desk, they peel one sticker or stamp one space, and point you to the baths. Three baths, any participating inns, any order, any pace. The six month validity is not a gimmick: locals genuinely use leftover stamps on later visits, and an unfinished tegata in a kitchen drawer is one of the more reliable ways Japan convinces people to return to Kurokawa.

When the stamps are gone, the disc is yours. Some visitors keep them, some hang them as ema style offerings at the small shrine beside the information center, where hundreds of spent tegata clack together in the wind. It is one of the village's quiet, perfect details.

Where to buy it, and when

Buy the tegata at Kaze-no-ya, the ryokan association's information center in the middle of the village, or at the front desk of nearly any participating inn; the price you pay is the association's current figure, which our launch pin dates on this page. Overnight guests usually buy theirs at check-in. No reservation, no ID, no timed entry; it is a cash and carry purchase, and cash is the safe assumption everywhere in Kurokawa..

Timing matters more than buying. Pass bathing is a daytime activity: the working window is roughly 8:30 to 21:00, but every inn sets its own hours, closes baths for cleaning, and reserves them for staying guests at certain times, particularly in the evening. Kaze-no-ya posts a daily board showing which baths are open and which are closed, and the smart routine is to check it first and plan your three around reality rather than a list from the internet..

How to choose your three

Palm-sized, local cedar, three stamp spaces on the back.

The honest answer is that the choosing is the pleasure, but structure helps. Think in terms of contrast rather than ranking: one riverside bath for the classic Kurokawa scene, one cave or rock bath for the drama, one quiet outlier where you might be alone. In practice that often resolves to Yamamizuki (the forest riverside masterpiece, a few minutes from the center), Shinmeikan (the hand dug cave bath that started the village's revival), and one personal pick: Yamabiko's huge Senninburo if you want space, Ikoi's skin softening Bijin-yu if you care about the water itself, Okunoyu's river bath if you are walking the east end anyway. Our full comparison, bath by bath, is in the best rotenburo guide.

Two practical notes shape the choice. First, distance: most baths cluster within a ten minute walk, but a few of the best (Yamamizuki among them) sit outside the center, reached by a pleasant riverside path or the inns' shuttles. Budget travel time or you will spend a stamp's worth of daylight walking. Second, gender and privacy: most tegata baths are gender separated, a few are mixed (konyoku) with bathing wraps or women's hours, and policies are posted at each door. Mixed bathing details are in our private and mixed baths guide.

The unwritten rules

The tegata buys entry, not residency. The etiquette that keeps the system working: bathe before lunch or mid afternoon rather than at dinner hour, when inns turn inward to their own guests. Wash before entering, as at any onsen; several tegata baths are rustic rotenburo with minimal washing stations, so a quick rinse with the provided bucket is the accepted standard there. Bring a small towel (rentals and purchases run a few hundred yen per inn and add up across three baths). Keep phones and cameras away from the baths entirely. And treat the front desk interaction as the small ceremony it is; you are a guest in someone's inn, not a customer at a turnstile. The full bathing how-to is in our etiquette guide.

Is the tegata worth it?

Where the tegata is sold, and where the daily board says which baths are open.

Do the arithmetic and it is almost always yes for two or more baths. Individual entries run ¥500 to 800, so three median baths cost about ¥1,800 to 2,100 against the pass's ¥1,500 — the tegata beats per-door prices by the third bath, and it removes the decision-making besides. The real exceptions are guests whose ryokan baths are the reason they came (a night at Yamamizuki arguably needs no other water) and travelers on a tight half day, who may honestly only have time for one bath, in which case pay the single entry and choose well.

What the tegata is really worth is permission. It converts a village of private inns into a public landscape, and an afternoon spent following it from rock pool to river pool, yukata sleeves rolled against the steam, is the entire argument for coming to Kurokawa rather than somewhere easier to reach.