Iizaka Onsen

We ended up in Iizaka Onsen almost as an afterthought on our way through Fukushima City, the kind of stop Lia adds to an itinerary because a name kept appearing in old travel writing she was reading. This one kept appearing a lot — Matsuo Basho passed through in 1689 and wrote about it, Helen Keller visited generations later, and locals still repeat an old saying ranking it alongside Beppu as one of the two great hot spring destinations of Japan, west and east. I went in expecting a pleasant but fairly ordinary onsen town. What we found instead was a place that wears its long history unusually lightly, warm and lived-in rather than staged for visitors.

Water That Basho Soaked In

There’s something genuinely moving about soaking in water that a specific, famous traveler once wrote about centuries before you got there, and Iizaka leans into that history without being precious about it. We stayed at a small ryokan with its own indoor bath fed by the town’s mineral-rich spring water, and easing into the hot water after a long day of walking, I found myself thinking about Basho making this same trip on foot, presumably far more tired than we were. Lia pointed out that whatever changed about Japan in three centuries, this specific pleasure — hot mineral water after a long day — had apparently stayed exactly the same. It’s a strange, quiet kind of continuity to feel in your own shoulders.

Old Streets Built Around Hot Water

Walking Iizaka’s streets in the evening, you can feel how completely the town organizes itself around its springs — public foot baths tucked into corners, older wooden inns with steam curling faintly from vents, a general unhurried warmth to the whole place that felt distinct from bigger, glossier onsen resorts we’d visited elsewhere. We stopped at a free public footbath near the town center, rolled up our trousers, and sat with our feet in hot water next to a group of elderly locals who seemed to treat the whole thing as a completely ordinary evening errand. Lia struck up a slow conversation with one of them about the town’s history, and got, unprompted, the same “Beppu in the west, Iizaka in the east” line we’d read before we arrived.

The Fighting Festival

We didn’t catch the Kenka Matsuri ourselves, but a ryokan owner described it to us in enough detail that I’ve thought about it ever since: every October, teams haul massive wooden shrine floats through the streets and deliberately ram them into each other in front of Iizaka Hachiman Shrine, the “fighting festival” name entirely literal. He showed us photos on his phone, floats splintering slightly at the corners, crowds roaring, and it was hard to square that image of controlled chaos with the calm, steamy town we were actually standing in. Lia immediately started talking about timing a return trip for October, and honestly, having seen how gently Iizaka carries the rest of its history, I’d genuinely like to see it turn violent, at least for one night a year.

Getting There

Iizaka Onsen is a short train ride from Fukushima City on the Fukushima Kotsu Iizaka Line, making it an easy addition for anyone passing through on the Tohoku Shinkansen route. The town itself is compact and easily walkable once you arrive, with ryokans, public footbaths, and Iizaka Hachiman Shrine all within a short distance of the station. If you’re hoping to catch the Kenka Matsuri, plan well ahead for October and expect accommodation in town to book up, since it draws a strong local crowd alongside visiting travelers.