Kanaya Resort Hakone

Kanaya Resort Hakone is a small hotel set into five acres of forest at Sengokuhara, ninety minutes from central Tokyo. It stands as the annex of the Kinugawa Kanaya Hotel, whose lineage runs back through one of Japan's oldest resort hotels. The site sits among evergreen chinquapin trees wrapped in mistletoe and a stand of maples that turns colour through the seasons, with the ridgelines of Hakone visible beyond. Rooms come in ten types, each with its own private open-air bath fed by hot spring water piped from Owakudani, drawn into tubs cut from green tuff stone quarried at Towada. You can soak alone on the balcony, sky and treetops reflected on the surface of the water. The Grand Terrace Suite pairs a large tub with an outsized terrace open to the trees. Dinner is served at Seiyo Zendokoro John Kanaya, a dining room that continues a restaurant once run in Tokyo's Azabu district, serving French cuisine built for chopsticks and matched to Champagne, wine, and sake. Glass sculpture by Gabriel Loire, collected by the hotel's founder, hangs in the entrance lobby. A shuttle links the hotel to Gora Station by prior booking. Check-in runs from 3pm. The result is a quiet, self-contained stay built on one family's decades in the hotel trade, rather than a resort designed from scratch.