The Ryokan Guide
The Ryokan Guide, Travel guide
- Client
- The Ryokan Guide
- Year
- 2026
- Industry
- Travel guide
- Website
- theryokanguide.com
About the project
The Ryokan Guide is a research-based, English-language guide to Japan's traditional inns. Each ryokan is scored on eight criteria drawn from the culture itself, from omotenashi to onsen, and the finest make a Top 100 renewed every year. Booking links play no part in a score.
Readers come with a trip half planned and one question: where should we stay? So the home page opens on a single search, for a ryokan or a city, with the map beside it. The menu keeps to five plain paths, and every prefecture page explains its food, its waters and its seasons before it lists a single inn.
The interface steps back: a warm, dark frame, the name in Forum capitals, Instrument Sans for reading, and photographs given room to breathe. We shaped the brand, the guide and its booking as one piece, so that searching, learning the customs and choosing a room feel like one quiet evening.
From the team
A ryokan is judged on the whole stay, not on a single room. We held the guide to the same standard: from the first search to the booking, every page belongs to the same house.