Healing Heritage

Would you like some life-extending water?” Standing by a stone basin inside the eighth-century Chuzenji Temple in Nikko, Japan, my beaming guide, Yuki Hoshino, gestured toward water spilling clear and cold past its mossy brim. The pool was known for its healing power, Hoshino explained. A statue of a Buddha stood by, looking unflapped by the midday heat. Pressing my cupped hand against the rough stone, I let water fill my palm, leaned over and drank.

I’ve always figured the fountain of youth to be pure myth: a wild goose chase for explorers and philosophers. ‘Maybe they just looked in the wrong places,’ I thought, sipping the sweet-tasting liquid from the stone basin. It was a hot day and I’d been traveling since dawn, but I felt better already. ‘Maybe they should have come to Japan.’

Or, more specifically, to Nikko, a mountain retreat just two hours north of Tokyo by the luxurious Spacia X Tobu Limited Express train that debuted last summer. I’d joined Hoshino for that morning’s departure, watching a concrete-and-glass cityscape give way to the gentler lines of forested hills and dormant volcanoes. Known for its Buddhist temples, ancient Shinto shrines and healing geography of hot springs, Nikko has long been beloved by Japanese travelers as a destination for wellness, both spiritual and physical. For American visitors, the region still flies under the radar — but considering Japan’s reputation as a long-lived nation, I decided to make like the health-savvy locals and sample Nikko’s power to revitalize.

After drinking the life-extending water I continued deeper into the Chuzenji Temple complex, whose swooping pyramidal rooflines look out across the mountain-framed Lake Chuzenji. Dropping a 100-yen coin (approximately $0.70) into a donation box, I withdrew a paper fortune. Hoshino translated, and I was cheered to learn the prognosis was good, if a little confusing. (“If you have problems, they will be like a spring breeze,” she read.) Next was a towering cedar tree decorated with the paper streamers and twined rope that mark a sacred site. Bulging from the side was a giant burl, swollen and round. “If you rub the tree and rub your belly, it will protect you from stomach ailments,” Hoshino explained. While my digestion felt fine, better safe than sorry: I planted a hand on its swirling bark and slipped another tinkling coin into another nearby donation box. Just a few hours after arriving in Nikko, I figured I’d accrued good luck and robust health to last a decade, at least.

I was far from the only seeker amid Nikko’s sanctuaries that day. A short drive from Chuzenji Temple is a UNESCO-listed complex of 17th-century religious buildings that draw believers — and lovers of exquisite Edo-period architecture — from across the country and beyond. Gold-accented buildings sprawl through the soft light of an ancient cedar forest surrounding the site.

At its Buddhist Rinnoji Temple, travelers can take part in traditional Goma fire ceremonies led by monks who light fragrant blazes using prayer sticks inscribed with visitors’ hopes and wishes.

A trio of golden Buddha statues glinted from the shadows of the temple’s main hall.

Only in a country as ancient as Japan can Buddhism, which arrived on these islands in the sixth century, pass as a fresh-faced upstart. Far older is Shinto, a religion that teaches deep reverence for nature itself. “Shinto is the belief that all things in nature are sacred,” Hoshino told me, explaining that in Shinto beliefs, spirits inhabit real-world places including trees, springs and mountains. Light rain filtered through cedars as Hoshino and I walked a tree-lined avenue from Rinnoji Temple to Shinto shrines that are also part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

At the lavish Toshugu Shrine, we studied richly decorated gates swirling with images of fierce dragons and bright peonies; a five-story pagoda represented the five Buddhist elements: earth, water, fire, wind and void. We paused to drop coins into donation boxes, calling down bonus blessings for good health. Hoping they would multiply, we soaked, then air-dried, a few 1,000-yen notes. Another Shinto shrine in the UNESCO-listed complex is Futarasan-jinja, dedicated to the deity that inhabits the towering 8,156-foot stratovolcano Mount Nantai, a sacred mountain. Before entering the shrine, Hoshino and I ritually purified our hands with ladles of fresh water; at the offering hall inside, she slotted a few coins into a donation box, then showed me how to bow, clap and pray before the deity.

“The nice thing about Japanese religion is you don’t have to be all one thing or all another thing,” Hoshino said, smiling as usual, when I asked if bumbling outsiders like me were truly welcome at her home country’s Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

What matters, she explained, is that visitors approach Japan’s sacred spaces with respect — all are welcome, regardless of belief. After all, Futarasan-jinja is not only an important shrine but also the trailhead for Mount Nantai. Hikers climbing to the volcano’s summit pass can pause for a blessing or a quick prayer before starting the 2.5-mile hike to the top.

Climbing volcanoes is well and good for some: After all those shrines and temples I had in mind a less strenuous cultural immersion. If Nikko is renowned for its sacred architecture, in Japan it’s just as beloved for the natural hot springs that bubble from the earth here. That bounty is harnessed into baths called onsen, whose naturally occurring minerals are reputed to cure everything from high blood pressure to heartache. Some hot springs are rustic public baths, and one onsen in Nikko flows directly into a Buddhist temple. Many hotels also have their own in-house onsen, serenely private spaces built to encourage travelers to relax more completely.

“I think the idea of wellness travel comes naturally to Japanese, even when we don’t call it that,” explains Moeka Akiyama, the marketing communications manager for The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko, the 94-room resort on the shores of Lake Chuzenji, just a short distance from Chuzenji Temple. Its onsite onsen is the only Ritz-branded hot spring in the world, one reason the resort has become a favorite for Japanese travelers since its 2020 opening. “We see these trips as a time to enjoy onsen, spend time with family and be in nature,” Akiyama says.

I rose early the next morning to visit the Ritz onsen, whose black stone lines seemed more like something from a modern art museum than a spa.

Dawn had just begun to seep from the mountains behind the hotel, and I had the onsen to myself; stepping into the water of the outdoor bath, I savored views of a private Japanese garden of carefully arranged boulders, lush moss and maples whose pink-edged leaves barely hinted at arriving autumn.

Neck-deep and blissed-out in the mineral-scented water, I listened to the songbirds just stirring in the morning air. I recalled what I learned about the benefits of onsen, the healing waters that flow so abundantly across the Japanese archipelago and their promises of everything from beauty to cancer cures. I remembered the “life-extending water” that Hoshino had offered me days before, when I’d first arrived in Nikko. “Does it work?” I’d asked her. “Maybe it does!” she’d replied, with a quiet laugh. “Maybe we’ll both live a very long time.” Either way, the water felt fine.

Where To Stay

Overlooking Lake Chuzenji and sacred Mount Nantai, 94-room The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko (ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/tyonz-the-ritz-carlton-nikko/overview/) combines Zen elegance with artistic flair. An emphasis on wellness spans body and soul: Book a luxurious spa experience in treatment rooms that open onto private gardens with hot spring baths or visit nearby Chuzenji Temple for a private fire ceremony with a Buddhist monk. Steps away from the now-public Tamozawa Imperial Villa that once served as a summer escape for the Imperial Family, Fufu Nikko (fufunikko.jp/en/) is a 24-room Japanese-style ryokan, or traditional inn, that opened in 2020 and features private onsen in every room. Decor riffs on that royal tie by blending Edo-period traditionalism with the vintage, turn-of-the-century Meiji styling that evokes the dawn of modern Japan.

Getting There

Multiple daily departures link Tokyo’s Asakusa Station and the Nikko Railway Station. Book the new Spacia X Limited Express Trains by Tobu Railway Co. (tobu.co.jp/spaciax/en/) to enjoy countryside views through hexagonal windows inspired by traditional “Kanuma Kumiko” bamboo weaving and wood latticework. Choose tickets with cockpit lounge seating for access to a bar menu that goes from dry-hopped Nikko-brewed pilsner to sake from a Nikko brewery founded in the Meiji era.