Tucked into a mountain valley in Japan, beside a steaming natural hot spring, sits a hotel called Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan. It opened to guests in the year 705 CE and has never stopped operating since. That makes it the oldest hotel in the world, by a margin of more than 600 years over the runner-up.
What makes the story even more amazing is that the hotel has stayed in one family the whole time. Today’s owners are the 52nd generation to run the place. They learned the job from their parents, who learned it from their parents, all the way back to a single founder named Fujiwara Mahito.
The hot spring is the heart of it all. Guests come to soak in the steaming, mineral-rich water that bubbles up from deep underground. Emperors, samurai warriors and modern tourists have all eased their bones in the same baths. Few experiences put you so directly inside a thread of history that long.
