Sukumo Resort Yashinoyu

A hilltop hotel over Sukumo Bay

Sukumo is a small port town in the far southwest of Kochi, the last stop before Ehime and a natural base for the Ashizuri-Uwakai coast. Yashinoyu sits just outside town on Ōshima, an island joined to the mainland by a short bridge, on a hilltop where everything — rooms, dining room, baths — faces the bay.

It is not the newest hotel, and it does not matter: the whole place is perfectly maintained, clean and quietly curated, and the service was impeccable from check-in to the last morning. Of everywhere we stayed in this corner of Shikoku, this was one of the nicest experiences.

Rooms above the water

Rooms face the sea, each with a small balcony. Ours was a bright, comfortable twin — spotless, nothing flashy, everything where it should be, with the bay filling the window.

The terraced baths

The onsen is why day visitors come over from town, and it earns them. The outdoor bath steps down the hillside in tiers — pools at different levels, edged in granite, with a foot bath at the top and the bay and its islands spread out in front of you. There is a hinoki tub too (the two bath areas swap between men and women daily), plus a small sauna.

Late afternoon brings a friendly local crowd, which has its own charm; go at opening time or late in the evening and you may have the terraces to yourself. Day use is possible outside the late-morning hours, with hotel guests getting priority when it is busy.

Kaiseki that changes every night

Dinner is kaiseki, and over three nights the menu never repeated — each evening arrived with its own printed course list, and each was amazingly tasty. The quality was far above what the room rate suggests: local fish done simply and well, and rice good enough that we talked about it afterwards. Breakfast is a tray landscape of small dishes with a pot of rice each.

The dining room looks straight down the bay, and at dinner you get the sunset with it.

Around the island, and further

Ōshima itself is a pleasant hour on foot: a road loops the island, past houses and the small port on the north side and woods on the south — it makes a good morning run. A short walk downhill from the hotel there is a park where families picnic under the cherry trees, and the pebble beach beyond it is a beautiful walk.

We used the hotel as a base for three nights in April and filled the days easily: the cliff walk above Kashiwajima, the Shiden-Kai Fighter Aircraft Exhibition Hall — a small museum built around a WWII fighter recovered from the sea — the huge coastal views from Komo Cape (高茂岬), and the stone-walled fishing village of Sotodomari. The Nametoko Gorge in Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park is within easy reach too — we walked it the day we left.