Eerie abandoned city of hotels left to rot for 30 years is frozen in time

Daily Mirror

6 days ago

Urban explorer Luke Bradburn discovered the forgotten tourist destination of Kinugawa Onsen, a once-thriving resort town in Japan that has been left to decay for over three decades
An urban explorer has uncovered a chilling, abandoned city of hotels in Japan - left completely untouched for more than three decades.
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Luke Bradburn stumbled upon the forgotten tourist hotspot of Kinugawa Onsen, once a bustling resort town famous for its natural hot springs.
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The 28-year-old travelled to Japan in early 2024 to document the Fukushima exclusion zone, but discovered a deserted hotel district whilst scouting for other nearby locations.
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In the region, he found what had previously been a thriving high street - now a ghost town with dozens of massive hotel buildings slowly deteriorating along a clifftop river.
Luke then spent six hours navigating overgrown pathways, broken staircases and dangerous drop-offs, exploring a handful of the roughly 20 sprawling structures, reports the Express.
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Some of them, he discovered, remain frozen in time, filled with arcade machines, taxidermy animals and even drinks still sitting on tables.
"It was like walking into a ghost town", he described. "There were abandoned cars on the streets and while you could drive through the area, every building around you was just left to rot.
"When we stepped inside, the contrast was mad. From the outside, it's all overgrown and decaying, but inside some of the rooms were pristine - like no one had touched them in decades."
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Luke believes there are roughly 20 abandoned hotels dotted along the river in Kinugawa Onsen - with him managing to explore five or six by weaving through connected corridors and passageways.
"Each one felt like stepping into a time capsule. You get a sense of what life must've been like here at its peak and then it just stopped. It's eerie, sad and fascinating all at once."
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Within the hotels, he uncovered magnificent foyers, traditional Japanese onsen baths and complete rooms preserved in time: "One of the strangest things was walking into a lobby and seeing a massive taxidermy deer and falcon still standing there. It was bizarre.
"We found arcade machines still filled with toys, tables set with drinks and rooms that looked like they hadn't been touched in decades", Luke explained.
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The thermal spring resort town, called Kinugawa Onsen and situated in the city of Nikk, Tochigi, started to deteriorate during Japan's financial collapse in the early 1990s as visitor numbers dropped and numerous hotels closed down.
And there's a particular reason why the buildings were abandoned: Because of Japan's strict property regulations, countless structures have remained untouched since, as some proprietors died without descendants or simply vanished, leaving the estates in legal limbo.
Luke, from Greater Manchester, observed: "It's very different in Japan. The crime rate is so low that abandoned buildings don't get looted or destroyed as quickly". "In some cases, they need the owner's permission to demolish and if the owner died, they legally can't for 30 years."
However, not everything was in perfect condition: "There were floors missing, staircases hanging down, parts where you had to backtrack because everything had collapsed. It was really unsafe in some areas, you had to be so careful."