Tent saunas set up along a river in the historic mountainous village of Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, are attracting sauna lovers from across the country, becoming a new tourist spot in an area known for traditional thatched-roof farmhouses.
Yoichi Arihara, 51, a mountaineering guide for the village and a sauna-lover himself, launched a tour this spring for people to experience a sauna in a private setting in nature along the Sho River, which has its source on the 2,702-meter Mount Haku straddling Gifu and Ishikawa prefectures.
He came up with the idea because he wanted tourists to stay in the area longer, instead of only looking at the gassho-zukuri farmhouses with steeply sloped roofs in the village, which is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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