Where to Stay in Nara: Sleep Where the Deer Can Be Heard

If you want to fall asleep within earshot of Nara’s deer, stay inside Nara Park instead of by the station. The deer spend the day grazing the park’s lawns and, toward evening, move off to their resting places, which are sometimes in the woods. Edosan, an inn founded in 1907 whose cottages are scattered through its grounds in the park, makes a small claim on its front page that won me over: deer, it says, sometimes drop by its cottages.

Kyoto and Osaka are both under an hour away by train, close enough to make Nara a day trip. Even so, the city’s tourism association suggests staying the night, so that you can walk around in the early morning while the park is still relatively quiet.

The park after the day visitors go

Night in the park has few lights, unlike the day, the tourism association says, and staying is the only way to be inside that dark instead of leaving it behind on an evening train.

By sunrise the deer are on the move again. Walk out onto Kasugano, the park’s largest open square, and you have Mount Wakakusa to the east, the roof of Todaiji’s Great Buddha Hall to the north-west and its Great South Gate to the west, all at once. Read why Nara’s deer belong to no one before you go, and which of Todaiji’s halls opens first.

If you want the deer as neighbours, sleep in the park

One inn we would look at: Edosan. Its guests sleep in separate cottages in the sukiya style, dotted about its grounds rather than gathered under one roof. If I could pick one sound to fall asleep to in Nara, it would be the one the inn saves for autumn: when the leaves turn, it says, the deer’s calls carry from somewhere far off.

Stays come with dinner, and the inn asks you to arrive by around six for it, so I would plan the evening around the inn’s table and its small family baths rather than around the town.

If you cannot choose, sleep on the park’s edge

If you cannot choose between the park and the old town, stay where one gives way to the other.

One hotel we would look at: Nara Hotel. Its main building, designed by the architect Tatsuno Kingo and built of cypress in the manner of a Momoyama-period palace, went up in 1909. I like that even its rooms are named for the two directions: a Park Side, and a Town Side facing Naramachi. Many of the rooms still have a mantelpiece. The hotel no longer lets in visitors who come only to look around, so to see that staircase, come as a guest, or for a meal or tea.

Naramachi, if you would rather sleep in a sake brewer’s house

Naramachi grew up on the former grounds of Gangoji temple, and its lanes are still lined with townhouses in the style of the Edo and Meiji periods. Look up as you walk and you can see small red figures hanging from the eaves.

One inn we would look at: Kaze no Naramachi. It is the old family home of Nara Toyosawa Shuzo, a sake brewery founded in the Meiji period, made over into a hotel of only eight rooms, with its high ceilings and bare beams left in sight. Best of all, to my mind, the brewery’s own sake is now poured at a counter restaurant in what was once the house’s earthen-floored hall, inside the brewer’s former home. It is also the shortest walk on this page from Kintetsu Nara Station, which helps if Nara is one stop on a longer trip.

Before you go

Checked 4 October 2026. We list no room rates.

Where I would sleep

I would take one of Edosan’s cottages in autumn, stay in after dinner, and listen for the deer somewhere out in the dark between the cottages and the trees.

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