Abandoned Kansai

Abandoned hotels are a dime a dozen in Japan, but when it comes to location, hardly any of them can hold a candle to the Cape Palace! (Though there was some arson…)

The now abandoned Cape Palace was a luxury hotel built in the 1960s in southern Wakayama on the tip of a cape with gorgeous ocean views from all 44 guest rooms as well as pretty much everywhere else within the accommodation. It was famous for its various hot spring baths (including a rotenburo at the very tip of the cape, only accessible by passing through the whole hotel) and the seafood dinners – the hotel even has a small fleet of boats, so the guests could enjoy fishing trips.
There’s not much information out there about the Cape Palace, but it seems like it closed in 2011 when a typhoon hit the coast and caused massive damage to the almost 50 year old hotel, basically turning it into an economic total loss.
I first explored the Cape Palace back in 2015 as a day trip from Osaka with two regular explorer friends of mine. Access was surprisingly easy – we were able to drive up right to the front door… which was wide open. Since the hotel was located on a cape a bit off the main road, we were basically completely out of sight. To our surprise the ground floor had been completely gutted, at first we were not even sure if we had found a construction ruin or an abandoned hotel, especially since there was no demolition machinery outside, no signs of workers anywhere. The upper floor though made it pretty clear that the hotel had been in business before – plenty of rooms with the original interior and some cluttered ones with stuff from all over the hotel. The former party room still featured a large laser disc collection – I didn’t have a closer look, but most likely karaoke LDs. Right outside the hotel, at the bottom of the cape was a large beach. Not a nice sandy one, a pebbly one… so I guess the large outdoor pool next to it was quite popular with the hotel guest then. One of the rooms featured a large aerial shot of the hotel in its glory deal, if you are interested in what the setup looked like. (It also showed the long gone ground golf area – ground golf being a simplified version of regular golf, extremely popular amongst senior citizens in Japan; I’ve mentioned it several times before.)

Overall the Cape Palace was a nice and easy exploration, nothing spectacular though, except for the views. There was little left of the main interior, but I’m sure in 2010 the place had a very unusual retro atmosphere and something like two foreign guests a year as it was definitely off the beaten tracks.

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