Hi all.
Who would ever believe there could be so many travel options in 1 country. Passes, discounts, supplements; boggling. Anyway I am travelling to Japan for 25 days starting on the 1st September. My main question regards the Japan Rail pass and whether it is worth it for my itinereary. I am trying to keep costs down so if you can come up with any better options for travelling please do. Also I am wandering if Im trying to fit too much in to my time. I would rather enjoy places and soak up the atmosphere than spend all my time on tracks and wheels. Speak freely, many thanks for replies.
My proposed itinereary
Tokyo, mt fugi, Tokyo, nikko.
Matsumoto/kisovalley
Takayama, furukawa/shokawa,
Kanzawa,
fukui/keroku/eihei-ji
Kyoto, nara, koya san
Kumamoto / Aso-san
Maybe Hiroshima if time. And also maybe back from kumamoto to Hiroshima for a flight. The flight difference is £100. Would it be worth it financially going back up for the flight?
Thanks again
I would say that it definitely is worth it given the distances you will be travelling.
Flight is unclear, where are you flying out of Hiroshima?
Note too that you can use it on all the JR lines in Tokyo as well as the express train from the airport.
yo
i did almost exactly the same bunch of cities/towns/spots that you've mentioned...i did it over 5 weeks but 25 days is plenty to fit most of it in.
Definitely get a JR pass. worth every penny. cannot stress it enough. japanese ppl look at your pass with awe because you can just wander onto bullet trains while they've got to shell out hundreds for every trip they make. awesome.
As for your route, I'd go tokyo, up to nikko, across to takayama/kanazama etc, down to kyoto, nara, koyasan, then across to hiroshima, then jump on a train and go right back along the coast, jump off at mt fuji if you want to, then back to tokyo. that way you don't double back at any point apart from the final return trip to tokyo (which only takes about 3-4 hours anyway...and train trips in japan are so damn picturesque it's not like it's time wasted)
Also if you want to spend more time in fewer places, i wouldn't do all of nikko/kyoto/nara...unless your appetite for old temples is bottomless. i would probably do nikko and kyoto then see how you feel and maybe skip nara. i mean it's great but you might be sick of them by then.
enjoy.
sparky
Agree with #3. As I live and work here, I can't get the JR pass. A one week JR pass costs about the same as it would cost me for a return Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Osaka. It's brilliant value when you consider that.
Sorry to be unclear about flight. I am flying out of Japan to Chengdu in China. Flying out of Tokyo is way too much - around twice as much as some other airports.
My cheapest flight option is to fly out of Hiroshima main. At £359.
My furthest Japan destination is Aso-San near Kumamoto. It is £100 more expensive (than Hiroshima) to fly from here (still considerably cheaper than Toyko), but what my question was asking was if it was much less than £100 to get from Kumamoto to Hiroshima by rail/bus - then I would do this.
I guess if I had a JPrail pass then I could use this and save that money. I must say the rail pass is looking increasingly worthwhile.
Thanks all
The world is a map: to not travel is to see but one page
Less than 100 quid to get from Kumamoto to Hiroshima? Absolutely with the exchange rate where it is now.
Have just looked on Ekikara which has given a one way fare of 10730 yen. Roughly 40 quid. This means transferring on to the Shinkansen at Hakata.
The website above is good, but it is not in English unfortunately.
I also agree with the others...Get the JR pass.
Even though a non-JR rail goes to Nikko more directly, you can still get there by using JR (part of the trip is by bullet train).
Get the pass and please visit Aso - it is beautiful. I'm a local here, so I'm biased, but I have traveled much of the rest of the country and would put it in my top 5. Kanazawa fits in that group as well. Kenroku-en, the large garden, is terrific.
I would get the 21-day pass, then plan your trip so that you spend the first 2 days in Tokyo not activating the pass (you can just pay for the train from the airport to Tokyo, then activate the pass to leave a few days later), and the last 2 days in Hiroshima once the pass has expired. While in Hiroshima, I'd visit Miyajima, also in my top 5.
No offense to your schedule, but I would skip Fuji. If you take a train past it you'll get the best view possible. It's definitely not worth climbing unless you are driven to climb the highest points in different countries. There are much more rewarding peaks elsewhere. I'd spend more time around Aso (maybe Kurokawa onsen) or Matsumoto. If you had time in Matsumoto, you could also go to Kamikochi (another top 5, I'm running out of places!) for a few days. Magnificent. Some of those rewarding peaks I referred to above.
Fukui? I don't know anything about it. If you are worried about a lack of sufficient time to enjoy places, I would cut it.
Have fun!
Btw, last spot in my top 5 is Daisetsuzan National Park in Hokkaido. But it's not on your itinerary. It's just as well, it's very far. Maybe next trip!
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