Reasonable/practical to rent a car LD in Japan?

Hi all,

I was in Japan for five weeks in 2005 with my boyfriend and we have rented a car for 4 weeks. Several travel agencies strongly advised us not to rent a car but to travel by public transportation instead. We have never regretted renting a car for a second! I agree that travelling does not go very quickly, but we have been at some of the most beautiful roads and spots I've ever seen and of which I am quite sure that getting there by bus would be disastrous.

The thing we were warned for most of all was the lack of Western road signs, but that is total rubbish. We have been to quite rural areas and everywhere we went the road signs were in both Japanese and in Western lettering. Above all, every road in Japan has a number and these numbers are also on the maps we had. So navigation was quite easy. We bought a very detailed Japanese map and a (less detailed) English map. Together these maps were very useful.

Another thing we were warned for was that driving is very expensive in Japan. As for car rental and fuel, the prices are similar, if not less expensive with the relatively cheap Yen today, to those in Europe. Toll can be quite expensive though, and since the express ways are pretty boring (lots of tunnels and walls), we chose to take highways in stead. These were mostly beautiful routes. The only disadvantage is that 80 km/h is the maximum speed, so don't expect to travel 1000 km a day on these roads.

The route we took by car was roughly: Kyoto, Himeji, Tottori, Fukuoka, Mt. Aso, Beppu, Shikoku Island, Kyoto. Later we took a train to Takayama where we rented another car for a couple of days.

All in all I would highly recommend renting a car in Japan, but next time I would do it slightly differently. I would choose to take the train for longer distances and pick a couple of central places to stay for a few days. At each of these places I'd rent a car, but travelling between the places to stay for a couple of days I would take the train.

Hope this helps!

Bye, Karin