Obon/August/JR Rail Pass

Travelling with a 12 year old August 3-15, or so. Not the best time, I know to be travelling in Japan. Will be using a JR Rail pass, but can't make seat reservations until arrive Japan. Will be doing normal tourist route: Tokyo, Fuji (we will climb), Kyoto, Hiroshima, etc. Need to arrive back in Tokyo around August 11 or 12. How difficult will it be to get seat reservations? I know Tokyo empties out around August 11-12, but don't the other cities empty out too? Don't lots of travellers need to change trains/go through Tokyo? Ideally, want to go from Hiroshima back to Tokyo on August 11 or 12. Any thoughts on travel during this busy period would be appreciated.

Most reserved seats will be/are already reserved. One of the busiest times of year for domestic travel. Cities don't necessarily "empty out" (they used to in the past) as college kids & families go there for vacation. I'd worry more about getting hotel/inn accommodation. Start now!

I also would say NOT to worry about not having a reservation. Just ride unreserved, you might get a seat sometimes and you might have to stand at other times.

JR Pass and JR trains are wonderful, not be able to make reservation prior to getting to Japan, not so wonderful.

I travelled with a family of 6 during Obon 2006 and as long as you're flexible it's not as bad as people make out.
We made all our seat reservations on the day we validated our tickets and had no problem at all.
That included day trips from Nagoya to Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima and return trips to Tokyo.
Two of our party didn't have rail passes and travelled unreserved and didn't have too much trouble getting seats.

Remember that you can't ride Nozomi, which are often the busiest
And that there are trains leaving every 5-10 minute
Be aware that it'll be busy, be flexible but don't write it all off straight away.
And enjoy.

I wouldn't really say Tokyo "empties out". Perhaps there are 10 million people here during Obon instead of 12 million- not really enough to make much of a difference! Rush hour trains are less crowded, sure, but otherwise you wouldn't notice.

hi, i will also be travelling that week using the JR pass, there will be three of us with two of us having a JR pass and one with out do you know if this will be a problem to book seats together if one of us is without a JR pass?

I understand that if you go to the booking/reservation office together, where the non-pass person can buy a ticket, it can be done. You should probably convince the other person to by a JR pass; I bet that would make it a lot easier for everyone. From what I understand of Obon/Early August it is really busy and crowded; it seems it would be easier if all were on the same program together.

There is a varying degree of seat availability throughout the Obon period, so, yes, it pays to be flexible. Officially, the (kyu) Bon always starts on August 13 and ends on August 16. Given that this year 8/13 is a Monday and 8/16 is a Thursday, you can assume that most people start making a move on Saturday, August 11 and try to get home on Sunday, August 19. So I assume that those two days are the worst travel days in terms of crowd. And 8/12 and 8/18 are likely to be quite busy as well.

If you can avoid those days to travel and also avoid the morning departures, you can often find suprisingly uncrowded trains even during a busy period like Obon. Regardless of when you travel, however, if going unreserved, I recommend lining up as early as possible, minimum half an hour before the departure time, perhaps earlier. This applies particularly when using the Tokaido Shinkansen with a JR Pass, as there are now only two Hikaris per hour. As others have said, Nozomi is off-limits to JR Pass holders.

By the way, reservations for the JR system become available one month prior to the departure date, with their internet reservation system accepting reservations seven days ahead of that.

As far as I remember you can't travel directly from Tokyo - Hiroshima and vice versa except on the Nozomi. It can involve one or two changes, usually one in Osaka. Easy to book seats in advance.

#8, a good point! Between Tokyo and Hiroshima using the JR Pass, you need to make at least one connection. Typically, its a Hikari-Hikari connection either in Shin-Osaka or Okayama.

The unavailability of Hikari to JR Pass holders (it also applies to other passholders like Jipangu Club - for senior citizens) is getting very annoying. The connecting time at Shin Osaka is typically around 30 minutes between JR Central Hikari and Hikari Railstar on JR West (no Green Class accommodation). And while there are up to 2 Hikari departures from Tokyo, Hihari Railstar only goes hourly from Shin Osaka. Some Hikari trains stop at a lot of stations, further extending travel time. So for example, leaving Tokyo around 10 am, a through Nozomi gets you to Hiroshima in little over 4 hours, while Hikari (with one change) takes from 5 to 5.5 hours, with up to an hour's wait at Shin Osaka.
In spite of protestations, JR Central seems unlikely to change their bans on Nozomi, as they clearly want to preserve revenue from predominently business passengers and avoid overcrowding on what they see as a premium service. At least to their credit, JR West do allow holders of JR West Sanyo Area pass to travel Nozomi in their region, and JR East, who operate in Central and Eastern Japan, allow passholders to use any train on their Shinkansen routes.
A good discussion on this in the Japanese edition of Wikipedia under 'Japan Rail Pass'.