Flight or train to Kanazawa?

Currently putting the finishing touches to our 2 week January 2023 trip. We’re reasonably set in our itinerary, as it’s been constantly revised for cancelled 2021 and 2022 trips. We start in **Kanazawa**, with a day trip to **Shirakawa**, then onto **Kyoto**, to **Hiroshima**, to **Okayama** and finishing in **Tokyo**. This will be our third trip to Japan, so we’re visiting a mix of old favourites and new places.

We are flying direct from London to Tokyo with British Airways and land at Haneda airport at 10:25am on a Sunday. We then have the option to get the train to Tokyo station and catch the shinkansen direct to Kanazawa *or* fly direct from Haneda to Komatsu airport and then a shuttle train to Kanazawa.

**Flying**

Pros

– Quickest option as flight is just one hour

– we don’t have to go through central Tokyo and can connect in Haneda

– we have lounge access in Haneda so can spent some time showering and refreshing after a 14 hour flight

– means we only need to purchase a 7 day JR pass to cover the Kanazawa to Kyoto to Hiroshima to Tokyo part of our trip, so works out cheaper.

Cons

– any flight we purchase will be on a separate ticket to our London flight, so if we’re delayed and miss it we will lose the ticket.

– only suitable flights are at 1pm and 4:15pm. The 1pm flight might be pushing it if there’s any delay as we’ll need to get through immigration, pick up bags and recheck them. The later flight gives us too much time to kill.

– Komatsu airport is outside Kanazawa, so we’d still have some distance to travel to our accomodation when we arrive.

**Train**

Pros

– We can be flexible with our schedule when we arrive. We can make our way to Tokyo station in our own time, stop for lunch if needed and get whichever of the very frequent trains suits us best.

– no issues if flight is delayed.

– train arrives into centre of Kanazawa and short walk to our accomodation.

– a 14 day JR pass could be useful. The difference between the 7 and 14 day is only a little more expensive than the flight and would give us more flexibility to add on extra day trips and JR travel within Tokyo.

– we love Japanese trains and getting one on the first day would be a great start to our trip.

Cons

– train would take longer, we’d arrive later to Kanazawa

– we might be super tired and gross feeling after the long flight and going through Tokyo station then getting a long train before we can reach our accomodation might be too tiring.

– we might not make the most of a 14 day JR pass.

I am truly quite stuck on which option to go for, so any advice is greatly appreciated!