I’m a student living in Tokyo and am planning to spend 3 nights in Kyoto for the November 21 3-day weekend, I want to make the travel expenses as cheap as possible utilizing the Go to travel campaign discount.
There is the JR East 12000yen welcome pass ongoing but there isn’t similar discounts I can find for JR Central’s Tokaido Shinkansen. JR Tokai Flex-Rail ticket are not available right now, and it seems Kyoto Shinkansen+Hotel packages are all sold out for the Nov 21 weekend, flights are also too expensive. I’d like to get to Kyoto as fast as possible to have more daytime travel around, and I don’t mind taking longer going back home.
The only way I can work it out is pay the full cost of a Nozomi train to Kyoto (¥14170), reserved a hostel to stay for 3 nights for ¥6000 thanks to Go to travel, and take the Platt Kodama back to Tokyo (¥10500). The Shinkansens cannot be discounted since the transportation and accommodation are not booked together as a package, so I can only get a ¥1000 coupon from booking the hostel.
Anyone know of a more cost-effective travel plan?
3 comments
There is not a lot of options to move between Tokyo and Kyoto. Other than what you named, about the only other option you have is a night bus. If you do so, you will be super early in Kyoto for the first day, that is for sure. Seems to be quite cheaper options than shinkansen [https://www.kosokubus.com/en/special/tokyo_kyoto.html](https://www.kosokubus.com/en/special/tokyo_kyoto.html)
As you are not taking much advantage of Go to travel campaign much, would it not be better to book the whole package at a date when it is not sold out ? Or just go somewhere that would be cheaper on the train, like using JR East Welcome pass as your mentioned.
Look up ひさびさ旅割 it’s a package deal from Jr tokai for shinkansen and accommodation. You can apply goto travel. By the way, aren’t you looking for two nights if you’re going on a three-day trip?
Yeah, its way too late to book for good deal on a long weekend to such a popular destination.
If you want to take Shinkansen, the student discount would make it around ~12,xxx. (Requires a student discount certificate issued by your school). But if you want cheap, it’s going to be an overnight bus.