Hello! My girlfriend and I are planning to travel from the Kanagawa area to Yakushima, I am aware that this requires a long train ride and a ferry ride, but we got an amazing deal on a place to stay for the month so we have to go! I am wondering what some advice would be on taking a night bus versus taking the shinkansen. I have had very limited success looking up how to purchase a ticket for the night bus, whereas the shinkansen seems much of a simpler process, but more expensive. I am wondering, are there any resources for buses that I may not be aware of?
Also for anyone with experience, how do we buy tickets for the ferry from Kagoshima to Yakushima?
Another question, can we buy shinkansen tickets for a specific day at a station in advance?
Thank you so much!!
EDIT: Thank you all so much! This was all super helpful, I think we will end up taking the shinkansen, we have a few bags with us so after the bag fees and seat choice fee, I think it may end up being around the same price as the shinkansen.
Also, I just learned of Tanegashima so we will be visiting there as well!!
Also a follow up question if anyone reads this, can Jaoan take away a visa for not paying the national health insurance? We accidentally got on the wrong health insurance, and not the one where your employer handles everything. Now we have about ~500 USD in debt to the gov. Wondering what will be the consequences of this! A little scared!
14 comments
I know the Shinkansen train you really don’t need to prebuy them and when you buy them you can actually get reserved seating
The night bus can ve reserved on the nightbus company’s website.
Like willerexpress.com.
But i would probably recommend going by airplane. The bus takes way to long going to Kyushu, and airplane is cheaper than shinkansen.
I recommend Willer Bus, they have a really good English website. If you can read Japanese, search up 夜行バス and you’ll find lots of websites and companies across Japan running night buses.
Yes you can buy Shinkansen tickets in advance either at the counter or at the ticket machines in any major JR station, best luck would be at a station with Shinkansen going through. (JRみどりの窓口 midorinomadoguchi).
The train is great. I think there’s a video out there someone posted about the bus but the train is excellent.
> Also for anyone with experience, how do we buy tickets for the ferry from Kagoshima to Yakushima?
I just bought them at the ferry terminal. I went in off season however (September), so it wasn’t crowded at all.
Do you realize that taking the bus would be at least 16 hours. Also, Willer, one one the big bus company, does not even go to Kagoshima. For sure the shinkansen is faster, but still over 6 hours.
You should really check for airplane price to do Haneda-Kagoshima, for that kind of distance, it can possibly compete with shinkansen for price ans it would be faster.
I would recommend checking out flight options too. You can even transfer at Kagoshima to take the small JAL propeller type plane direct to Yakushima. Limited timings though so plan well.
Otherwise, for ferry, I actually recommend reserving tickets on the website in advance. Go early to the ferry terminal to pick up the actual ticket. When I was there in Oct, it seemed like peak season or maybe the ferries just started running again after a typhoon. The ferry terminal was in chaos, no announcement or signs in English, & people who did not reserve couldn’t get on. My ferry ended up leaving close to 1 hour late.
I second the suggestion to use the plane from Haneda to Yakushima unless you really want to use the train for the scenery. But maybe they’re still not flying atm, you’d have to look that up. It’s by far the most comfortable and time-efficient option to get there.
I traveled by shinkansen + speed boat, but I stayed a little in Kagoshima before shipped to Yakushima.
There are some sites like “travel yakushima” and “yes – yakushima english services” that help you booking transport and activities.
Buses: easier to buy tickets in person at the station than online, most online sites aren’t designed for foreigners. At least in person even without Japanese you can write down dates/times and they can kinda figure out what you need.
Ferry: also better to just rock up and buy the tix. I wouldn’t worry about needing to buy it in advance. I went to Yakushima in 2018 and just went on the day, like an hour beforehand and bought tix easy.
Shinkansen: yes definitely, you can buy tix I believe up to a week in advance. Any further than that you may have to go to the in-person counters or buy online. Shinkansen tickets are an ‘earlier the better’ thing, especially if u plan to reserve seats.
I went there in March, shinkansen from Tokyo to Kagoshima but I had a JR pass so the choice was easy. From Kagoshima I wanted to take the ferry but it was canceled, which seems to happen on a regular basis. I ended up taking the speedboat. I took the tickets directly on site shortly before the departure. It is not very well explained there but there are not so many counters and there are quite a lot of tourists, so it is not that hard to find the right terminal and buy the tickets.
I’m so incredibly jealous. My trip to Yakushima got canceled because of Covid. I was supposed to be there early June.
We bought plane tickets as the ferry was MUCH more expensive (i think for two people it was around $200 round trip flight kago–> yaku).
We booked with the youth hostel and from what I’ve read they are SUPER helpful when it comes to what to do and getting around the island.
You may already have this in your itinerary but there is an onsen on the coast of yakushima that is un-manned, on the beach and LOOKS SO PEACEFUL. I think it was called hirauchi kaichu onsen. It might be a little weird because it is completely in the open and still no clothes allowed, but you should be brave and then report back to me so I can live vicariously through you please.
highly recommend being ready to rent a car on yakushima Island. you will get stuck and there are a few busses but its not a place built for walking around
Jetstar flies from Narita to Kagoshima, usually much cheaper than Haneda-Kagoshima which is operated by JAL.