Hey there! This will be my second time in Japan (albeit 5 years ago) and the first time for my roommate and my husband. As I said, we’ll be there for 18 days in late April/early May. We want to go to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hokkaido. The only itinerary item set in stone is being in Tokyo about a week and a half into the trip to go to Sanrio Puroland for my birthday.
So do you guys have any recommendations? Like, in which order to visit these places, if the JR rail pass is worth it, things to do/see, etc.
6 comments
I used this site to estimate all of my routes for the trains for the 14 day trip I’m on now and it was double to get the rail pass vs buying tickets individually https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/
JR rail pass was definitely worth it several years back. My daughter and I always stayed at traditional inns and loved that. Enjoy your trip.
Late april to early may dates will be golden week so bear in mind you’ll be competing with the locals on popular attractions, commuting and hotels so reserve things early.
You can use navitime to filter by pass and calculate the travel costs: https://japantravel.navitime.com/en/area/jp/route/
But personally it’ll be cheaper to get shinkansen tickets without the pass for osaka/kyoto-tokyo route and take a plane in to hokkaido via domestic.
Where will you land and depart from? Your schedule looks tight if you want to squeeze in Hokkaido.
The rail pass is a much tougher sell with the recent price increase. I don’t know if individual ticket prices will go up as well, though, who knows. You should definitely use one of those calculators to see and maybe double check it as you get closer? See if ticket prices change. But, more likely than not, it won’t be worth it…maybe if you got a 7 day and squeezed in all of your non-Tokyo visits within that timeframe to just shinkansen the crap out of the pass (this may or may not be what I do…but with the price increase it’s still cutting it close assuming non-reserved seats for most trains). I’d look into area passes. You don’t have to get the nation-wide one, an area pass is going to be much cheaper and may suit you nicely. There’s a truckload of different ones, it’s kind of wild to me actually.
Personally I think hitting those 4 areas in 18 days is doable, unless you’re hoping to hit several major places in Hokkaido or something. You could fly to Hokkaido, there’s some kind of foreign visitor discount on domestic JAL flights (limited tickets and such, not sure how easy they are to get), pretty sure it has Tokyo to Sapporo at ¥11000. Not sure if that’s one way or if it’s much better than other airlines but JAL is great and it includes checked luggage.
Outside of that you didn’t mention much as far as what you’re hoping to get out of the trip or what categories of destinations you’re into (nature, history, big city, culture, food, etc). Why are you going to Japan?
Ps. Are there two or three people going on this trip? Your phrasing is ambiguous enough to leave room for a joke about how your husband technically is your roommate and they could be the same person 😆
if youre just doing the usual route (tokyo – osaka / kyoto) then no, the jr pass is definitely not worth it.