I’ve been reading a lot of discourse regarding whether or no JR Pass is worth it after the price hike, and several people mentioned the convenience of not needing to hunt down JR Line specific routes. I wanted to ask people who have gone to Japan and done both (using JR Pass and without) to see if you could provide insight into the difference in your travel experience with each? I know the main motivation for using the JR Pass is the cost savings, so how much would you all value that vs the convenience/time saved by just purchasing individual routes?
I’ve input my route in google maps, navitime, and a jrpass calculator and it seems like I would save about $100/person (two of us traveling) by using the 14 day JR Pass. However, I would be spending an extra 6-8 hours on transit by using JR lines vs if I were to use a suica on more direct/efficient lines. I kind of screwed myself over when booking the trip by creating an inefficient itinerary (see my post history), but I booked the places I wanted, and it would be too difficult/expensive to change my route now.
by dubear