Japan Trip Planning Q&A: Part I - Transportation
A series of posts on Japan trip planning, starting with Part I: Transportation—answered in ten questions.
Good afternoon,
The reason I’m visiting your inbox for a second time this month, soon after the February edition of Letters from Japan – Snow Falling on Cedars, is to share the first part of the Japan Trip Planning Q&A Series, focusing on (mainly train) transportation.
This series, first mentioned in the February letter and exclusive to monthly and annual subscribers, aims to provide practical tips for Japan trip planning, which, honestly—even for me as a resident—still feels overwhelming, all in a Q&A format.
My intention is to keep the posts in this series relatively short and precise, covering as much as I can in ten questions—without adding to the already taxing process of planning a trip to Japan. The next post in the series, coming next week, will focus on booking accommodations.1
It’s difficult to cover every possible question, including any new ones that might come up after reading the answers below. So, I’ve focused on the most obvious and likely the most relevant ones. But as always, if anything is unclear, feel free to email me, use the chat option on Substack, or leave a comment below. I might not have all the answers right away, but I’ll certainly look them up for you.
The most crucial question in Japan trip planning—the to be or not to be of the process—is whether to buy the once very popular and now a little infamous Japan Rail Pass. So, let’s start there.
#1 Is the Japan Rail Pass worth it?
Until October 2023, the answer to this question was a straightforward yes, as a one-week pass cost only slightly more than a round-trip Shinkansen ticket between Tokyo and Kyoto. However, with a 70% price increase pushing the cost of a one-week ordinary car2 pass to ¥50,000, the nationwide Japan Rail Pass—covering the entire Shinkansen network and all other lines operated by Japan Rail Group companies (more on that below in Question #8)—is now rarely worth it for one- or two-week itineraries unless you have a fairly hectic schedule, moving to a new city every one or two days.
Recently, a friend planning a month-long trip to Japan, including long train journeys from Aomori down to Nagasaki, found that the cost of a three-week pass was equivalent to buying individual tickets for their entire journey, which covered seven different cities. They still went for the pass, but more for convenience and flexibility rather than cost savings. Another friend who did two weeks of city hopping between Tokyo (starting and end point of the trip) and Hiroshima, covering all the usual suspects along the way, chose not to purchase the pass and instead relied on individual Shinkansen tickets and low-cost airfares.
If your itinerary is set, you can use this extremely helpful tool from the always-reliable Japan Guide website to determine whether the nationwide rail pass makes sense for your trip: Japan Rail Pass Calculator.