Hi Everyone,
I will be travelling to Japan soon with my 20 year old son. We are flying from Canada to Osaka, arriving in early afternoon. We have 35 days for this adventure. This will be the first time in Japan for both of us. Our plan is to spend about 10 days in Kansai region; five days in Osaka with side trips to Kobe, Hameji, Koya. Then we would like to move to Kyoto and explore the city for three days plus do a side trip to Nara. After that we were thinking of travelling east to Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kanazawa, Noto Penninsula, Nagano, Kiso Valley, Narai (the morning of our departure from Kyoto we would activate our JR pass). After the Japan Alps we will be in Tokyo for a few days with some side trips to Kamakura, and Fuji. Then we will likely fly down to Kyushu for several days, and finally to Okinawa for a week and back to Osaka the end of June to catch our return flight. My questions are as follows:
Does it make sense to buy a JR pass ? Since we will be in relatively contained area of Central Honshu maybe it is better to get the regional pass, it is much cheaper (Central Honshu JR pass for 5 days is 104 CAD vs 7 days JR 294 CAD). Surely, we need to get from Nagoya to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Nagano and these routes aren't covered by the Central pass.
There is JR East pass which is 5 days flexible and costs 222 CAD, so combining the two gives us a better deal - surely we are trying to be as cost effective as possible !
3.I am not sure if the JR East is good to Hakone or I should rather say Odawara ???
- Maybe for our purpose it is less expensive to buy point to point tickets in addition to Central Honshu pass as we won't go north or east of Tokyo...
5.Any suggestions regarding Kyushu ? In my Lonely Planet Japan guidebook 95% pertains to Honshu, very little about the rest of the country.
What are the best options for travelling within Tokyo and surrounding area e.g. Kamakura ?
Is Kansai area pass worth our while (the cost 64 CAD for four consecutive days) or again is it better to buy individual tickets, no constraints then...
Thanks in advance for any help !
Ania