Best rail tickets

Hi there,

If you plan just plan on spending two weeks only for traveling I would recommend taking the Shinkansen to Nagano and from there travel on my local rail. Like Route 2 which takes about 3 Hours / ¥ 8,390. Like you said buying a JR-Pass for just this is not a very economic option so I suggest just buying the tickets on the train station.

If you plan to travel from Narita Airport, take the Narita Express to Tokyo station and transfer there to the above route.

Hope this helps,
Daniel