16 days Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo

Hi there,

I think the best option here would be to buy normal rail tickets. A Japan Rail Pass would require a bit more travel in order to be profitable. A 7 day JR Pass, for instance, is great if you can cover a return Tokyo - Osaka with it but a 14 day JR Pass needs a bit more, such as a trip to Hiroshima added in. Your itinerary falls right in between.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Hello,
About the only suggestion I can come up with is that you get a 7 day pass and use it for Days 6-13. For Hakone you can go there as a separate overnight trip from Tokyo using a Hakone Free Pass. The Hakone Loop Course is a common way to see the area.
Since you are already seeing Tokyo, you can mostly skip Osaka during the daytime . But after the temples of Kyoto close down around 5 PM, you can zip over to Osaka for the evening. At night the city comes alive and has some great places to see, such as Dotonbori, plus the night views from the Umeda Sky Bldg, and Abeno Harukas Bldg are superb.
On another evening, you can go see Kobe.

To make sure you get some good savings, you can take a day trip to see Himeji with Japan's grandest castle. Or for even more savings, you can see both Hiroshima and Miyajima with an early morning start. You can cover the Peace Park/Museum, castle, Shukkeien Garden and Okonomiyaki-mura, and then go down to take the JR ferry to the island. Aside from the Itsukushima Shrine with the giant "floating" torii, the Daishoin Temple is also a must-see place. There are several other pagodas and temples, and climbing Mt. Misen offers a fantastic view over the island and whole area.

You should not miss Nara either. You can see the best in about half a day by going to the Nara Park area. The Todaiji Great Buddha is a must-see, but also be sure to feed the deer, see Kofukuji and Kasuga Grand Shrine, plus two often overlooked gardens, Isuien and Yoshikien.

For going back to the airport, if you're using Narita, there is the 1000 yen bus, and within Tokyo if you want to use a subway, you might consider a 2 or 3 day subway pass.

Good luck.

thank you so much for your reply.
If i purchase the 7 days pass and activate it on Day 6, can i still use the pass on day 13 or it finishes at the end of day 12.

Hi,
It's a 7 day pass, so if you start using it on Day 6, it would expire at the end of Day 12
The day you activate it for to use counts as the 1st day - which starts and ends at midnight. So if you activate it to use it that day at 6 PM, your first "day" is just 6 hours long.

You can also exchange your order for the pass and designate a future date to start on it - so for example to start using your pass from the earliest train possible (sometimes departing before the office even opens) or to leave from another station where you can't exchange your order for the pass, you can set the first day as tomorrow, or 3 days from today, or whenever. Please note that the exchange order must be turned in for the pass within three months of the date the order was issued. So if you want to start using the pass in mid-Sept, you should not buy the exchange order until after the middle of June.

Good luck.