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Kyoto - Osaka - Hiroshima - Hakone - Kawaguchiko - Tokyo

lla001
lla001
about 11 years ago
2 responses

Hi,

We’ll be visiting Japan soon, starting from 19-Apr, can’t wait! :)

Our current itinerary is:

Day 1 – Kansai Airport – straight to Kyoto
Day 2 – Kyoto
Day 3 – Kyoto -> Koyasan
Day 4 – Osaka
Day 5 – Osaka -> Hiroshima – perhaps straight to Miyajima
Day 6 – Hiroshima
Day 7 – Hiroshima -> Hakone
Day 8 – Hakone -> Kawaguchiko
Day 9 – Kawaguchiko -> Tokyo
Day 10 – Tokyo
Day 11 – Fly out early morning from Narita Airport

It would be very much appreciated if you can help me with the following questions:

  1. What do you think of the above itinerary? Would you recommend any other special places that we should add into our itinerary?
  2. We’re thinking of getting 7-day JR Pass, or should we get the 14-day instead?
  3. If we’re to purchase the 7-day, then we’re looking at activating the JR Pass on either Day 3 or Day 4. What do you think?
  4. For the first 2-3 days prior to activating the JR Pass, should we purchase other passes like the Kansai Thru Pass or Kansai Area Pass, etc. for commuting within Osaka, Kyoto, commuting between Osaka and Kyoto, and other nearby areas such as Nara, Himeji, etc.?

Thank you very much for your time in advance.

avatar
Daniel-san
18832 posts
about 11 years ago
Expert

Hi there,

1.) I think your itinerary looks well planned, if you had some extra time a visit to Takayama. Or perhaps a visit to Iwakuni once you are in Hiroshima may be worthwhile.

2.) I think a 7-Day JR-Pass is the best option for the above itinerary. You can use it for all your long distance travel on the Shinkansen, especially the way to and from Hiroshima would otherwise be expansive. Once you are in Kyoto/Osaka I would recommend buying normal tickets as local travel is not very expansive. For instance a one way ticket between Osaka and Kyoto is 540 Yen. For the journey from Kansai Airport to Kyoto I would recommend an Icoca + Haruka ticket. You can use the value on the Icoca card to travel around in the Kansai Area and get a very discounted Haruka ticket.

3.) I would use the pass on day 5 to 11. This way you can use the Narita Express to travel to Narita Airport that otherwise is around 3000Yen, unless you think you may do more that this value in travel on day 4.

4.) I partially already wrote about this in answer 2 but I think you will most likely be best of with buying single tickets. All the local passes in Kansai have certain limitation, which can be rather confusing with all the different transport companies in the area, also you may need to do some careful planning before they become worth their price. For mount Koya, I do think that you may find a [Koyasan World Heritage Ticket] useful when you travel there.

Hope this helps,
-Daniel

lla001
lla001
2 posts
about 11 years ago

Thank you very much for your prompt and wonderful advices! :)

Regards,
-lla001


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