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Tokyo - Osaka - Hokkaido

Cinthia
Cinthia
over 6 years ago
2 responses

Hi there
I have a question regarding traveling in Japan.
It’s our first time, a family of five.
We got airline tickets arriving Narita at 6am on 5th Dec; and departing Narita at night on 16th Dec.
We’re planning to stay in Tokyo for 5 days, then perhaps Osaka & Kyoto 2 days and Hokkaido 4 days; which one is better round to do, Tokyo-Osaka-Hokkaido-Tokyo or Tokyo-Hokkaido-Osaka- Tokyo for the trip and is it possible to do it on JR pass 7 days ? Or do we have to go for 14 days pass? Because we would like to go for snow/ski in Hokkaido, is there any resort there that can be easily reach using JR pass?
And do you think it’s too rushed for this itinerary and should we drop some destination?
Thank you so much for your help 😊

avatar
Daniel-san
18835 posts
over 6 years ago
Expert

Hello there,

Going up and down from Hokkaido will take a lot of time. Tokyo - Sapporo is a bit more than 7 hours of straight train travel while Osaka - Sapporo will be around 10! With this in mind, I think it would be too much to do all of this in 7 days. Doing it in 14 days would be more realistic. The route does not matter that much as you are traveling in a circle. You could consider using a domestic flight for the longest route between Hokkaido and Osaka.

Keep in mind that there are also plenty of snow resorts closer to Tokyo, think about Hakuba, Echigo-Yuzawa and various options around Nagano. Snowjapan.com is a good resource for finding them. If snow is your only objective than I would drop Hokkaido and stay at one of the above options.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Cinthia
Cinthia
2 posts
over 6 years ago

Hi Daniel,
Thank you so much for your kind assistance.
After your input, we’re considering to drop Osaka and Kyoto for our next visit.
So our options are:
Option 1: Narita - Tokyo (5 days) - Shinkansen to- Hakodate (1 day) - Sapporo (3 days) - flight to- Osaka (1 day) - Kyoto (1 day) - Shinkansen back - Tokyo - Narita flight home.
Option 2: Narita - Tokyo (5 days) - Shinkansen to - Hakodate (1 day) - Sapporo (5 days) - shinkansen back/flight back - Tokyo - Narita.
Can your please give us suggestion on which one is more possible for the month of December and considering we’re traveling with 3 kids age 5,8 and 11.
And which JR pass or transportations is suitable to get.
Thank you so much for your kind help.


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