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To buy or not to buy the rail pass

saljag
saljag
over 9 years ago
2 responses

Hi,

my wife and i will be visiting japan for 5 days, and i am still not sure if buying the pass is a good options for us. We are planning on going from:

Airport to Kyoto
Kyoto to Matsumoto
Matsumoto to Shinjuku
Shinjuku to Aiport

while at the different areas, we are thinking about walking (for the most part) to the different attractions. the reason i am not sure if the pass is the best option is because i see that we cant use the fastest bullet train. If we just buy the tickets as we needed for our destinations, it might come up to be the same.

can someone with more experience give us a hand on what is the better option?

thanks for the help!

avatar
Daniel-san
18828 posts
over 9 years ago
Expert

Hi there,

I checked your itinerary for the best option and would advise normal tickets. There's not that much in ticket prices, meaning that the JR Pass would not be put to best use.

The route Matsumoto - Shinjuku is a very nice one to travel and worth making by itself! It's a direct route as well, so that's very nice. The itinerary also looks good for the rest!

Hope this helps!
Daniel

saljag
saljag
2 posts
over 9 years ago

Thanks for your advice Daniel san. we will go with the normal tickets.

if you allow me to add a follow up question, We are debating on going to see the Snow monkeys (we will be in Japan the last week in October) or just staying in Matsumoto and enjoying the area. going to see the monkeys will add train time. What would you recommend to see in Matsumoto?

have a good day,

avatar
Daniel-san
18828 posts
over 9 years ago
Expert

Hello again!

Matsumoto is a very nice place to make hikes from, matsumoto also has a nice castle to visit and I would certainly add in a day trip to Kamikochi as well.

That's what I would do, there are some good hiking trains explained at the tourist information station at Matsumoto's station.

Have a great day too!
Daniel


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