Hi Daniel-san,
I recently asked for your help to check my itinerary and turns out, buying the JR Pass might not be the best option for me.
However, I am very confused on how I should travel without the JR Pass.
I am going to re-type my itinerary briefly.. and could you please let me know which ticket(s) should I purchase or pre-purchase (because I know that most trains can also be used by taping the suica card only, which is very convenient!)
So this is my full list:
Day 1 to Day 3: full Tokyo (3 days metro pass)
Day 4: tokyo - nagano - matsumoto
Day 5: full matsumoto
Day 6: matsumoto - narai - kyoto - shirahige jinja - kyoto
Day 7: kyoto - amanohashidate - Ine
Day 8: Ine - amanohashidate - kyoto
Day 9 to Day 11: full kyoto
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If my planning was right.. then i will only be using 2 shinkansen on this trip, which will be on:
Day 4: hokuriku shinkansen Tokyo to Nagano
Day 6: tokaido-sanyo shinkansen Nagoya to Kyoto (from matsumoto)
Is that right?
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And for the others… there are plenty of trains that have the ‘JR’ icon on google maps, such as:
1. Nagano to matsumoto: using JR Shinano/Shinonoi
2. Matsumoto to Narai: using JR Shinonoi/Shinano/Chuo Line
3. On the way to Kyoto from Matsumoto:
- Narai to Shiojiri: Chuo Line
- Shiojiri to Nagano: JR Shinano
- Kyoto to Shirahige Shrine:
Kyoto station to and from Katata station: Tokaido-Sanyo Line
Kyoto to and from Nara: using Nara Line
Was wondering if I also have to prepurchase/reserve a ticket for these? Or can I just use my IC card on the go for all of these rides?
Thank you very much beforehand, Daniel-san!