Hiroshima to Chiba via night train?

Hi there!

That's a pretty crazy idea! In theory it could certainly work out. The Sunrise is an amazing train and well worth riding for the experience alone. The hard part is that the Sunrise is so popular that it can sell out days before departure. So you would have to make a reservation for the train in advance, preferable so the moment that you arrive in Japan.

The Sunrise also departs from Takamatsu (Shikoku) you could go there and board the train from there, this way you can skip on the ferry (Unless you wish to see Hiroshima).

Lastly, I would say consider looking at a domestic flight. This way you could probably save most time.

Good luck with your travels!
Daniel

Thank you for the response Daniel!

I'm arriving on the 9th of December and will be reserving my sunrise seto ticket when I arrive.
I will be using a 14 day JR pass for the 10th-23th of December so I think the reservation shouldn't be an issue if I'm booking it half a month in advance right...? Let's hope so.

I'm going on a budget trip as I have to spend 2 weeks in Tokyo so flights are definitely out of the question.

I HAVE to be in Matsuyama on the 19th-20th as it's the only day my Japanese friend took off for the month to spend time with me. So I want to try to spend as much time as I can with them thus I came up with the taking ferry late noon from matsuyama to Hiroshima and rushing to Okayama for the night train on the 20th. So even if I miss the night train sunrise seto. I can still take the Shinkansen from Okayama all the way to Chiba before 3 pm.
If the plan and backup plan(Shinkansen in the morning of 21th from Okayama to Chiba) is fine ill book my accommodations in Chiba!

That sounds like a good plan, especially with the Shinkansen backup.

Why not take the train all the way to Okayama and skip the ferry to save some Yen? It's about 3 hours by train and completely covered by the JR Pass.

Just in case, there are some nice internet cafe's around Okayama station. You could even spend the night in one of them if you miss the train.

Thanks for the catch Daniel!
I didn't know limited express was included in the JR pass so I was considering taking the ferry!

So actually according to Hyperdia, using the train to travel from Hiroshima > Matsuyama or vice versa is only 260 minutes or so!

So I can actually depart from Matsuyama by train around 5 pm and arrive in Okayama around 8-9 pm! Plenty of buffer time to find the Sunrise Seto platform and wait for my train!

Thank you very much! You just helped me save 3500 yen on the ferry trip!!!