Itinerary Check

Hi there,

My recommendation would be to purchase a 14-day JR Pass for use between October 2-16. This covers the travel between Odawara (Hakone) to Kobe, a very expensive trip, and then enables you to travel to Matsue, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto and Nara. Although this means that you’d have to purchase the rest of your tickets at the start and end, it’s likely to be your most cost-effective option.

Alternatively, a 21-day JR Pass would cover your itinerary in a more complete way if you were to have it valid to cover your train trips (leaving out some days at the start and end when you’re in Tokyo, where it won’t be of much use except day trips. E.g. if you have it set to start for September 30th then it can finish in Tokyo at the end after a number of days giving you time for day trips as well. It would be slightly more expensive but definitely a lot easier to organise. But note that travel to Hakone from Tokyo is only covered up until Odawara, where you’ll either have to purchase a separate ticket as the company that operates the railway is privately owned, or you can look into a Hakone FreePass, which covers all transit including ferries within the Hakone Area as well as the return trip to and from Odawara.

Hope this helps!

Alexis

Hi Alexis,

Thanks for the information. Is there an order of locations I should follow, that would work better with a regional pass instead?

For example, the JR-West Sanyo-Sanin Area Regional Pass?

Hi there,

The order you have chosen already is quite reasonable as it progressively goes more West and so follows a natural route - in this sense, it may be worth looking into one of the Sanyo or Kansai area passes for your time there between Kobe and Osaka/Kyoto.