japan for 3 weeks itinerary help please!

Hi there!

So far it's a great plan! Takayama, Kanazawa and Miyajima are absolutely a must to visit. I would stay 2 nights in Takayama, 2 in Kanazawa and at Miyajima island, or visit Miyajima as a day trip from Hiroshima city. You can also make a day trip to Kamikochi from Takayama. Kami means god in Japanese and the area is godly beautiful but does take a considerable amount of time and money to visit from Takayama, keep this in mind when planning ahead.

Once you return to Tokyo try to cover the day trips you wish to make to other cities with the JR Pass, especially Nikko can be a little pricey without the JR Pass. Hakone is a different story, you can buy a Hakone Free Pass which you can use to supplement your JR Pass and use for travel from Shinjuku, Tokyo to Hakone and also for local travel in the Hakone Area.

As for JR Pass usage, the JR Pass is best used for longer distance travel. It also covers local travel in Tokyo but this is not very expansive in any event, so it is best to use the JR Pass outside of Japan.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions :)
Daniel

Hello many thanks for youre reply i have changed my itinery quite alot now if you could take a look at it and advise whether i should get the 7 day pass or the14th? as will be spending more time in places where i cannot use the JR pass as easily, i would like to spend in total 8 nights in tokyo but am flexible on when i should do this i am thinking 4 nights at the beginning and 4 at the end of my trip could you please let me know which is more cost effective regarding the JR pass and my revised itinary?

TOKYO 4 nights 12th- 16th
FROM TOKYO TO MATSUMOTO IN MATSUMOTO 16th - 17th-

FROM MATSUMOTO - KAMICOCHI 17th - 18th

KAMIKOCHI - HIRAYU 18th- 19th

HIRAYU TO TAKYAMA 19th to 20th

TAKYAMA - SHIRAKAWAGO

SHIRAKAWAO - KANAZAWA

KANAZAWA - KYOTO 23rd - 28th

KYOTO 5 nights SIDE TRIP TO NARA

KYOTO- MOUNT KOYA 1 night

MOUNT KOYA- HIROSHIMA

HIROSHIMA- MIYAJIMA 1 night

BACK TO TOKYO 4 NIGHTS

so yes just to clarify if you could please let me know how i can best use a JR pass on this itinery as i will be spending alot of time in kyoto and have just found out that the cost would be around £38 from kanazawa so it may be a bit of a waste to buy it before then as i would have used up 5 days of the pass! i cannot use it for the places before i arrive there also but i will need it for the rest of my journey , anyway please help! thank you so much

Hi Again,

That is quite a change! Looking at the times between travel, most of the time you spend a good amount of time in each area, which in turn makes it hard to utilize the JR Pass. For most of your travel I would recommend buying separate tickets for most of your planned travel.

A 7 Day JR Pass may come in handy when you visit Hiroshima, the price for a normal one way ticket Osaka - Hiroshima is ¥ 9,950 and Hiroshima ¥ 18,350, this comes down to ¥ 28,300 which is exactly the price of a 7 day JR Pass. You can use the pass for travel to Miyajima for instance or locally in Tokyo, so I think that it would pay off.

For the rest it all looks like a very nice trip!
-Daniel