Travelling to Japan for 16 days

Neither 7 day or 14 day JR Pass pays off.
Go for individual tickets OR consider some day trips from Kyoto and Tokyo.

Hello there,

I checked the ticket prices for you to see if a JR Pass would match.

The main parts are:
Haneda - Kyoto ¥ 14,090
Kyoto - Nagano ¥ 11,790
Nagano - Tokyo ¥ 8,200
Local travel within Kansai is low price, for instance Kyoto - Osaka is 560yen.

This would indeed mean that normal tickets are below the price of a 7 day JR Pass (¥ 29,110) or a 14 day JR Pass (¥ 46,390).

You could consider a 14 day JR Pass, if you made a couple of day trips from Tokyo. For instance to Nikko.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Thanks a lot :) really helpfull!

Is it possible to buy the tickets in advance? Where?
We are going to Kyoto and Osaka during Sakura season and we want to be sure to have places in the train for that part of the trip!

Do you have other recommandations on our itinerary?

Thank you,
Fee

If you are going to spend time in Tokyo, you can largely skip Osaka in the daytime. Instead, you could take a day and go see Hiroshima/Miyajima - that would make the JR Pass worth it. You could do it as a day trip, but better to spend a day to see Hiroshima City and a day for Miyajima. You could also go see Iwakuni a bit further if you like - it is also beautiful in cherry blossom season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0COOZXi66mM

Other possibilities are seeing Himeji Castle, which is Japan's finest. You would still need to buy a regular ticket from Nagano back to Tokyo though.

For Osaka, the city is much more interesting at night - Dotonbori, the Umeda Sky Bldg and Abeno Harukas Bldg are all terrific at night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJ_MeXbeow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb1wuyAGgyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AyUZmGbW8g

You can easily see them after the temples/shrines in Kyoto close down about 5PM.