ksandness

Is there another Tokyo in some alternative universe? Like one that has street names, broad avenues, massive free parking lots all over, and no need to take an hour to travel from central Tokyo to cross the Edogawa?

abmj-jr

Are you smoking something you'd like to share??

gnaget

5Khours is not way off the mark. Given the population. Compared to London, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, possibly NYC, etc. it's quite good to drive and park here. I sense that people here that recommend trains do not drive in Tokyo (or Japan). Driving is my primary method of getting around Tokyo. Kyoto seems to be a great city for driving.

The abundance of coin parking makes parking very easy and readily available. And parking meter spots are surprisingly very available. There is also great tolerance for short term "illegal" parking.

Here's an anecdote: if you go to Meiji Jingu to see a baseball game I can guarantee you that you can get a parking meter spot in front of the stadium 5 minutes before the opening pitch at 18:00. (Exception could be a game vs. Giants.) The meter runs through 19:00 so you pay for an hour and then it's free from that point on. Try that at Fenway Park!

Another anecdote: from Shibuya to east Tokyo on the Edogawa river, Friday 7 pm, long holiday weekend, 28 km. Time: 35 minutes door to door.

p.s. There is no Hertz (or Avis, or.....) in Japan. Although they partner to some degree with Toyota Rent-a-car. If you try to book with Hertz they will quote you like $250 a day. So book directly with Toyota. Also, you will probably get a hefty drop-off fee.

ksandness

If your opinion is true, it's only because most people in Tokyo don't drive. If everyone drove to the extent that people drive in Los Angeles or even London, the city would be in constant gridlock.

Anyway, I would not recommend driving to a newcomer unfamiliar with the city, especially someone who comes from a country where people drive on the right.

Besides, the transit/train system is an essential part of the Japanese experience. One can drive--one has to drive--in other places.

gnaget

In fact, the worst traffic is often on weekends and on the outskirts of Tokyo. I ran into some horrible traffic on that recent long weekend but it was until I was close to Chofu on the Chuo. You would figure that by Sunday late morning on a long weekend that there would be no chance of congestion.... wrong. Importantly, people don't commute by car. The steep expressway tolls reduce traffic.

As of Jan 1, the Shuto toll is distance based but they increased the max toll to 900 yen from a flat toll of 700 yen. Just the short stretch from Tomigaya to Takaido is 600 yen, for example. This probably is not more than 7-8 km. About $1 per km.....

I will counter that driving in Japan is also an "essential experience".

jib71

I'd agree, but I don't think that driving ITM to Kyoto, having a car for two days in Kyoto, and then driving Kyoto to KIX with a deadline imposed by a flight departure is a good way for a first time visitor to enjoy this essential experience.

5khours

Nope. If you drove in central Tokyo regularly you would know. No question it is the easiest for big city for driving anywhere on the planet. I'm serious.

ChrisLi

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 5_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B206 Safari/7534.48.3)

I will tend to agree Japan is easy to drive , but doesn't mean it is a necessity. The transit system is easy to use, efficient and convenient enough that doesn't really need to drive.

Heck for the same money of renting a car I probably can take taxi all around Kyoto unless I go out of the core Kyoto city, so I fail to see why I bother to rent a car.

westkirby

I'd like to make another suggestion for an itinerary based on a jet-lag ridden two night stay I had in Osaka in 2009; this was between arriving at KIX (from LHR via ICN) and heading off to Tokyo by train.

As the OP states they prefer country to city, I wonder if they might enjoy visiting the famous small city of Nara and then taking the train trip to Yoshinoyama which is about 30 miles to the South and can be reached by (slow, characterful) trains in about 2 hours for less than 1000 yen. There is also a Kintetsu express train from Osaka which gets there much faster. What I liked about this place was the tranquility, the views, the old temples and traditional buildings and the sense of being away from it all but somewhere very Japanese. There is an old funicular near Yoshino Station which takes you up to the old main street and then buses to take you to viewing points and more temples higher up on the mountain.

See http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4152.html for details, and for the rail map see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kzaral/3372201325/sizes/o/ (it is in square I7 in the bottom right corner). Good luck whatever you choose to do!