gbs1112

Rental Cars
On a November trip four of us rented a car to explore the Fuji-Hakone-Izu area over four days hoping to catch the maple colours.
I have Japanese driver's licence (long expired) and drove in the local Tokyo-Yokohama area but was rather wary when away from home.
There used to be a general feeling that driving in Japan was not easy for foreigners what with left hand driving, no road atlas with English place names and poor to non-existent road signage apart from those in Japanese. I knew that it had got a lot easier but even I was astounded how much easier it was so I can recommend a car rental to any average driver. Perhaps not starting in one of the big cities though.
We picked up a Toyota in Kawaguchiko which is the centre of the Fuji Five Lakes area and has great views of Fuji. We were lucky to have perfect weather and the autumn maples were far enough advanced to satisfy our hope to see the autumn colours, even though they were probably going to get even better.
The car, in perfect condition, came with a proprietary GPS and was set to English. That meant that the spoken guidance was in English but everything else was in Japanese. It was not easy to use and despite spending time becoming familiar with the MapCode system before leaving for Japan we abandoned the whole thing because Google Maps provided easy and totally accurate navigation guidance on our phones (we did have a WiFi router) and in four days we made perhaps two or three wrong turns but recovered before proceeding more than a couple of hundred meters.
We used a mixture of back roads as well as expressways, Even the smallest mountain roads were well maintained and and it was unusual for them not to have guard rails alongside. Road signage was exemplary and there was always Roman Script as well as the Japanese script. The roads are numbered and Google Maps shows these accurately.
We were driving Monday to Thursday and in four days we were never passed by another car, nor did we pass another car until the last twenty minutes of our rental as we approached Mishima Station to return the car. The traffic was light and more to the point was orderly, No-one ever made a sign at us in disgust nor did we feel that any other driver warranted one.
From Kawaguchiko we drove up Mt Fuji to the Fifth Station (the end of the road, elevation about 7000 ft) It was an easy drive but on getting there we found it was a bit touristy and unattractive, We did it because it was there. Departing Kawaguchiko we headed to Hakone Lake via Gotemba. Gotemba has a Factory Outlet complex that draws day trippers from Tokyo and huge numbers of Chinese who seemed to be on package tours from China with the single purpose of shopping there. We said we would have nothing to do with it but the youngest in our group insisted on the short diversion so we agreed "one hour - maximum". We stayed three. It is enormous and very well laid out with all the superior brands and turned out to be a pleasant diversion, and even resulted in a bit of shopping.
From Gotemba we joined the Hakone Skyline Road (Toll) and stayed the night on the lakeside.
The next day we sidetracked over the mountain to Gora to visit the Open Air Museum. This was the second highlight of the tour and well worth the diversion. After the museum we followed the same road back to Hakone lake and then made for the Izu Skyliine Drive (Toll) leaving it before its end to drop down on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula at Futo and carried on along the coast to Shimoda that is almost the tip of the Peninsula.
The following day, our third, we tracked up the west coast of the Peninsula. It is a wilder and less developed side but with magnificent views of My Fuji coming up over and over again. Finally we turned inland for our last night, at a ryokan in Shuzenji.
We returned the car at Mishima Station that is a Shinkansen stop.
The message here is that if you enjoy driving renting a car in Japan is as easy as anywhere and allows you to get into the countryside and explore parts that most tourists will never see.