My girlfriend and I are going to Japan for 9 days. We will be in tokyo for the first 4 then Kyoto for 4 and Tokyo for 1. I am trying to figure out if buying the Rail Pass for 7 days is the best thing to do, since we could just get daily passes in the city and then pay the RT to Tokyo-Kyoto. I cant find a price for the Tokyo-Kyoto part and am not sure if the Rail pass would be good for use just going around Tokyo or Kyoto.
Thanks!
A round trip ticket even by Nozomi comes out to just under the price of a JR Rail Pass (about 13500 each way/ or about 27000 r/t). The JR Pass is 28300 yen for ordinary.
However, if you combine it with some JR Transport in Tokyo, or back to Narita or out of Kyoto (to Nara/Osaka etc etc). The JR pass is certainly worth it.
The JR Pass isn't that useful in Kyoto itself (city bus and subway not valid with JR Pass), so you would still have to purchase a seperate city pass for that, but as mentioned above the JR pass can pay itself off.
Other limitations include not being able to use Nozomi Shinkansen but Hikari/Kodaka, however the Pass I think if you get it would save you some yen in transportation.