Help with Itinerary
 

My wife and I are visiting Japan in October. We are planning out the itinerary and could use some advice to make sure we're on the right track with regards to the stops and our planned use of the JR Pass. Our main goals are to see castles, temples, maybe an onsen, and then to explore the various areas of Tokyo -- and eat, eat, eat.

October 4: Arrive NRT at 1645 -- Shinkansan to Osaka -- St. Regis Osaka
October 5: Explore Osaka with potential day trip to Himeji Castle or Nara
October 6: Explore Osaka and Shinkansan to Kyoto -- Kyoto Westin
October 7: Explore Kyoto with potential day trip to Himeji Castle or Nara
October 8: Explore Kyoto and Shinkansan to Tokyo -- Conrad Tokyo
October 9: Explore Shinbashi area of Tokyo
October 10: Explore Shinbashi area of Tokyo -- transfer to Tokyo Hilton
October 11: Explore Shinjuku area of Tokyo
October 12: 1000 depart NRT

I'm thinking of doing the 7-day JR Pass and activating from October 5-11 and then paying the one-way to Osaka and one-way Limo Bus to the airport the final day.

I'm looking for anything thoughts or suggestions. Thank you!

Other than your choice of places to see, I find almost nothing about your plan to like.

I'd recommend activating the 7-day Rail Pass immediately upon arrival so it will cover the trips NRT-Shinagawa (Tokyo) on the Narita Express and Shinagawa to Osaka on the shinkansen. That is likely to be your most expensive travel day and it makes no sense to pay it out of pocket. Additionally, the Rail Pass will be little use to you after you arrive back in Tokyo. Activating for 10-4 through 10-10 covers all of your most expensive travel.

Unless you want to change hotels a lot, there is little point in changing between Kyoto and Osaka. The cities are only a few minutes apart by shinkansen and not much longer by local train. The best recommendation is to pick one or the other and day trip between them. Nara and Himeji are equally easy to reach from Kyoto or Osaka - perhaps even easier from Kyoto. I prefer Kyoto as a transportation hub as the main station is right downtown where Osaka requires a short trip out to Shin-Osaka to use the shinkansen. Others prefer to stay in Osaka because the night-life is better.

Likewise, why are you moving hotel during your Tokyo stay? That just wastes time you could be seeing the city.

Suggest you get a prepaid Suica card in Tokyo to use subways and local trains to get around. The Rail Pass won't cover those.

You have allowed only 3-1/2 days for Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji and Nara. That really doesn't give you time for any of them. I'd suggest staying in Kyoto and taking 2 days there as well as a day for EITHER Osaka + Nara or Osaka + Himeji. That last 1/2 day could be back in Kyoto, doing the things and places you missed, prior to catching a mid-day shinkansen to Tokyo.

Agree with all of the above. I'd also add that if you're arriving at NRT at 16:45 (presumably after a long int'l flight) are you really going to want to spend more time traveling by shinkansen to another city? Maximize your time and spend the first few nights in Tokyo. Then after you've gotten your fill of the city (unlikely in just a few days but nontheless) head to Kyoto for 3 nights. I don't understand why you're including Osaka with such little time to experience any of the destinations you've chosen to visit. Osaka is a fun city with excellent food and good shopping and I recommend visiting, but Tokyo offers the same and more and as it stands, you'll barely have time to explore all the sights and neighborhoods, which are like separate cities unto themselves. I would stick to Tokyo and Kyoto and maybe schedule a day trip to Nara from Kyoto. Flying into NRT, heading immediately to Kyoto, switching to Osaka, taking a day trip to Nara, then back to Tokyo where you'll be changing hotels for some reason makes absolutely no sense, sounds entirely exhausting and unpleasant, and seems like a really shoddy way to plan your trip; unless you're only interest is to bumrush Japan and tick off boxes without really ever affording yourself the opportunity to get to know and appreciate the cities that you're visiting.

Edit to add that there is really no reason to switch hotels in Tokyo if you intend to just visit the neighborhoods of Shinbashi and Shinjuku. Would you visit New York and spend one night in the Upper West Side and one night in Greenwich Village? That would be a pretty absurd waste of time. Surely you can manage to visit both districts by subway or taxi. Also, there are 23 municipalities that make up the core of Tokyo. You've planned an overly ambitious itinerary with far too many destinations and hotel stays, yet you only plan on visiting two districts in what is the largest urban metropolis in the entire world. I suggest you rethink the goals and intentions of your trip.

I've stayed in Shinbashi, and it is full of interesting izakaya, but I don't think there is a day-and-a-half of things to do there.

If you haven't already, get a guidebook and map for Tokyo and Kyoto, one each.

You seem to have some names of places but little idea of what is there, and I think that guidebooks would be of assistance in this respect, since the typical Kyoto guidebook also covers Osaka, Nara, and perhaps Himeji.

I'd prefer to stay in Kyoto for convenient Shinkansen access. I've stayed in the Shin-Osaka area, and it's pretty boring and non-descript, while even at the very contemporary Kyoto Station, you are within walking or easy bus distance to some major sights.

You are not devoting enough time to Kyoto. On such a short trip, I'd advise you to skip Osaka, which is not much of a contrast to Tokyo, and concentrate on Kyoto, which has more traditional culture. But Himeji Castle is worth a trip, and Nara would give you more of "old Japan."

Otherwise, just choose one--the Kyoto area or the Tokyo area--and make day trips from a single base. Staying in Kyoto, you can get your "ultra-contemporary urban fix" in Osaka, and staying in Tokyo, you can get your "old Japan" fix by going to Kamakura and Nikko.

I don't really have anything else to add. Just mentioning that the previous posters are pretty much spot-on. =)

I agree with the poster who said to activate the pass on arrival and use it for October 4 to cover Narita Express and Shinkansen. The 4th will be a more expensive travel day than the 11th, you want the pass to cover the 4th.

I've only spent a few days each in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoyo, and Hiroshima. I'm not a Japan expert at all. That said, some of the replies here were harsher than I expected.

Some might say that if arriving on a long haul flight at 16:45, it's better to get to a Tokyo hotel and relax and then start your sightseeing in Tokyo the next day at the start of the trip. But maybe you would rather stay awake and head to Osaka and not go right to Tokyo hotel and probably fall asleep at 7 p.m.

You obviously need to spend the last night in Tokyo with a 10:00 departure flight, so I can totally understand putting all four Tokyo nights at the end, rather splitting them up by taking long Narita Express train into Tokyo, visiting for 1-3 nights, then putting more Tokyo nights at the end.

My point is that overall I think going from Narita straight to Osaka on first day makes sense and I disagree with the posters criticizing that. Perhaps a compromise could be to put the Kyoto nights/days before Osaka, which will shorten that post-flight train ride from Narita at the start of the trip by 30 minutes.

I'm not sure why you are changing hotels in Tokyo, maybe you got a deal at one for only two nights or a free night or something. I know those hotels can be expensive and rates vary and it might make sense to change for financial reasons. Note that Hilton is having a flash sale now on Japan and Korea from July 12-15, you might want to check if the rates are better now, though you have to commit to nonrefundable reservations to get the best deals under the sale.

Other than that, I also think 2 days Osaka, 2 days Kyoto, 4 days Tokyo is a decent schedule. Good luck.

I agree with the OP's plan. It's better to get all of the traveling out of the way. Initially I was going to do a night or two in Tokyo and then head south, but I saw that splitting my time in Tokyo was a real waste of time.

One problem with activating the pass on the first day is that the OP *MUST* be on the 6.50pm Narita express, to catch the last Hikari going to Osaka. Two hours should be reasonable, but any delay will mean he's stuffed. Just buying a ticket means you can use Nozomi and depart much later.
That said the posters above are correct. The 4th is a far more costly traveling day than the seventh. Your choice really.

Why are you changing hotels in Tokyo too? Seems like a real hassle to me.

Also, I will add two other points.

1. Your itinerary says Shinkansen from Osaka to Kyoto. The non-Shinkansen trains from Osaka station take just under thirty minutes, so you might be better off taking subway from St. Regis to Osaka station and then going from there to Kyoto rather than trying to get to Shin Osaka station to get the Shinkansen.

2. I agree with posters above that because Kyoto and Osaka are so close and train services are so frequent and efficient, you might want to just pick one hotel in the region and stay there for four nights rather than changing hotels.

Oh, and it looks like the current "flash sale" for Hiltons in Japan might only be for bookings until September

So many people fly RT to Tokyo and then go to Kyoto... and get rail pass. This forum needs a sticky to advise it makes more sense (if airfares allow) to fly into Tokyo and out of Osaka or vv and then do a o/w on the Shinkansen without rail pass so all trains including Nozomi can be utilized. Also Suica good option for local trains.

While I agree it makes more sense, often it will work out a lot more expensive than flying return flights to Tokyo.
Especially if someone has a discount economy fare.

Also, a lot of people book flights and then work out a detailed itinerary.

Though I agree that a wiki sticky on the rail pass would be very useful.

One way in which a rail pass may be advantageous, even if the traveler has booked an open-jaw NRT/KIX flight, is if he or she plans to use both Tokyo and a city in Kansai (Osaka or Kyoto, usually) as a base for extensive day trips.

From Tokyo, I've taken day trips to Mito, Nagano, Mashiko, Sendai and Matsushima, Aizu-Wakamatsu, Nikko, and Hakone.

From Kyoto, I've taken day trips to Nara, Himeji, Kobe, Osaka, Yoshino, Tamba-Sasayama, Takayama, Muryoji, Uji, Kurashiki, and Hikone.

In all my years of visiting Japan, I have not yet exhausted the possible day trips from either city.

In 2012, I took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Hiroshima the day after arrival--on the Hikari, so I had to get off at Shin-Osaka and walk across the platform to the Hiroshima-bound train that came along five minutes later-- in order to attend a conference, but I took the long way back, involving a circle tour of Shikoku. The Japan Rail Pass made this feasible and easy.

Can you elaborate on this a little bit please? Why must we be on the 1850 Express?

And to answer a few questions:
1) Switching hotels because we are doing the entire trip on points -- paid zero for hotel stays or for flights (JAL Business).
2) As one person said, instead of going to a hotel in Tokyo and falling asleep right away, we figured it'd be better to do the full travel and attempt to force adjust to the time by going to bed at a normal hour.
3) The more I've researched, I think while we are in Osaka we will do day trips to both Hamji and Nara. We have a number of places (shrines, walking trails, an onsen) we'd like to visit around Kyoto.

It is now actually 1848 from T-1. 1850 from T-2.

That is the last chance because the last JR Pass-eligible shinkansen leaves Shinagawa for Kyoto at 2010. Any Narita Express leaving NRT after the 1848 won't get to Shinagawa until after that last train has left.

The fall-back would be to TRY for that train and if you can't make it just bite the bullet and pay cash for seats on the Nozomi shinkansen which has later departures for Kyoto. That does eat into the value of the Rail Pass, though, so you might want to rethink your 7-day activation period and make it for the LAST 7 days instead if that happens.

Alright. That makes sense. JAL changed my flight since the original post. I'm now arriving NRT at 1520 so I should have plenty of time to transition from the Narita Express to the Shinagawa before the 1850 train. Assuming NRT customs and hitting an ATM doesn't take 3 hours. But this is good information to be aware of. Thank you!

I know this is an old post, but I'm in the process of planning a sketch of an itinerary so that I can book my flights, and I was debating the flight idea you mentioned... flying into one airport (i.e. Tokyo) and out another (i.e. Osaka), or vice versa. For my current flight options, flying into Tokyo and out of Osaka vs roundtrip Tokyo is: $16 more, 2 hr layover in SFO, but Dreamliner, which I haven't flown yet.

But, aside from the difference, my question was more to your statement on, ".. do a o/w on the Shinkansen without rail pass so all trains including Nozomi can be utilized." What do you mean by that? I've just only started researching the JR rail pass, and am struggling with understanding when/how to best utilize it. I'm actually going to be in Japan for 17 days, so was debating the 14-day pass vs the 21-day pass. I couldn't decide if I need the pass in Tokyo (and surrounding areas), or can activate it only when I had down to Kansai region... (or vice versa). Or any other way to maximize the benefit of JR Pass vs just paying actual cost of transit.

Here's my take on all this.

I don't know your itinerary, but if you are going for 17 days, my guess is that the 14 day may be best for you, not the 21 day pass, unless you are planning long train journeys in the first few days of your trip and again at the very end.

The difference in price appears to be about $120. You should be able to structure your itinerary so that you've got three days either at the beginning or end when you'll be spending less than $120 on JR trains over that 3 days period.

If you're flying into Tokyo and sending at least three days there, you probably won't spend $120 over those three days on JR trains, because you'll be using the metro around Tokyo, and even if you use JR trains within the greater Tokyo or Osaka areas, the journeys aren't too expensive. So you could fly in, spend 3 days around Tokyo, then activate the 14 day pass on day 4.

Or alternatively, fly in to Tokyo, immediately activate the 14 days pass, use it for the Narita Express, etc. and then just pay out of pocket for trains over the last three days of the trip when you'll be in and around Osaka.

The expensive trains are the long distance shinkansen trains. You'll want to avoid paying out of pocket for those if possible and putting those journeys in the first 14 days of your trip or in the last 14 days of your trip.

You can activate it for any day you want. In the major cities, I used a mix of JR trains, private non-JR local railways, and (most commonly) metro. Traveling between cities, I used the JR trains. I hope that helps.

The trick is to consider how much travel you would cover with the Rail Pass and how much it would cost without a Rail Pass, not how long you will be in-country.

If you will be spending most of your time in Tokyo at one end of the trip and Kyoto/Osaka at the other end, with little train travel in between except the one-way shinkansen (bullet train) between the two plus the one-way trips to and from the airports, then the Rail Pass would not save much if any money over just buying tickets as you go. In that case, I'd forego the Rail Pass and just get a pre-paid travel card like Suica that would cover subways, local trains and such.

On the other hand, if you will travel extensively outside your two major destinations by train in addition to that mentioned above, it might well make good monetary sense to have a Rail Pass. Side- or day-trips from the main destinations can add up. If you plan to get out of the major cities and go places like Nikko, Matsumoto, Himeji, Hiroshima and other great locales, then rail costs can add up and a Rail Pass would be a good idea. The rule of thumb for the 7-day ordinary Rail Pass is that it begins to pay for itself if used for a round-trip Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo PLUS a one-way to/from either NRT or KIX. Anything over that is gravy. For the 14-day Rail Pass, you would need a lot more travel to pay for itself.

The Japan Rail Pass is a great investment for those contemplating a lot of long-distance rail travel between cities. It is of little value during a stay in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto as those places don't really use a lot of JR lines. They have subways, buses and local line trains, none of which are covered by the Rail Pass. Unless you are planning a LOT of running around the country during your 17 day visit, I can't imagine the 21-day Rail Pass would be worth the cost. If you will be staying in Tokyo for at least the first (or last) 4 days of your stay, then the 14-day Pass would likely suffice. Just pay cash as you go for the other 4 days. I have traveled extensively all over Japan and have never found the 21-day Pass to pencil out for me. I just couldn't cram enough rail travel into my 2.5 to 3 week stays.

Plan your visits and stays, try to arrange the longer travel within a 7- or 14-day period within the 17 day stay and then decide which Rail Pass would make economic sense for you. If you pay out of pocket for the trip into the city from NRT and stay in Tokyo for the first few days, the 14-day Rail Pass would likely be all you need.