@evergrn Thanks for checking with them!

Do you know if Rakuten offers rental car coupons like Jalan? (XX yen off YYYY for the first few thousand to redeem?)

I'm heading to the San'in coast in September and some of the one way drop fees from neighboring prefectures are over 10,000 JPY while others are 2,000. One is bad enough that I'm probably returning a 1 day rental at Higashi Hagi, waiting a while for the very infrequent train, riding the train for an hour to Masuda in the next prefecture, and picking up another 1 day rental. I might reconsider that if I can get a decent coupon & sale due to the low train frequency. The drop fee is almost more than the two day rental fee.

I’ve had coupons applied to my Rakuten bookings from time to time, although I can’t remember if any of those were rental cars.
this page apparently lists current coupons:
https://travel.rakuten.co.jp/coupon/special/matsuri/
But any coupon-eligible items usually will come up as such on your search results anyways.

I have seen promotions on one-way rentals from time to time (ie, one way fee waived). I’m paying like 5000yen fee for my oneway from MMB to CTS this summer.

I'm thinking about renting at a car at KIX and driving to Koyasan and Kumano Hongu Taisha.

I have only driven in Hokkaido and Okinawa. Is driving in the Kii peninsula pretty straightforward? Should I trust google map drive times? It's roughly 6 hours for the loop starting from KIX to Koyasan to Kumano Hongu Taisha and back.

Also, is there an English resource to calculate tolls in Japan?

Thanks!

Depending on which route you take, you'll see some suburban driving, near the airport - not terribly complex, but heavier traffic than in rural areas of Okinawa and Hokkaido. Potentially you might do some boring and straightforward driving on the highway through Wakayama City and down the coast. Then around Kumano Hongu Taisha (and to some extent Koya san) you've got narrow, twisting, country lanes. Nothing like the straight, wide, highways of Hokkaido.
On the twisty inland roads, journey times will likely stretch beyond the Google estimate - especially if you get stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. So my guess is that there's significantly more than six hours drive for that trip - plus whatever time you decide to spend out of your car. If you literally have six hours to fill, it might be better to limit yourself to Koya san. There's plenty to see and do there.

Google maps have improved immensely in the last couple years re. routing, and is preferred compared to the in-car navigation, which is very outdated with phone number lookup, and not very user-friendly if you don't have map code.

JapanTravel by Navitime has an English app which will give you a driving routes and toll fees. Navitime offers a premium subscription to enable Voice Navigation but the basic free version will tell you the toll cost based on selected route.

Exactly what I wanted. Thanks!

Rakuten is running a car rental coupon campaign starting 6/4 20:00 https://event.travel.rakuten.co.jp/s..._special_sspre

It only gives you a Yen amount and not much information is available without paying. Though the phone number look up function works.

Yes, it isn't an all in one drive route solution but does offer an easy way to lookup total toll in English from start to finish points (vs finding the IC start and end)*. Good to know the phone number lookup works as sometimes I want to sanity check I'm going to the right place.

The basic app also offers public transit directions including local bus routes in English which can be hard to find in Google Maps or PDF (excel export) bus schedules. IE I can find Bochobus from Shin-Yamaguchi Stn to Akiyoshido on Navitime & JapanTravel but not on Google Maps. I've looked up bus routes on JP Navitime on full browser for a few years but having it in English makes it go a good bit faster.

*ETA JP Navitime car via full browser also provides fuel utilization estimates.

Thanks a lot!
I'm seeing rates ~5000yen cheaper than my original rate for a 4-day rental next month!

Created Wiki
 

I've created a wiki for this thread. Hope I did it right.

I welcome your contributions. In particular, there are sections regarding English Navi tips and also English booking, which could use some contribution!

Added a bit of info to the wiki including Road Signs for those of us who don't read Japanese. OTS in Okinawa also mentioned that some people mistakenly park in no-parking zones. Watch out for those.

Japanese drivers do tend to back into parking spaces but some people do park forward (hood) in. Some parking lots are snug and reversing in might be the best way to get out later. If you're not overly familiar with backing into tight spaces you can google "Reverse Bay Parking" videos on youtube ahead of time. I usually parked further away in a slightly larger lot, hood in, to avoid other cars as I'm parking challenged.
https://youtu.be/QwucOy-H-Nc
https://youtu.be/yeL1cVycYWs

Japan may also have a lower BAC than your home country. Okinawa has a reputation for high drunk driving stats and there's also tourist drivers to contend with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_...ntry#East_Asia