October 2023…

The moment that fans of travel to Japan have dreaded for the last six months… and a good reason to make this one-off post on my blog, which is still “officially retired.”

If you’re planning a trip to Japan, you’re probably well aware that changes to Japan’s national Japan Rail Pass, announced last April, are now in full effect, with pass prices jumping a whopping 70% from what they used to be. For example, the standard 7-day ordinary pass climbed from 29,650 yen ($198 USD) to 50,000 yen ($334). A tough pill to swallow. For many years, the litmus test for this pass was whether or not you could do more travel than a round-trip on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka, along with a round-trip on the Narita Express… back in the day when nearly all international flights landed at Narita Airport and before the much closer Haneda Airport was re-established as a major international gateway.

An argument can be understood that the Japanese yen is still on the weak side… and if you believe the news reports, on the verge of another currency intervention, with one US Dollar fetching nearly 150 yen as of the night of October 2, 2023 when I began to write up this post. It could also be understood that the Japan Rail Pass is due for a price change after maintaining the same prices for its products for decades, to catch up with the cost of inflation. At the end of the day, the traveler to Japan loses.

In this post I hope to dive into some alternate options that you can consider to save money compared to using a Japan Rail Pass.

It should be pointed out that the new iteration of the national Rail Pass will allow travel on some of the faster trains on the national bullet train system, including the key Nozomi service connecting Tokyo with Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and beyond… but at a steep supplemental cost per trip, based on the distance travelled.

SMART-EX

Let’s begin with a service that we used on our last trip to Japan earlier this year to save money on some of our bullet train trips for where we went: the Smart-EX smartphone app. Available with an English-language service, the Smart-EX app sells tickets on the following bullet train services, and those that connect between them:

• Tokaido Shinkansen: Tokyo-Nagoya-Kyoto-Osaka
• San’yo Shinkansen: Osaka-Okayama-Hiroshima-Fukuoka
• Kyushu Shinkansen: Fukuoka-Kumamoto-Kagoshima

The premise is simple… just purchase train tickets through the app using a linked credit card, and select your seats if applicable. Then you have a few options to board the train: you can pick up regular tickets, scan a QR code from your phone, or link your travel to an IC card to tap in and out of the turnstiles.

You can buy tickets at a 200 yen discount from the normal fare, and you can easily choose from a large number of services including Nozomi. Purchasing a round-trip for 13,320 yen each way will easily be less expensive than the new 7-day Rail Pass. However, the secret to look out for are the advance purchase fares, known as HAYATOKU fares. If you can plan your trip out and are willing to search for trips at least three days ahead of time – as long as there are discounts available – you can score some sweet deals. These include:

• Hayatoku 3 Green Wide: Green cars are the premium option if you wish for a seat that’s larger and more comfortable. Solo passengers can get a discount with this advance purchase option. For example, Tokyo to Kyoto – which would normally cost 18,840 yen in the Green Car – costs just 15,400 yen under this ticket.
• Hayatoku 3 Green Kodama: If you have more time on your hands and want to travel comfortably, this discount gets you a Green Car seat on the slower Kodama services. A trip from Tokyo to Kyoto with this ticket would cost just 11,200 yen, but it would take nearly four hours compared to about 2 hours 15 minutes on the Nozomi.
• Hayatoku 3 Family Nozomi: You won’t see this discount too often, but if you’re traveling with between two and four passengers you can potentially save with this ticket. For example, Tokyo to Kyoto on the Nozomi would cost 11,020 yen per passenger for the ordinary car and 14,120 yen each for the Green Car.
• Hayatoku 3 Family Kodama: If taking the all-stations Kodama with at least 2 passengers, pay 9,980 yen per person to travel in the ordinary car.
• If the family discounts are not available, you can pay slightly more for tickets such as the Hayatoku 3 Green Wide.

BUY A REGIONAL OR LOCAL TRAIN PASS

Although many of the other JR passes around Japan also suffered from price hikes, they could still be of good value depending on what part of Japan you’d like to see. Here are a few examples.

• If you’re interested in an off-the-beaten-path method of traveling between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka, there’s the Hokuriku Arch Pass that is still sold which is valid for trips that go via the Hokuriku region of Japan, through cities such as Nagano, Kanazawa and Toyama. The cost is 25,500 yen for 7 consecutive days of unlimited travel. The trip consists of the Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kanazawa, and the Thunderbird limited express from Kanazawa to Osaka. Note that the journey takes much longer compared to the regular Tokaido Shinkansen route (5 hours plus transfer time) , so it may be of interest if you wish to hop on and off over the course of a few days. The pass will also cover many local JR trains in the Tokyo and Kansai regions. As far as I know this is one of the few passes that survived the JR pass hikes. However, in March 2024 the Hokuriku Shinkansen will be extended, and so a price hike could likely come at that point.
• If you want to head north of Tokyo to the Tohoku region or Hokkaido, JR East has passes for that. The JR East-South Hokkaido Rail Pass covers JR journeys throughout the Tohoku region, as well as the southern Hokkaido cities of Hakodate and Sapporo. The cost is 35,000 yen for 6 consecutive days. If you plan to make a few stops on the way to Hokkaido, or if you wish to make a round-trip between Tokyo and Hokkaido by train, then the pass will pay off.
• West Japan Railway offers a number of tourist passes for the Kansai region and western Japan. These prices did go up a little, but now offer some more value and usefulness. Many of their products can be bought online directly from them, while others can be purchased through international travel agencies.

OTHER TRAIN TICKET-BUYING STRATEGIES

Another strategy to save money on long-distance trips is to consider where you want to travel, and to do so in increments with this method.

Aside from Smart EX, the typical train trips on Japan Railways require two tickets: A basic fare, and a supplement. You buy the basic fare to travel from point A to point B, then buy supplements for each train you wish to take. Keeping this in mind, let’s see how this a unique ticket strategy would work for a journey from Tokyo, west through Japan to Fukuoka in Kyushu and then back to Tokyo. This assumes reserved seats on all journeys using the fastest Nozomi train, and a total trip time of two weeks.

• First we buy a round-trip basic fare ticket from Tokyo to Hakata (the train station of Fukuoka).
  The ticket costs 14,080 yen each way, and because round-trips over a certain distance get a 10% discount, it comes out to about 25,350 yen. Under the conditions of carriage regarding to validity, we have 7 days from the starting date of the ticket to travel from Tokyo to Hakata on the same ticket without backtracking, and then 7 days to get back to Tokyo from whatever day we want the return leg to start.
• Next, we want to travel to Kyoto to enjoy 6 days there, and then continue on to Hakata on Day 7. So we buy two supplements for the bullet train: Tokyo to Kyoto (5,810 yen) and Kyoto to Hakata (6,350 yen).
• In the week that we have to head back to Tokyo using the return basic fare ticket, let’s say we want to stop in Osaka and Nagoya for a couple of days along the way. So we buy Hakata to Osaka (5,810 yen), Osaka to Nagoya (3,270 yen) and Nagoya to Tokyo (4,920 yen).
• The total cost for this trip – the basic ticket and all supplements – comes out to 51,510 yen. While it’s quite a bit of change, consider that it’s MUCH less than the 80,000 yen cost of the 14-day Japan Rail Pass PLUS the Nozomi supplement for each train taken.

SEISHUN 18 TICKET

If you travel during certain seasons of the year, and you are ok with taking slower (non-bullet) trains, consider the Seishun 18 Ticket which is sold during holiday periods in Japan. Costing 12,050 yen, this ticket is valid on nearly all JR local services with some exceptions. You can only purchase and use the Seishun 18 ticket during the winter (December 10-January 10), spring (March 1-April 10) and summer (July 20-September 10). Sales start and end ten days prior to the dates indicated.

Each individual ticket has up to five spaces that can be “stamped” by railway staff. Each space corresponds to one person, per day. So you could use one ticket and travel up to five non-consecutive days, in which case the price breaks down to 2,410 yen per day of use. Or if you have several people in your party, multiple spaces can be used in one go.

With regular services along the main (non-bullet train) lines from the Tokyo metropolitan area to Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe (as far as Himeji castle), you can easily turn a day trip into adventure on local trains, puttering through scenery that the faster trains turn into either a blur or a tunnel. Even on rural sections on the route that I mentioned, usually you do not need to wait more than 20 minutes for a train during operating hours.

AIRPLANES

The hike in prices for the Japan Rail Pass should make travelers consider alternative ways to get around Japan. How about airplanes? If you flew to Japan on an airplane, why not get around in a few too?

Both All Nippon and Japan Airlines offer excellent and comfortable options to get around the country, with a lot of their flagship routes operated by large widebody aircraft such as the 767, 777 and the new A350 that can routinely carry 300-400 passengers. Don’t leave out the low cost airlines either… carriers such as Peach, Jetstar, Skymark and Starflyer.

Airlines operate to and from very popular cities such as Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka and Sapporo, where transit connections to the city center are plentiful, as well as smaller cities that might need a longer bus ride or even a taxi ride. Do your homework, and you could score some deals. For long-distance trips such as Tokyo to Fukuoka or Tokyo to Sapporo, it is certainly worth the time saved. But did you know that one of the most heavily-travelled routes is actually Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Itami… two cities also served plentifully by the bullet train? These flights operate like clockwork and fares are kept competitive; Both ANA and JAK currently are charging 14,570 yen in economy for flights between Tokyo and Osaka with just one day advance purchase.

Heading out a little further? Here are a few common pairings:

• Tokyo-Sapporo: As of this writing, one-way advance fares started around 5,000-6,000 yen for low cost airlines including Peach, Jetstar and Spring Japan from Narita Airport (furthest from Tokyo). For mainline carriers JAL and ANA, fares were about 17,000 yen from the closer Haneda Airport when booked 1-2 months ahead and about 13,000 yen when booked over two months ahead.
• Tokyo-Fukuoka: One-way advance fares started around 6,000 yen for low cost airlines including Peach and Jetstar from Narita Airport. For mainline carriers JAL and ANA, fares were about 19,000 yen from Haneda Airport when booked 1-2 months ahead and about 14,000 yen when booked over two months ahead. Extended bookings further out see prices around 11,000 yen.
• Osaka-Sapporo: One-way advance fares started around 7,000 yen for low cost airlines including Peach and Jetstar from Kansai Airport. For mainline carriers JAL and ANA, fares were about 14,000 yen from the closer Itami Airport when booked at least one month ahead.

For JAL and ANA you can check in multiple bags for free with a weight limit of 20 kg (44 lbs) each if flying in economy, with fees of no more than 440 yen for each kilogram over the limit. Baggage limits with low cost airlines will almost always be more restrictive, so check in advance.

There are also domestic air passes available to foreign tourists available from ANA and JAL, however there are reports that some of these air passes are not being sold at this time, while flight availability for using other passes is virtually nonexistent.

BUSES

Highway buses can also be considered for cost savings. There are plenty of daytime buses, as well as a number of night buses that can double as lodging for the evening. Japan’s highway buses are clean, comfortable, and make regular rest stops so you can stretch your legs or use the washroom. One of the big bus companies is Willer Express, which offers bus passes for unlimited travel on their services. There’s also the JBL bus pass, which covers a larger number of bus operators including Willer. You can choose a bus and seating option that fits your budget, from standard bus seats to first-class premium style suites and everything in between.

Using some popular Japanese bus booking engines, here are some recent finds for the Tokyo-Osaka route booked at least a few days in advance:

• Economy-style seating (4 per row): Day bus 3,700 yen (JR Bus), Night bus 3,900 yen (Kintetsu Bus)
• Standard-style seating (3 per row): Day bus 5,300 yen (JR Bus), Night bus 6,400 yen (Keisei Bus)
• Premium-style seating: Night bus 11,000 yen (Willer Express “Reborn” shell seats); 14,500 yen (JR Bus Dream Relier Precious Class); 20,000 yen (Dream Sleeper Gussuri private rooms)

LONG-DISTANCE FERRIES

A final method that I’d like to suggest is one that’s relatively unknown to a lot of tourists: Ferries that usually cater to cargo trucks and cars that wish to save on gas, wear and tear when traveling from one part of Japan to the other. Many of these ferries also accept foot passengers, and offer accommodations ranging from shared bunks and capsule bed-style spaces to more luxurious private rooms. You can find amenities ranging from restaurants and vending machines to public baths, karaoke rooms and movie theaters.

The popular japan-guide.com website has a page dedicated to domestic ferries, and you can find more information on that site pertaining to many of the things I’ve mentioned in this post.

The news about the Japan Rail Pass has not hit the travel community very well. I hope that these other options will allow you to make an informed decision about your long-distance Japan travel plans. Of course if money is no factor, the alternative options sound confusing, and/or you want the piece of mind that the rail pass provides, then by all means go for the Rail Pass. Many will agree, however, that there are now better and cheaper options that can and should be considered.

Thanks for reading… I’ll be going back to “hiatus mode” but as always let me know if you have questions and I’ll be happy to answer when I have the time!