Not sure if I need no pass / a 1 week pass / a 2 week pass!!

Hi there!

From the looks of things you'll need either a 7 (¥28,300) or 14 (¥45,100) day pass, but first lets take a look at your base JR ticket costs to see what kind of costs you could incurr if you just used plain tickets:

1. Narita airport terminal 1 > Shinjuku(jr): ¥3110, (84mins, 89km)
2. Shinjuku(jr) > Otsuki: ¥2290, (89mins, 77km)
3. Otsuki > Matsumoto: ¥4810, (109mins, 147km)
4. Matsumoto > Kyoto: ¥9680, (210mins, 335km)
5. Kyoto > Hiroshima: ¥10790, (112mins, 380km)
6. Hiroshima > Tokyo: ¥18050, (292mins, 894km)

TOTAL: ¥48730 for 6 legs

As you can see you'll make good savings on either a 7 or 14 day pass, but stand to make the best savings if you take a 7 day pass from the 23rd of July to the end of your trip. This will cover all your most expensive legs, and give you a saving of ¥10220 over your travel during this period. For the start of your trip I recommend looking into the [Narita Express+Suica combined deal] which will save you money on your travel around Tokyo, and purchasing standard tickets as needed.

Please note that I have not included the bus trip to Kamikochi or the trip to Koyasan, both parts will have to be undertaken on non-JR lines so the JR Pass is not applicable.

I'm incredibly envious of your trip to Kamokochi, at this time of year it will be beautiful!

Hope this helps!

Thanks for your help, that's really useful. I'm a little confused though.

If I was to get a JR Rail Pass from the 23rd July onwards surely the only journeys I could use it for would be Matsumoto to Kyoto (¥9,680) and Hiroshima to Tokyo (¥18,050) as I would need to use non-JR lines to get from Kyoto to Koyasan and Koyasan to Hiroshima.

You have included Kyoto to Hiroshima (¥10,790) as a JR base journey but I don't ever make that trip as I use non-JR trains via Koyasan.

So this means that the JR related base cost of my travel from 23rd July onwards would be just ¥27,730 (i.e. ¥9,680 + ¥18,050), marginally less than the cost of a 1 week JR pass.

Am I missing something?

Thanks again for your help.

Hi there!

I included Kyoto to Hiroshima as a JR leg as you can only travel from Koyasan to Hiroshima via JR (they are over 400km apart). I don't think there is anyway for you to do this 400km journey except via JR bullet train, so I have included it in your itinerary.

Thinking about all the steps you'll need, your travel would be:

• Matsumoto > Kyoto (JR)
• Kyoto > Osaka (JR)
• Osaka > Koyasan (NON-JR)
• Koyasan > Osaka (NON-JR)
• Osaka > Hiroshima (JR)
• Hiroshima > Tokyo (JR)

As you can see, the only non-JR parts to this are when you do a return trip from Osaka up to Koyasan and so a 7 day pass will be well worth it. For completeness, here are the exact JR costs of this part of your journey for comparison with the 7 day JR Pass cost of ¥28,300:

1. Matsumoto > Kyoto: ¥9680, (210mins, 335km)
2. Kyoto > Osaka: ¥1680, (27mins, 42km)
3. Osaka > Hiroshima: ¥9950, (108mins, 345km)
4. Hiroshima > Tokyo: ¥18050, (292mins, 894km)

TOTAL: ¥39360 for 4 legs

Hope this helps!