What is the best way to Sapporo and where would you recommend to visit there

Hi there!

There are a lot of ways to travel up to Sapporo, but most of them by rail will require an entire days journey from Kyoto (here's a sample itinerary valid for Japan Rail Pass holders). The Japan Rail Pass is also valid on the new Hayabusa bullet train that travels from Tokyo to the top of Honshu, but even given this, it will take some time.

If you are not perturbed by the length of the journey, then the bullets that will get your there will certainly be comfortable (and free with the JR Pass), but I may think about looking at costs of flights from Kansai to Sapporo also just to get an idea on the time/cost dimension to this part of your trip.

For Tokyo you'll backtrack half of your route that you took going up to Sapporo. The Bullet train route does pass through the Fukushima county, however at over 90km from the plant is largely unaffected at this time.

You can look up train timetables and costs for all of your legs at the Hyperdia travel planning website and learn how to use Hyperdia for Japan Rail Pass holders through our video blog.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for your response. I have been using Hyperdia to look up the travel schedule/time, and I noticed that some of the station (e.g. if I type KYOTO, there are three choices), how do I know which one to pick?

KYOTOSEIKADAIMAE
KYOTOSHIYAKUSHOMAE

same with Osaka, Kobe, Sapporo, etc.

JF