Travelling from Osaka-Kyoto-Takayama-Shirakawago-Fuji

Hi Nancy,

To start with your visit to the Kansai Area. Osaka is great to stay in if you want to experience the busy urban life of Japan. Kyoto on the other hand was the traditional capital of Japan for centuries and you still see this today. There are temples and cultural landmarks everywhere. It is a big city but definitely not as busy as Osaka. You could easily spend 2 nights in either.

Nara is great for half a day to a full day trip. I am not sure what you'd do in Wakayama though, unless you have a specific plans, such as hiking the Kumano Kodo. Instead I think it would be much more interesting to do a side trip to Kobe.

Takayama is a really nice place to stay for a night or two, it is pretty small though and making a trip from there to Shirakawa-go is a very nice idea.

Then for Fuji, I'm not completely sure how you'd fit this in. Fuji is not that easy to access from Shirakawa-go but I guess you could make a visit to Hakone which is a really nice area and has plenty of offer, even when Fuji is hiding itself in the clouds. Hakone also has the Shinkansen station for Odawara for direct bullet train access to Osaka. There are also really nice Onsen resorts around Hakone, in case you'd like to experience Japanese bathing culture.

Hope you find this useful, what are your thoughts?
Daniel

Hello Daniel,
thank you very much for your helpful advice and all the interesting information
concerning the places that we have planned to visit.
We will skip the trip to Wakayama then, as we do not really have specific plans there.
Instead, we will visit Kobe. But would it make sense to stay there for a night
or would you just take a day trip?
We would actually love to see Fuji but since it is possible that we might not be able
to see it because of too much clouds, we will follow your advice and make a visit to Hakone.
How long would you suggest us to stay there and what exactly would you visit in Hakone
apart from the Onsen resorts?
Also, could you please give us some advice on the tickets that we should book?

Thanks again for your help!

With best regards,

Nancy

Hello Nancy,

Kobe offers enough to enjoy for a couple of days, either a day trip or single night visit will be great. The charm of Kobe lies in the many small things to do and see there, not a couple of big landmarks. A cool website like: http://plus.feel-kobe.jp/ helps a lot in finding cool stuff. I would also recommend visiting the local Sake breweries, China town, the harbour front and going up to Mount Rokka.

For Hakone, the website I linked before has the Hakone Free Pass. This is a great way to explore the area and not have to worry about transport costs. Most people visit Hakone for 1-2 days, this should be enough to enjoy the highlights and make a full circle trip around the area.

Hope this helps,
Daniel

Hello Daniel,
thank you again for all the interesting information and your helpful advice.
It has really helped us to plan our trip to Japan.
Don't we need the JR Pass for this journey?
Thank you in advance!

With best regards,

Nancy

Hello Daniel-san,
we have already planned our trip to Japan in more detail now and we'd like to present it to you.

As I said before, we will arrive in Osaka where we will stay for 2 nights.
After that, we have planned a one day trip to Nara. From there, we will continue travelling to Kobe.
There, we will stay for one night and we'll go on with Kyoto where we'd like to stay for 2-3 nights.
Later on, we will stay in Takayama for a night.
From there we'd like to go to Hakone where we'll stay for 1-2 nights before having our departure back in Osaka.
What do you think of our plans and is there anything you'd change or improve?
Are all of these journeys suitable for the JRPass?
Thank you in advance!

With best regards,

Nancy

Hi Nancy,

This looks totally cool to me! I don't think I'd change anything.

Now that you have gotten the details down, tt is also easier to see if a JR Pass works here.

Osaka - Nara (day trip) 1,600yen
Osaka - Kyoto 560yen (or 2,600yen if you take the Shinkansen)
Osaka - Takayama yen ¥ 9,660
Takayama - Odawara (for Hakone) yen ¥ 12,460
Odawara - Osaka yen ¥ 12,420

For a total of ¥ 36,700 or at least ¥ 7,590 in savings, as a 7 day JR Pass is 29,110. The JR Pass can also be used on local JR lines in Osaka and on the train to Kansai Airport. Possible adding even more.

Hope this helps,
Daniel