Shinkansen Tokyo to Kyoto during Golden Week

Hello!

I'm planning a trip to Japan in May during the Golden Week. On the 8th of May I want to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto with the Shinkansen. I'm told that during Golden Week the Shinkansen is very busy so we have to make reservations beforehand. Because I live in Europe I can't make reservations so I want to buy the tickets the day I arrive in Tokyo, May 3rd.

Will this work of will all the tickets be sold out?

I'm not hugely experienced with the Shinkansen during Golden Week but here's what I think. I would imagine most if not all trains will be fully reserved by that date. For Golden Week they can often be fully booked weeks in advance. However it's possible you might get lucky, especially if you travel outside peak times, but I wouldn't count on it.

It seems like you have a few options.

First, if you have a friend or contact in Japan, they can reserve the seat for you and send you the tickets. This would probably be the best option, as long as you have someone you trust to do that.

I think there might be some travel agents who also can do this for you if they are Japanese companies with offices wherever you live. However I read they can charge pretty high fees for things like this and they are probably difficult to find, so I doubt this is really worth it.

Another option you have is to fly from Tokyo to Osaka, then travel to Kyoto by regular trains. That way you can obviously book seats for ease of mind. I'm not sure if you specifically wanted to use the Shinkansen though, I understand many people deliberately choose to use bullet trains for the experience.

Finally, I think you can probably get away without reserving seats. If you don't have like small kids or elderly relatives travelling with you, and you don't mind kind of winging it, all Shinkansen trains have several cars specifically for those without reservations. I have used them a couple of times times during very busy periods but never Golden Week, and have never had a problem finding a seat, but as I say Golden Week might be different. You may need to wait around a bit, sit away from other people in your party etc but the point is I think it's entirely feasible to travel without reserving tickets. Hopefully someone with a bit more experience will be able to refute/confirm that!

May 8 is after the Golden week. National holidays are up to May 6 this year. JR also take May 8 as a normal period in
https://www.jreast.co.jp/kippu/1202.html
But it is Friday. If you plan to get on an evening train, that one will be more crowded than others.

I usually take non-reserved cars. I expect that some non-reserved seats are empty in the empty period (bold figures in the above page), I have to line up to wait for next trains to get seats on non-reserved cars in the normal period, and I give up to wait and dare to choose to keep standing all the way in the busy period (circled/boxed).

Okay, thanks for the comments! I'm still not sure what to do.. I chose May 8th because I hoped that this would be one of the less crowded days. But that's just guessing..

I'm going to check some travel agencies, maybe they can help.

Thank you!