Sapporo and Tokyo?

Hi,
First time posting, any help would be much appreciated.
3 of us will be travelling to Sapporo for 1 week in January 2017. After we are thinking of buying a JR rail pass and travelling to Tokyo.

How can we maximise usage of the JR rail pass? (We would like to go to Kyoto, Osaka and maybe other places if we can).

Would this be the best option to get to Tokyo?

Thank you in advance for your help!

First make an itinerary, or at least a reasonably complete list o places you want to visit, then think about rail passes and all that.

Remember that if you buy a 7-day pass and you wish to use it starting on Sapporo, it'll take at least 7 hours to get to Tokyo and 10 to Osaka, as the Hokkaido Shinkansen starts in Shin-Hakodate Hokuto and not in Sapporo. It's going to be a long day of traveling for you.

Personally, if I was in Sapporo and I wanted to go to Tokyo or Osaka, I would look into flying. There are a bunch of special fares for tourists that are between 10,000 and 13,000 yen and will save you a lot of time. (you can fly into Haneda in Tokyo or Itami near Osaka.)

One idea, fly from Sapporo to Itami, visit Osaka and Kyoto and then just pay out of pocket for a shinkansen back to Tokyo. If you're just sightseeing around Osaka and Kyoto the train fare between the two is not that high and a JR Pass will not cover the subways/buses in either city. You can also take the Kintetsu private line from Kyoto to Nara easily.

Thank you for the suggestions.

So far, we are thinking of staying in Tokyo for around 7-10 days.
In no particular order, we are looking to go to:

Tokyo (3-4 days)
Hiroshima and Miyajima (1 day)
Kyoto and Nara (2 days)
Osaka (1 day)

Could anyone please suggest what is the best option to get around? We are still thinking the 7 day JR rail pass is the way to go.

Are you still starting in Sapporo?

If so, you're looking at:

Day 1 leave Sapporo it will take approx 8 hours to get to Tokyo assuming your only stopover is Shin Hakodate according to Hyperdia. If you take the earliest train from Sapporo at 6 am you won't get to Tokyo until 2:00 pm. (nights in Tokyo)

Day 2+3 you said you would like to spend in Tokyo (nights in Tokyo)

Day 4 you can take the shinkansen to Shin Osaka (assuming you don't care where you stay) and still get in some Osaka sightseeing that day (or Tokyo Sightseeing depending on when you leave) since the train takes about 3 hours. Shin-Osaka is 5 minutes from Osaka/Umeda or 20 minutes from Namba. (Night Shin-Osaka)

Day 5 to head to Miyajima/Hiroshima. Again it will run you about 3 hours by train. Just be careful, going by Hyperdia, there is an 8:08 and an 8:14 but then there isn't another shinkansen to Hiroshima until 9:18. (I'm guessing that 1 hour is all Nozomis and Mizuhos.) You can take a train back to Shin-Osaka that night or stay over in Hiroshima/Miyajima (Night Shin-Osaka or night Hiroshima/Miyajima)

Day 6 if you're in Shin-Osaka it is an easy trip to either Nara or Kyoto. You can take a shinkasen or a Special Rapid to Kyoto and be there in 15-25 minutes. If you pick Nara, it's about 1 hour from Shin-Osaka. Take the subway to Tennoji and pick up a JR line to Nara there. If you're coming from Shin-Osaka you could go to Nara and then take the train back to Kyoto. (Night Shin-Osaka or Night Kyoto)

Day 7 Spend most of the day in Kyoto, take a late train back to Tokyo assuming you need to be in Tokyo to fly out at some point. If you are flying back from KIX or a different airport than you have other options. It'll take close to 3 hours to get back from Kyoto to Tokyo, but you can take a late (8:42pm shinkansen back to Tokyo and get in by 11:10 and have time to catch a subway or train to where ever you plan to spend the night assuming it is not walking distance from Tokyo Station or Shinagawa Station.

So there is a potential itinerary, it's a little hard since I am not sure if you are starting from Sapporo and where you need to end your travels before your rail pass expires.

Then that is 3 - 4 days in Tokyo, not 7 - 10 days, right? :)

From which airport are you flying out of Japan? If you are flying out of Kansai (Osaka), then I would probably go:
Fly from Sapporo to Tokyo
Take JR Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto
JR Shinkansen from Kyoto to Hiroshima
JR Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Osaka.


For Tokyo - Kyoto - Hiroshima - Osaka (I assume all this fits within a 7-day period), you can go with 7-day JR Pass.

Just a note, if you are flying from Sapporo to Tokyo, then I would not necessarily start my JR pass until I was leaving Tokyo to go West. You could then have more time out in Kansai and in Hiroshima and could maybe make a stopover to see the gardens in Okayama or even Takamatsu's gardens.

There are a lot of things you can do in Tokyo without needing a pass, the question is what are you planning to do in the Kanto area and are you just spending 2 1/2 days there or are you planning to spend and additional 3 or 4 days there post your trip to Kansai+Hiroshima.

IF you are staying in Japan for 7-10 days, don't include Hokkaido.
IF you are staying in Japan for 7 days, only do Tokyo and Kyoto.
IF you are staying in Japan for 10 days, add Hiroshima/Miyajima.
Otherwise you will miss most of the sights in the main cities.

I guess the OP will fly into Sapporo, stay in Hokkaido for a week and then fly out of Tokyo after 7 to 10 days (total stay in Japan for 7+7-10 days). It's January and the winter scene in Hokkaido might be their "must". But it's just my guess.

Assuming Frog1954's trip, plan I would:

Do the 1 week in Hokkaido
Fly from Sapporo to Itami.
Day 1 take a cheap local train from Itami to Osaka and overnight in Osaka (pick a time that gives you max time in either Osaka or Hokkaido based on preference.)
Day 2 visit Osaka
Day 3 go to Nara and then either overnight in Nara or overnight in Kyoto
Day 4+5 visit Kyoto
Day 6 (1 of pass) start your rail pass and go to Hiroshima and Miyajima (overnight there)
Day 7 (2 of pass) take train back to Kyoto (overnight in Kyoto and get time to see more of Kyoto or more time in Hiroshima/Miyajima)

You would then have 5 more days of Pass to get back to Tokyo and/or would have pass to use to take side trips from Tokyo.

Unless you are taking the train from Sapporo it doesn't make sense to start a rail pass until you are heading West. And if you are flying from Sapporo, it is easier to just go into Itami and leave Tokyo to the end. Plus you won't need to use the rail pass until you head to Hiroshima then, because train travel between Osaka/Nara/Kyoto is cheap and you can use private lines as well. Heck, you could save the pass until the Hiroshima trip and have 3-4 days to use for side trips on the way back to Tokyo or take longer day trips from Tokyo.

Thank you for all the responses. Frog1954 is correct. We have already booked in the 1 week in Hokkaido but were hoping to travel to Tokyo as well. We can leave from Tokyo or Osaka to go back home and can stay a maximum of 10 days after Hokkaido.

We are thinking of going with rkold's plan to start the JR pass later on. Although if we can only stay in Japan for 10 days max after 1 week in Hokkaido, using the JR pass at the end only uses it for 5 days?

Are there other train passes that we can use instead to save money?

It actually depends whether you plan to travel from Hokkaido to Tokyo by plane or train?

If you plan to take a plane, then activate the JR pass for your last 7 days (which by looking at your plan will be around your 3rd day in Tokyo).

If you plan to take a train, then activate the JR pass on the day you are leaving Hokkaido for Tokyo. And if you do take this plan (which I would prefer to do if I were in your position), you might want to have a slight change of plans by putting Tokyo as the last destination, so your JR pass usage will be something like this:

Day 1: Sapporo (or anywhere in Hokkaido) to Tokyo to Hiroshima (this will take more than half day though)
Day 3-6: Hiroshima to Kyoto to Nara to Osaka
Day 7: Osaka to Tokyo

By this plan, you will be able to maximize your 7-day JR pass by using it in every single inter-city trips.

Of course the train plan can easily save you much more money while the only issue is more time needed (as mentioned in above post, it takes around 8 hours to get you from Sapporo to Tokyo by train).

Ok so you have 10 days post Hokkaido you can be in Japan so I would:

Fly Sapporo to Itami. I like trains, I don't want to be on a train for 11+ hours. (Going by Hyperdia if you catch the 8:39 train to Shin-Hakodate, you're not in Tokyo until 17:04 when you could catch the 17:33 shinkansen to Shin-Osaka and would not be there until 8:26. You will be on trains for nearly 12 hours, and unless you are staying near Shin-Osaka you then still need to get to where you are staying.)

OR you could take the 10:55 ANA flight to Itami and get in at 12:50...

So assuming you fly I would do:

Day 1 fly to Itami, over night in Kyoto, visit a temple or two before bed
Day 2 sightsee Kyoto
Day 3 sightsee Kyoto
Day 4 (Day 1 of Pass) Take train to Hiroshima see Miyajima (overnight there)
Day 5 (Day 2 of Pass) see more of Hiroshima and return to Osaka, get back in time to see some Osaka nightlife
Day 6 (Day 3 of Pass) visit Osaka and/or Nara night Osaka
Day 7 (Day 4 of Pass) take the long way back to Tokyo with a stop over in Kanazawa (because you have a pass and can!)
Day 8 (Day 5 of Pass) Tokyo (Kamakura?)
Day 9 (Day 6 of Pass) Tokyo
Day 10 (Day 7 of pass) Leave Japan

I think between the roundtrip to Hiroshima ( approx ~20,000) and the trip between Shin-Osaka and Tokyo ~13,000, unless you do the Kanazawa long way, which costs more) you're at 33,000 vs the 29,110 pass.

You could also think about the Kansai-Hiroshima pass, good for 5 days and 13,000 yen. You can't reserve a seat, but you can take Nozomi and Mizuho shinkansen, which I think is a major plus. You would then go back from Shin-Osaka the most expeditious way, via Nozomi and paying out of pocket. So with that pass you would be paying approx. 26,000 plus any JR train tips around Tokyo and if you take the NEX to the airport. With the rail pass I would do the NEX without it there is the Keisei or one of the many buses.

With the Kansai-Hiroshima Pass, you could spend day 7 (pass day 4) visiting Okayama or Himeji or both and then go back to Tokyo the morning of the 8th (pass day 5) and just visit Tokyo on the afternoon and 9th. You could also easily go back to Kyoto on Day 4. It depends on your interests.

You can move things around based on your interests, but this is a potential itinerary. Hope this helps. :)