Hokuriku Pass, Hiroshima Pass or JR Pass?

Hello everybody,
I am planning a 20-day trip to Japan (end of December - mid-January) and I am struggling with my pass combination. My trip will go as follows:

Arrival in Tokyo and Going to Kyoto
In Kyoto, I plan to explore Kyoto and Visit Kanazawa
From Kyoto, I plan to go to Osaka
In Osaka I want to explore Osaka (going to Universal studios too), Hiroshima and Nagoya
After Osaka, I plan on going to Tokyo and visit Nikko + explore Tokyo until it's time to go home.

At first, I considered getting the Hokuriku Arch Pass, the Kansai Hiroshima Area Pass and the Nikko World Heritage Area Pass. However, I still have 2 main problems I am unsure how to solve:
1 - Should I get a 1 trip shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo?
2 - Will I spend more money than the 21 pass by combining all of this + the day passes in Tokyo + the last train to the airport?

I know it is a lot, and maybe the JR pass would be more convenient, but if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it.

Thanks a lot!

For most people with current prices, the JR Pass is a money loser. Not to mention with the 21-day pass, which is 100,000 yen, it is that much harder to break even on. There are several regional passes you should look at, such as the Kansai-Hiroshima Pass, or the JR West All Area Pass.
https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/

The big question is how much time you'll be spending at each area. A regional pass might save you some money, or maybe no JR type pass at all is better. It depends on the details.

Overall you are not actually doing very much travel across 20 days, so a national pass wouldn't be a good option. Second, the Hokurikyu pass works if doing round-trips between Tokyo and Osaka, but not so well for a one-way and it does take time. Rather than visiting Kanazawa as a day trip (long/expensive), include it as a stop from Tokyo.
Your travel also has some long trips (Nagoya and Hiroshima) if you are planning on doing them as day trips. Better would be to stop at Nagoya on the way back to Tokyo and consider staying in Hiroshima (it's not clear). Essentially, with the places you want to go, you can make a much more efficient schedule (both time and money).

Hi!

Thank you very much for your answers.

My idea was to stay around 4 days in Kyoto and 7 in Osaka, the rest of the trip in Tokyo (as "bases"). Maybe I will visit Nara too when in Osaka.

I've visited Japan in 2018 and I didn't mind doing some day-trips like Hiroshima as it is only 1h and 20 min with the shinkansen. I found it challenging traveling around with luggage so I am hoping to avoid that by using the shinkansen around.

I hope I was more clear now :)

Thanks again!

Knowledgeable Japan travelers (of which JapanCustomTours is most definitely one) will almost inevitably tell you not to get a JR pass for your trip because it doesnft gpay off.h However, I did a quick check with the rail pass calculator, and it looks like you would get your moneyfs worth from a 14-day nationwide pass if you did Kanazawa and Hiroshima and Nagoya as day trips from Kyoto or Osaka. Of course, knowledgeable Japan travelers will also tell you to change your itinerary and not make those excursions as day tripsc

I respect the knoweldge of the knowledgeable Japan travelers, but personally I would be more inclined to get a 14-day JR pass and do the day trips, especially if it helps me to find accommodations that donft have an insane price increase on any weekends that fell within my travel period. When I plan a trip I always look at how much Ifm going to have to pay to stay in any popular cities on weekends, and I will often use the rail pass to support an gupcharge dodge,h that is, finding much cheaper accommodations in a city that is on a shinkansen line (or otherwise is a good place to stay).

Note that you can use the rail pass to get to Nikko from Tokyo if you go via Utsunomiya. It takes a little longer than the usual recommended route, but not by that much. I plan to use JR to get to Nikko from Tokyo on an upcoming trip myself (because I will have a nationwide JR pass!). Of course, it would have to fall within the 14-day pass, unless you decide to up the ante and go for a 21-day pass (I probably wouldnft do that myself).

If it were me, I would probably not use Osaka as a home base for 7 days, though. Shin-Osaka is not a particularly interesting place to stay in itself, especially for that long, and if you want to use the shinkansen you either have to stay at Shin-Osaka or else get there from another station, which is a nuisance (although Osaka Station isnft too bad, especially if you use a limited express train).

Ifm probably going on way too long, but I just wanted to provide a different perspective. If I were in your shoes I would probably get the JR pass, and maybe add one or two more day trips or fun train rides. (I have done Kanazawa from Kyoto a couple of times and would definitely do it again.) Actually, I would probably use Okayama as one of my home bases instead of Osaka. (So maybe stay in Kyoto for six or seven nights and Okayama for three or four, and visit Takamatsu, Himeji, Onomichi, Bitchu Takahashi, and/or Kurashiki, among other possibilities. Hiroshima/Miyajima is a breeze from there. I have done even longer day trips myself, but I have an appetite for them.) Okayama tends to have better hotel prices, especially on the weekends, and there are loads of good places to eat there. The Saturday upcharges in Kyoto and Osaka can be gut-wrenching, and restaurants there tend to be more crowded, and if Ifm not mistaken a little more expensive. I have used Okayama as a home base several times.

I have always liked the various side benefits of the JR pass (although it also has drawbacks) and my response to the price increase is to continue to plan trips around it, rather than dumping the pass. The advantage of being able to reserve trains online up to a month in advance, and to cancel and change reservations online at on short notice, is something I find very appealing. And I dislike hotel changes, and not just because of the luggage issue. I really like to settle in at a hotel, unpack, and even buy some groceries. Note that I always choose hotels that are close to the main JR station I will be using.

People will tell you that you have to do a lot of long-distance travel to make a JR pass pay off, but I recently took a month-long trip with a 21-day pass, and I had plenty of days with little or no train travel during the duration of my pass. Day trips where you use the shinkansen or limited express trains (i.e., round-trip train fare) can make it pay off pretty fast (and if you donft have the pass, you will likely opt out of those day trips because individual tickets are too expensive). I also use limited express trains a lot (sometimes even for short rides to avoid commuter trains). Personally, I find point-to-point travel with hotel changes to be a real grind. But thatfs definitely what most people choose.

@Kim - we all have our preferences and the OP expanded on their reasons. With staying in Osaka (not Shin-Osaka) those extra transfers can get annoying (and the new/extra) transfer to Kanazawa, so that adds time. If they want to do that, they certainly can. I have done some long day trips myself Kyoto to Hiroshima or Tokyo to Matsushima as examples, but that was taking my client requirements into account. So I was simply looking at the OP's plan and an alternative- they are of course free to do it their way.
The extra expense of the rail pass is a false economy IMO if just doing lots of long day-trips - yes you can "save" money, but helps to value precious time and weigh that against a few well placed overnights. It's like the person recently planning four day trips to Kyoto from Tokyo - sure the pass saved money, but at the expense of five hours a day travel.

An alternative would be the JR West All area pass, 7 days/26,000 yens (which covers both Hiroshima and Kanazawa), plus a Tokyo-Kyoto round trip (with the faster shinkansen not covered by the national JR pass) which should also cost around 26,000 yens.


That leaves you with 28,000 yens for local transportation in the Kansai area, Tokyo, Nikkō, and the airport tickets, compared to the 21 days national JR pass.

For my last trip I spent a lot of time looking at various options involving a regional pass for Kansai and western Japan plus round-trip Nozomi tickets from Tokyo to Kyoto, and in the end chose a nationwide pass for the convenience and flexibility of having continuous coverage and the ability to make and change online reservations during the whole duration. Although some of the options were quite attractive (one of the real plus sides to regional passes being the possibility of using the Mizuho and Nozomi), I was glad I had chosen the nationwide pass, and it paid off very well for me in terms of cost. But it is definitely worth considering one of the JR West regional passes. The planning can be a time-consuming proposition but worth the time spent, I think. I just try to look at the pros and cons of the various options, including total cost but not limited to that aspect.

You can apparently get cheaper nozomi tickets from Tokyo to Kyoto if you book in advance through Smart-Ex (with some restrictions and Ifve read that the cheapest deals sell out quickly), but I have no experience with that myself. Worth looking at if you go with that option, though.

I just re-read the original post and noted that you will be traveling during a very busy time, so whatever option you choose, you should try to make train reservations in advance. You can do this for point-to-point tickets as well as with a rail pass. (Just make sure you get any rail pass you buy through the official site. There are various companies with website names that can confuse you into thinking they are gofficialh but they arenft. And if you make the mistake of booking through them, or think you will save a little money by doing so, you will have to wait until you get to Japan to make reservations.) You canft buy a JR pass more than 30 days in advance, but there is no need to do so because you canft reserve trains any sooner than that anyway.