Japan Rail Pass

Hi, I would love some advice please.

My family of 6 people is travelling to Japan in June. We will be there for 16 days. I am wondering if we should get a Japan Rail Pass. We are going from Tokyo, Tochigi, Hakone, Fuji, Takayama, Kanazawa, Nara, Kyoto, Fukuoka and Hiroshima. We might hire a car for a couple of days to see Hakone and Fuji.
I don't know if we should buy a JR pass or just pay as we go.
Thank you in advance.

Tina

There are several rail pass calculators on the internet, including on this website. Use on of those.

From your basic itinerary, it sound like a 14-day JR Pass should pay off. Fukuoka is quite out of the way, though, so to save time and allow less rushing (it is a very busy trip), I would skip Fukuoka.

Thank you for your reply. So you don't think it is worth visiting Fukuoka and down South? I didn't really know where to go from Nara as we have probably got about 3 days spare.

That is a very busy itinerary with lots of time spent travelling. I would suggest leaving Fukuoka for another time & staying in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima & Kanazawa at maximum. Something like
Tokyo 2 nights
Kyoto 4 nights
Hiroshima 4 nights
Kanazawa 2 nights (Maybe 3)
Tokyo 4 Nights (Maybe 3)
With day trips to other places you mention if the mood takes. I might swap the length of the Tokyo stays around. There is more than enough in these places for much longer than 16 days.

Without meaning to sound rude the Destinations section of this site can be a great help

I would probably do Tokyo - Kyoto (with Nara) - Hiroshima - Osaka (via Himeji) - Kanazawa - Tokyo. This splits up the long ride between Hiroshima and Kanazawa, which would have to pass through Kansai anyway.

And probably only 3 nights Hiroshima (seeing Hiroshima, Miyajima, and Okayama/Kurashiki), and put the extra night in for Osaka.

One of the more difficult (time consuming) parts of that schedule is Hakone/Fuji. Drop that and you reduce your back-tracking travel time considerably and you don't miss much - how long do you want to look at Fuji-san? More than 10 minutes you'll be bored. You have real mountains in your itinerary.
Hiroshima to Kanazawa isn't too long, by squeezing in Himeji makes a day more complicated.
Including Fukuoka adds a bit to the travel time, but make sure you have a destination you really want to see. Even my staff member from there says it's a boring town (I am less convinced), and I go for the sumo, so make sure you have it planned properly. Next time I really must try the local ramen - it's on my "to-do" list.

Have you considered NOT doing it as a circular trip on the train, and using an internal flight instead?

You could, for example: arrive in Tokyo (I'm assuming you can't fly direct to anywhere else in Japan?), take a cheap flight to Hiroshima without leaving the airport in Tokyo, spend your planned 4 days in Hiroshima, and then head back to Tokyo, stopping off at all the places you list, and end up with a block of time in Tokyo.

You might be able to fit all your travel into a 7 day pass, saving money. Or you might do something like not use a pass to go from Hiroshima to Kyoto, and then use a Hokuriku Arch Pass to go Kyoto to Kanazawa to Tokyo...

n.b. my suggestion above assumes that you're going to drop Fukuoka