Rail passes in Kansai area for tourist

Hi Guys,
We are planning to tour Nara, Kyoto, and Osaka and surrounding areas like Mt Koya for 10 days in the coming week. I have been looking up for reasonable passes that would make our travel in the Kansai area a tad cheap. We would be landing at Osaka Itami airport and first proceed to Nara - then Osaka and then Kyoto. Any advice for which type of Kansai rail pass is the best? I am seeing options like thru pass, area rail pass etc.
- we are looking for something which would include our ride from the airport to nara and from Kyoto to Tokyo return journey as well.Not sure whether kansai pass would cover kyoto to tokyo- but maybe i don't know something which you guys cold help out! Thanks!

Mallika

.Not sure whether kansai pass would cover kyoto to tokyo

No. Kansai is the name of area including Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama and Shiga (and sometimes Mie) prefectures. Tokyo is some 400 km away so the
Kansai Area Pass by JR West

http://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/pass/kansai/

does not include Tokyo. You might better see the map of Japan first.

By the way will you fly into Tokyo and then take flight to Itami which is domestic airport so you must land in Japan somewhere other than Osaka. If your departing flight is from Tokyo and you need only one way travel from Osaka to Tokyo then the domestic flight is the cheapest way, other than tiresome overnight bus.

I've used the Thru Pass, but at 5200 yen for 3 days, I've had to pull out the calculator to find what total savings would look like. You can ride most anything other than JR, but coverage is excellent for the entire region.

Depending on your daily pace of travel it might be better to buy single tickets. The good thing about thru passes is you don't need to use them on consecutive days.