Train or drive

My wife and I will be in Japan for 3 weeks in May. We have visited Japan multiple times and have been to the Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nagasaki areas a couple times using the Rail Pass. On this trip we are going to the same cities and I am thinking of renting a car and driving rather than taking the train. My question is how would the drive be and are they toll roads? Other than not having the comfort of riding the train what would be some reasons pro and con for driving vs. using the Rail Pass. I have driven in Japan before.

Pros: you have ultimate flexibility, you don't have to deal with luggage handling

Cons: driving distances are long, traffic and parking in large cities can be unpleasant, it is not an ecological way of travel

Price-wise it is difficult to judge. Either solution can be the more expensive one, depending on planning and the number of travelers. A car for three weeks and two people, however, is almost certainly to be much more expensive than train travel.

I recommend driving only in areas where public transportation is bad (or if there is a person in your group who has trouble walking). This excludes most of Japan's larger cities and travel between them.

Just as an intro: I personally travel through Japan by all possible modes of transport and where possible by bicycle but definitely have also used rental cars on occasions.

Cons (for your itinerary)
- long distance is much faster by train than car
- Express ways are toll roads
- need for parking (paid/ searching for it) in all cities
- if you donft return the car in same Prefecture as renting, possibly high drop off fees.


In my experience rental car is useful OUTSIDE of big cities and away from major railways.
What I would do is renting carS (!) in different locations.

Eg renting a car in Fukuoka for a 3-5 day (or more obviously) time to explorer northern/central Kyushu. (Eg Dazaifu, Kurokawa onsen, Takachiho...) and then return it back in Fukuoka, get on the Shinkansen and travel to your next hub.

And eg rent a car in Nara or Kyoto to have a 1-2 (or more) daytrip of eg Lake Biwa or inner Nara Prefecture or to get into the mountains of Wakayama Prefecture...

I.e to use a car punctually for more rural places with worse public transport but stick to public transport for cities and large distance.

Thanks you Uji and Likebike for your insightful replyfs. In as much as I could stay at the Military base in Sasebo would that be a convenient place to base out of?

I would use trains for you long distance travels. And only hire a car locally on the days you require one.

Slow - and not cheap.

I did a "road trip" from Tokyo in 2019 with a free car (non-rental) - around 400 km each way. Cost of the car trip ended up being 6-hours each way (traffic, using a toll road - with some stops for ramen) and 30,000 yen round trip. The train would have been 90 minutes and 11,000 yen each way pp. Sure I might have saved "10,000 yen" but if I had have rented a car it would have been much more than the train and many many more wasted hours.

Is your holiday time worth more than US$10/hour? Get the train.

Japan-Guide has spoken, travel by train and rent a car at selection locations.

Thank you.