Haneda to Fukuoka

Hi There, I will be arriving at Haneda Airport In late January 2023 around 8am. I am travelling to fukuoka, already bought JR pass.
My question is too risky to go straight to fukuoka from Haneda?
My concern is only JR Train, cause need to book seat on JR shinkansen?
Any advise please.

Thank you

There is no risk involved. Reservations are not required. And on most days you should be able to make reservations on the day in case you want to make them. Only on particularly busy days - like during the beginning of major holidays - could it be difficult to make seat reservations on the day.

However, my first thought was: why not fly there? It so much faster and possibly cheaper.

That was the first question that popped up in my head as well. You are already at the airport, and Fukuoka Airport is one of the few that's actually in the city and close to the downtown area. Why not fly? If you take a train, from the airport to Fukuoka it will be about 6 hours, and that's with the best connections.
If you fly, you can get a nice 90 minute flight and arrive without any big hassles. And it is quite a bit cheaper. If you're entering Japan as a Temporary Visitor, you can use a cheap fare like ANA's Experience Japan Fare for just 11,000 yen per flight.

There is no risk in what you're doing - late January is the dead of winter and a low season for travel. The only real risk is getting extremely bored - especially south of Kansai, a lot of the route is through tunnels and there is very little scenery from the train.

The other question is what else you are doing. That long train ride still leaves you a ways off from making a JR Rail Pass pay off. On other fora, there is no shortage of newbie cheerleaders declaring that everyone going to Japan needs to get a pass - but if you don't travel enough, you can lose money on a pass as well.

Agree with the PPs. Would definitely fly. Ideally buy a through air ticket instead of two separate tickets. Depending on where you come from this May also allow you to buy a completely different ticket eg changing in Incheon instead if Haneda.

For tge travel time by train, consider that with the JR pass you canNOT use the faster and more frequent Shinkansen but are limited to the (slightly) slower ones. I dont think they are actually slower while riding but they stop a lot more adding time to your trip.

I am also not sure if there is a direct Shinkansen from Shinagawa to Fukuoka that you can take with the pass or if you need to change in Shin Osaka. Check it.

We did a trip a few years ago starting at Haneda and departing from Fukuoka - but we took three weeks to get there!

If you already have the pass and are committed to rail, where else do you intend to go to? We found that the JR pass (on our first trip) was only of value if we moved on most days. We didn't use one second time.