Car rental Tokio

We want to rent a car for a 1 week roundtrip: Tokyo, Nikko, Nagano (tips for this area???), Matsumoto castle, Tsumago trail, Hamamatsu (Suzuki museum), Mt Fuji, Hakone, Tokyo Haneda AP. What is a good pick up point for the car? We stay nearby Tokyo station so I think we can easely take the train to Kita, Arakawa, Adachi. An other question: do you need an extra insurrance?

7 destinations for 7 days. That�fs a LOT of driving and not a lot of sightseeing.

Regarding pick up location, why not choose a rental outlet close to your hotel in Tokyo? People make up that traffic in Tokyo is really bad, but it isn�ft. There are no traffic jams in the center of Tokyo (I ride through Tokyo most days by bike ). Yes, driving is slow but that�fs true across the country.

Well, I don't know about LikeBike, but we regularly drive from Yokohama to northern Kanto (sort of toward Nikko) and the pain in the neck is crossing Tokyo.

So, we were most happy to give up our car (which we don't need when living in Greater Tokyo without a small child) and start renting one which we pick up right after getting off at the Shinkansen train station nearest to the resort. We use the Eki-Rent-a-car system in which we get discounts for JR train tickets and rental car.

For us, the total transportation cost, including gas and Express road fee, for 2 people sharing one car is about the same between driving from home and Eki-Rent-a-car, and the time is about the same as starting to drive before dawn when there is less traffic. Of course, crossing Tokyo on train is much safer.

Why not rent a car for Nikko, another for Nagano, Matsumoto, Tsumago, Hamamatsu, Mt. Fuji and Hakone, and you can take a bus from your hotel in Tokyo to Haneda. So, that's 2 cars.

Unlike many other countries, multi-day rentals in Japan are a PITA when an 8 or 12 hour rental is cheaper and easier - no over-night parking hassles. And, road transport is SLOW. This is not a car-centric country.
Example, I can walk from my house to the train, change trains, get a bus and walk to my friends house in two hours. Driving takes three hours for 45km (around 30 miles) across Tokyo. And we have also driven from the Yokohama area to Nikko - at 2 a.m. it is no problem, but try the same thing at 10 a.m. and you can easily get stuck in traffic. Don't even start to think driving on weekends is better or something simple like the Fuji area back to Tokyo is easy (I still recall the last time and the Sunday evening traffic jams.)
Seven places in seven days - if you like, but you might not see much when you eventually find a carpark.

I mostly agree with JapanCustomTours, except that, as a country, a large part of Japan is indeed "car-centric". It's the cities that aren't. Residents in the countryside would commonly have 2 cars per household.

So, I still think that Nagano, Matsumoto, Tsumago, Hamamatsu, Mt. Fuji and Hakone are doable by driving and that parking would be either cheap or free. Just make sure you know that Japanese roads are mostly hilly, curvy, narrow and sidewalk-less.

Nagano, Matsumoto, Tsumago, Hamamatsu, Mt. Fuji and Hakone are doable by driving

Just so you'd know, I mean in one trip. Not Tokyo-Nagano-Tokyo-Matsumoto and so on. As long as you don't come back to a big city, you can drive from town to town and sightsee all those places within several days.

Thank you very much for your responses. Returning to my other question ;-) Where is it useful to rent a car on the (north) east side of Tokyo where we can easily get to from Tokyo station? The idea is to return the car at Haneda airport (or if there are any suggestions that are easier to reach on the west side of Tokyo, I would love to hear them). This way we probably won't have any extra costs associated with pick-up/drop-off at another location.

Well, my (and probably others' too) idea would be to rent a car at Tobu Nikko station when going to Nikko, and returning it to the same station.

When going to the other areas, it depends on your driving route, but an idea is to start at Odawara station, but you can return it somewhere else such as Hamamatsu or Nagano maybe.

Again, I don't recommend driving to Haneda, so returning your car at Haneda is not an option in my idea.

All this is based on the idea that you use Eki-Rent-a-car. Or actually, I should have wrote Rail & Rent-a-car, because that's the name of the discount system.

If you insist on driving to Haneda, you need to tell us why, because a couple of us are suggesting you avoid it.

If you must drive to Haneda, do it NOT on your way back from Nikko but on your way back from Hamamatsu or Hakone (or Mt. Fuji, only if you're coming back from Shizuoka side instead of Yamanashi side).

Please look at the road map of Japan carefully when arranging your car(s). Again, it's not wise to drive through Tokyo unless you have a good reason.

There is a NipponRentACar outlet right near Tokyo station (Yaesu branch) which I've rented from many times. Driving in Tokyo and Japan is super easy - I've been doing it since 1985. The traffic here in Melbourne and Sydney is generally much worse - but difference is in Japan the other drivers are mostly very courteous and considerate. On weekend aim to depart Tokyo really early for your destination - but yes returning back on late Sunday afternoons/early evenings can get very long and slow. In Tokyo we stay in Asakusa and we have an inexpensive outdoor carpark right next door to our accomodation. I drove last August from Asakusa to Haneda on a Tuesday leaving at 5pm in only 35mins - not really a problem.

You must have an International Driving Permit and your home country driving license with you when you rent a car.