20 day travel intinerary

Dave201990

Day 1+2- Tokyo
Day 3- Nagoya
Day 4- Matsusaka
Day 5- Iga
Day 6- Koyto
Day 7- Osaka
Day 8= Kobe
Day 9- Hiroshima
Day 10- Saga
Day 11- Nagasaki
Day 12 to 20- Tokyo
I want to buy the 21 days pass, I want try and only use japan rail to save money, if i need to pay extra for cities not covered by japan rail pass where do i search for those prices?

Tenjin

Hi,
You may not be giving the exact station names, so I am only running on estimates, but you would make a 21 day pass pay off. Some other big questions come up though - what long distance travel are you going to do after returning to Tokyo? If little to none, why get a 21 day pass at all? You'd do better with a 14 day pass. If you want to take just a couple day trips from Tokyo, then a 14 day pass plus a Tokyo Wide Pass would still come up cheaper than a 21 day pass.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2361_06.html

Honestly a lot of flags pop up, looking at your plans. It's your trip of course, but just one day in Kyoto is severely shortchanging the place. And skipping Nara is just a tragedy.
And I presume you are taking the train all the way back from Nagasaki back to Tokyo - and you're doing it all in one day? That will take you close to 8 full hours of just sitting on trains. Alternatively if you want you could use ANA's Experience Japan Fare for just ¥10,800 and fly back in about 100 minutes.
http://ana.ms/20Xtf8t

If you have the JR Pass you can naturally use all JR routes. The only places that may be a problem are Iga - some areas in Mie or Wakayama are better served by Kintetsu than JR, which would not be covered in the pass. If you want to look up your destinations and they are not too far off the beaten path, you can research more on www.japan-guide.com and look at their access info. The other place that might be a problem is Saga - you don't specify where exactly.

You can find regular rail fares, routes and schedules on Hyperdia.
http://www.hyperdia.com
Under "More Options", be sure to uncheck the Nozomi box if on a JR Pass since you can't ride that train using the pass.

You can see previews of some of the best places to see in Japan on:
https://www.youtube.com/user/thejapanfaq/videos

There are also loads of other tips on
http://www.thejapanfaq.com/the-best-japan-travel-tips/

Best regards.

LuisJp

The part of Nagoya-Matsusaka-Iga-Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe would be cheaper by private railways than JR. For example, consider a 5-day Kintetsu Rail Pass (3,600 yen).
http://www.kintetsu.co.jp/foreign/english/ticket/krp.html

Other parts would be covered by JR. You do not have to visit destinations one by one. For example, I might follow the route of Tokyo-Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Saga-(Kobe...Nagoya)-Tokyo.

For fare calculations, you may use GoogleMaps, Jorudan, or Ekispert, in addition to Hyperdia.
https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/?sub_lang=nosub
https://roote.ekispert.net/en

Dave201990

hyperdia doesn't work well for me always slow and i get an error becuase i dont know what station i'm going to just the city) google works fine but it always gives me private lines mostly and rarely gives me japan rail lines

Tenjin

Nearly all the station names are pretty straightforward. But use whatever works best for you.

LuisJp

Jorudan has a dedicated planner for Japan Rail Pass.
https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/japan-rail-pass/?sub_lang=nosub

You may find station names by pushing the blue Rail Pass Map button at the right. But I usually use Google Maps for such purposes. It is a lot faster.
https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/japan-rail-pass/?p=40&sub_lang=nosub&area=KNT