- A question I frequently get on my Japan series
is Chris, should I buy a Japan Railways Pass
when I visit Japan?
Is it worth my money to buy one?
Well that's a great question,
and that's what I'm gonna be answering in this video.
This video is part of my series on Japan.
If you wanna see more than 100 videos all about Japan,
from Kyushu in the south, to Hokkaido in the north,
to Tokyo in the middle, you'll find the link
in the description below to my entire Japan series,
or you'll find links at the end of this video.
But in this video, I'm gonna be talking
all about the Japan Railways Pass.
By the way, if this is your first time here,
this is Yellow Productions, and on this channel,
I do travel videos that are fun,
informative, and entertaining.
I have a lot of videos on Japan,
but I've also got other destinations, like Las Vegas,
Hawaii, Europe, so check out those other videos
if you like to travel.
So first, I'm gonna describe a little bit
about the Japan Railways Pass.
I'll talk about how much it costs,
I'll talk about kinda the classic trip
that I think most people take with the Japan Railways Pass
that saves them money.
I'll talk about other itineraries that will save you money,
and I'll talk about other reasons why
the Japan Railways Pass may be worth it,
that actually doesn't have anything to do with cost,
and then I'll also talk about some destinations
that if you're going in Japan,
you shouldn't even consider the Japan Railways Pass,
because it's not good for certain regions in Japan.
Okay so first let me cover some general information
about the JR Pass.
The full name of is the Japan Railways Pass.
It's often abbreviated JR Pass.
It is sold as a national rail pass
that covers all the trains in Japan
that are run by Japan Railways.
This includes local trains, this includes express trains,
this includes the Shinkansen, that's the bullet train.
There's a couple exceptions on that I'll get to later.
This also covers the JR bus, it covers the JR ferry,
and it covers the Haneda monorail,
which is from Tokyo Haneda Airport into the city.
The JR Pass is not valid on any private rail lines.
What do I mean by private rail lines?
I mean any train line that is not run by Japan Railways.
For example, Tobu or Keikyu are two train operators
that are not covered by the Japan Railways Pass.
If the train doesn't have JR in the front of the number
or the operator, it's not covered by the pass.
This includes every subway system across Japan.
So the subway systems are local metropolitan subways.
They're not covered by the JR Pass.
Also in this video, I won't be talking about
the regional JR Passes, there are many regional JR Passes,
for JR East, JR Kyushu, JR Hokkaido,
and those may work well
if you're staying in a specific region, but in this video,
I'm gonna be talking about the national Japan Railways Pass.
Okay, so second, let's talk about cost.
The Japan Railways Pass, if you're buying the seven day,
one week long pass, for an ordinary pass,
is approximately 29,000 yen.
You can also buy the seven day Green Car,
the Green Car is kinda like first class.
It's the fancier class, that is 38,000 yen.
You can also buy 14 and 21 day variants.
Those are of course gonna cost you more.
I feel like most people typically get the seven day pass.
I think that's where you often find
the most bang for your buck.
At the time I made this video, the currency conversion,
it works out to be that it's approximately
$37 U.S. dollars per day, if you buy that seven day pass.
So when you buy the Japan Railway Pass for seven days,
it has to be used in seven consecutive days
from the time you activate the pass,
meaning you use it the first time, to the time you end it,
that is seven days, or 14, or 21,
whichever variant that you got.
You can't like skip any days and save them for later.
Third, let me cover the classic JR Pass itinerary
that I think most people take with the JR Pass,
particularly if their first time to Japan,
and that is if you're visiting Tokyo,
and you're visiting Osaka and Kyoto,
all in the same trip, and you're kind of going round trip
between Tokyo to Kyoto,
then the JR Pass will save you money.
Now let's talk about prices and how that works out
to save you money.
So let's say you're flying into Tokyo Narita,
you start with the Narita Express into Tokyo.
It's approximately 3,000 yen one way for the Narita Express.
You spend some time in Tokyo, then you take
the Shinkansen, the bullet train from Toyko to Kyoto.
That is 13,000 yen one way
(bells chiming)
on the bullet train or the Shinkansen.
You take that round trip, that's 26,000 yen.
26,000 yen plus the 3,000 yen from the Narita Express,
you've already broken even.
So if you ride the train one more time,
you are saving money.
So the classic trip of Tokyo to Kyoto, round trip,
you will be saving money if you get the Japan Railways Pass.
Now earlier I mentioned that the JR Pass
covers all trains except a couple types of Shinkansen,
particularly on this route from Tokyo to Kyoto,
there's the Nozomi Shinkansen,
it's the fastest bullet train.
It'll get you from Tokyo to Kyoto in 135 minutes.
Now you cannot take that train with the JR Pass.
You have to take the slightly slower train,
which is the Hokuriku train, it takes 137 minutes,
two more minutes, it's not that much slower.
The biggest drawback to the JR Pass
for this particular route
is there are less slow trains than there are fast trains.
The Nozomi trains, there are approximately seven per hour
that run from Tokyo to Kyoto.
The slower trains, there's only three per hour.
So you have less kind of opportunities to take the JR Pass.
If your goal is just to like turn up anytime,.
And ride a train, it's better to just buy a ticket,
'cause you could go on the fastest one.
With the JR Pass, you will wanna make sure
that you reserve seats ahead,
because everybody else with a JR Pass
is also gonna be reserving seats
on those three trains per hours, that you'll be on too.
So Chris, what about if I'm not going round trip
from Tokyo to Kyoto, what if I'm just flying into Tokyo,
going one way to Kyoto and flying out of Osaka?
Then the JR Pass will likely not be worth it,
because that'll only be 13,000 one way,
you probably won't be able to rack up enough value
from local train rides to beat the value
of the Japan Railways Pass.
Now if you're going on longer trips, like let's say
you're going from Tokyo
all the way up to Sapporo in the north,
that one way trip, that single train ride
costs over 29,000 yen, so actually if you do that one ride,
you'll have saved money by buying the Japan Railways Pass.
So another reason to make
the Japan Railways Pass really worth it
is if you're taking lots of day trips from Tokyo.
Actually this is one of my favorite reasons
to get the Japan Railways Pass.
I like to stay near Tokyo Station,
within walking distance from Tokyo Station.
Tokyo Station is the major Shinkansen hub in Japan.
Tons of Shinkansen lines run into there,
and so you can take day trips from Tokyo
to see the snow monkeys in Nagano.
That round trip is 16,000 yen.
You can take a day trip to Nikko,
which is this fabulous historical temple.
The round trip on the Shinkansen to Nikko costs 10,000 yen.
You can take a day trip down to Nagoya
to see Nagoya Castle, or the Toyota factory.
The round trip to Nagoya costs 20,000 yen.
And so you can see if you only did
a couple of these day trips,
you would also be making your money back.
Now you might be asking Chris,
how do you know what these prices are,
or how can I find out what the prices are
for the places I want to go?
Well the website that I like the best to tell you the fares
is called Hyperdia, hyperdia.com.
You can basically put in where you're starting,
and where you're going, and it'll tell you the fare.
So the best way to find out whether the Japan Railways Pass
is worth it, is to basically plug in
where you wanna go from and to,
see if there are Japan Railways trains that run there,
and then see what the cost is.
Add up where you're gonna go,
and if that's less than the total cost of the pass,
then it's worth it for the price.
But now there's another reason to get the JR Pass,
and that is for ease of use.
If you have the JR Pass, you don't have to buy tickets,
you don't have to load up IC cards.
When you go into the station, you just flash your pass,
and they let you in.
It's actually really nice and convenient.
Some other nice things about just having this pass
you can flash to get in to any Japan Railways station,
is you don't actually have to be going in the station
to ride the train.
You can just go in the station to use the bathroom.
You can go in the station to go to a shop.
You can go into the station
to just walk through the station, to get to the other side.
If you were buying tickets, or using your IC card,
it's not quite that simple to just go and look around,
and then exit, and not get charged.
One pro tip I have for you is you don't have to activate
the JR Pass on the day you arrive in Japan.
You can activate the JR Pass sometime later.
For example, let's say you're gonna be in Japan
for 10 days, you're spending your first three days in Tokyo,
it makes sense maybe not to activate it right away.
Spend your three days in Tokyo,
activate the pass when you're taking
the Shinkansen down to Kyoto,
that way you've still got time on your JR Pass
to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo when you fly out.
I also mentioned some classic areas
that the Japan Railways Pass is not very useful for.
One is the Hakone area.
This is an area near Mount Fuji.
It's famous for its hot springs,
and there's this circle trip that's famous in Hakone.
I've got a whole video about Hakone.
It's one of the kind of coolest I'd say overnight trips
from Tokyo, but none of the trains in the Hakone area
are operated by the JR Pass,
in that case you'll wanna get the Hakone Free Pass
to ride the trains in that area.
The second area that it might not be that useful for
is visiting Nikko.
So actually I mentioned earlier,
it's great to take a day trip from Tokyo Station to Nikko,
which the Shinkansen goes from there,
but if you're staying in Tokyo near Shinjuku,
then there's a direct train on the Tobu Train Line
that goes into Nikko, that is not covered by the JR Pass,
and so if that's something that you're doing,
then you might not find a lot of value from the JR Pass,
'cause you're ending up
spending a bunch of money on the Tobu line.
And the third area that the JR Pass isn't very good
is Osaka and Kyoto areas.
It's known as the Kansai region,
there are just not many Japan Railways trains
around those cities.
You can take the JR train but it usually takes you
out of the way, it's far, it's inconvenient.
And so if you're gonna be spending a lot of time
in that region, you might wanna consider
one of the Kansai regional passes.
One of the ones that we often get
is called the Kansai Thru Pass.
Okay so bottom line, for the JR Pass to make sense
for you going to Japan,
you need to be traveling long distances
typically on the Shinkansen more than one ride.
Tokyo to Osaka, round trip.
Or Tokyo to a long way away.
If you're just staying in one region,
or you're just making short trips,
it probably does not make sense to get the JR Pass.
Well hey, if you're going to Japan,
and you wanna know more about riding the trains,
you can click right here to find out more information
about riding the trains in Tokyo,
or if you just wanna know more information
about going to Japan, well click right here
to watch my video on things to know before you go to Japan.
You'll also find links in the description below.
I won't say goodbye,
because I'll see you in one of these videos.