Japan Rail Pass - Japan, Asia Review

Overall 4.67 of 5 view all 3 reviews

Rainmaker
Marietta, GA

A true travel bargain. I wouldn't do Japan without it

Wanderer, a global traveler, travel for hot-air ballooning

Pros

Easy to buy, Easy to use, Saves a lot of money, Good for most tourist destinations

Cons

Must buy before you leave, must convert voucher to a pass

DEC

2007

Japan Rail Pass - Japan, Asia —

The Japan Rail Pass is a wonderful way to see the country and I cannot imagine going as a tourist without purchasing one. It has been invaluable on both of my trips to Japan.

The Japan Rail Pass is good only on Japan Rail Lines. Not to worry, while there are other railways that are not part of the Japan Rail System, you can get to most popular tourist destinations using the pass, and it is still a bargain even if you supplement it with other rail lines or modes of transportation. The pass works very much the way the Eurail Passes do in Europe. You can buy a pass for the entire country, or you can buy a regional pass for just one of the islands. They are good for foreign tourists under the entry status of "temporary visitor". You will buy an exchange pass that must purchased outside of Japan and you will turn it in once you arrive to recieve the pass at one of many locations inside the country. Passes can be bought for one, two or three week periods. You can mix and match to get more than three weeks of use, but longer time periods are more economical.

The exchage pass can be bought by mail. Or, in larger cities like Atlanta, it can be picked up in person. Living in the Atlanta area, I chose to save the shipping charges and get it locally. In addition to that, the exchange rate was predicted to become more favorable closer to my trip time. I saved an additional $27 with a more favorable exchange rate by waiting until just before the trip, a luxury not so safe when waiting on mail, and one that does not pay off if you end up paying extra for expidited service or if predictions are wrong.

There are two classes. The "ordinary class" is my preference as it is the lower price and the trains have always been clean and well kept. Some of the trains in ordinary class are older, but on some lines when I find my car, I'm afraid that I've mistakenly found my way to a first class train car by accident.

When you get to Japan, you simply go to an office that accepts the vouchers and exchange it for a pass. The website has recently been updated to include a list of locations and hours of opperation. Sometimes it pays confirm information. I had been told the office where I wanted to exchange my voucher would close before I reached it, however, when I arrived, it was in fact open and I was able to start using my pass as soon as I wanted to.

Getting a copy of the train schedule in English is also very handy, if you cannot get one where you get your voucher, a station agent should be able to supply you with one after you get there. Some trains (commuter routes) run frequently enough that posted information will get you where you need to go. Train cars also have routemaps above the doors similar to those in most countries. In most places the route and schedule information will be written in Romanji (letters) as well as in characters. As you get further from large cities, there will be less English information available, but usually you can find someone to help you if you become totally confused. In a month of traveling, the worst thing that happened to us was that we forgot to get off at our stop. It was late and we were tired. Turn around from the next station was simple, though it felt like an onerous burden at the time.

Reservations are preferred for some routes, mostly express routes. These can be made in the ticket offices. Information on your reserved seat ticket will be in both characters and Romanji as well, so getting around is fairly easy. Express rountes are nice because they have limited stops and can get you there somuch faster. Sometimes it is faster to wait for a later express rather than to take an earlier "local" train. Sometimes it is also good to take the express that does not stop where you need to go, then turn around and come back on a local train. This is usually only effective when traveling longer distances.

The pass is not good on the fastest of the Shinkensen trains, the Nozomi. What this means is that you will have to settle for traveling at around 130 miles an hour rather than 186 miles per hour when traveling the high speed routes. The Nozomi routes have prices, speed and convenience somewhat comparable to airline tickets. But, the other high speed express routes are quite nice, so I find the limitation completely acceptable. I often use my pass at least once and sometimes several times a day. It does not take long for the pass to pay for itself.

If you want a sleeper car, you will have to pay a fee for that as well. We took an overnight train from Fukuoka to Kyoto that was not a sleeper car and we did not pay an additional fee. In the overnight car, the seats were spaced further apart than they would be in a regular car and they reclined with a foot rest, but there was no privacy and it was a "local" train so, there were fairly frequent stops. While we hadn't asked for it, we were told we had reservations in a ladies only car. That turned out not to be the case, so if this is important to you, you might want to ask a few questions to confirm the status. For that route, the sleeper car would have been an extra $80 or so. While I was pleasantly suprised by the overnight car, I was also tired the next day. If I were to do it again, my choice would be to pay the extra so I could be totally horizontal and draw a curtain while I slept.

The website below has been recently updated and contains just about everything you could want to know.

http://www.japanrailpass.net/

An interesting asside, I was in Japan to serve as a race official at the Saga International Balloon Rally. Japan Rail sponsors a balloon and the pilot was competing at this event. He happened to be the first pilot I was assigned to and he gave me a balloon pin and a packet of post cards. The pin and two of the postcards are shown in the photos section. Shinkansen logo or promotional materials are popular with the children and you can buy things like chopsticks, baby dishes, lunchboxes or notebooks for children.