¡Japan Rail Pass! That great friend of tourists travelling to Japan, and it is very important that you get it for your trip. It can be requested by anyone travelling to Japan for tourism purposes who has a “Temporary Visitor” visa. It is a personal and non-transferable discounted ticket specially designed for tourists, allowing you to travel throughout the country. You will have access to unlimited travel on all national trains operated by the JR Group, metro lines (such as the Yamanote Line in Tokyo, the green circular line, or the Osaka Loop Line), buses, ferries, and even airport transfers. These are the new prices:

Pass Type Price
7 days ¥50,000
14 days ¥80,000
21 days ¥100,000
Green 7 days ¥70,000
Green 14 days ¥110,000
Green 21 days ¥140,000

Steps to follow:

    1. Is it worth getting it? Should I have it for every day I will be in Japan? The first thing you need to do is calculate the journeys you will make and check whether it is worth it. If you are following the two-week itinerary I published, I have already done the calculations for you, and without a doubt, you should get it. In any case, I recommend calculating the routes you will need to take using Japan Travel by Navitime to make your final decision.
        • If you do not want to buy it, you can book individual train tickets separately on the Klook website.
    2. If your final decision is to get the Japan Rail Pass, you will have to buy it from an official seller. Here is my favourite one and the one I always use to purchase it: Japan Rail Pass. You have options for 7 days (€195), 14 days (€310), and 21 days (€395). All sellers use the same price, although it may vary slightly depending on the daily exchange rate, but usually by no more than €3-4. It may seem expensive, but travelling all over Japan without this pass would cost even more.
    3. But be careful, what you will receive at home is not the JR Pass itself, but a document that you will need to exchange at a JR office once you arrive in Japan. You will find these offices at Haneda, Narita, and Kansai airports, as well as at the main JR stations in each city. You will need to show your passport so they can check that you have a “Temporary Visitor” visa, and you will have to fill in the back of the booklet they give you with the information shown on your passport. That document will then become your JR Pass.
    4. You will also need to tell the staff member assisting you which dates you want the pass to be valid for, as they will provide you with a card showing this information, and you will not be able to travel on days that are not indicated on this card.
Japan Rail Pass
Japan Rail Pass, although now you will only receive the green card shown in the photo, not the whole booklet.

And that’s it! You now have all the documentation needed to use the JR Pass. One very important thing you should keep in mind is which forms of transport are included with this special ticket:

    • Be careful with Shinkansen trains, as Nozomi and Mizuho are not included with the JR Pass.
    • The ferry from Hiroshima to Miyajima is included.
    • Urban train lines (not the subway): Yamanote Line, Tokyo’s green circular train line, and Osaka Loop Line.
    • JR buses.
    • Airport transfers such as the Narita Express in Tokyo or Haruka at Kansai Airport (Osaka). At Haneda, you have the train service between Hamamatsucho and Haneda Airport.
    • Limited Express 特急 (Tokkyū), 急行 (Kyūkō), 快速 (Kaisoku), 新快速 (Shin-Kaisoku), and 普通 (Futsū) trains.

And how can you find out all this information? Japan Travel by Navitime will be your best friend in Japan when it comes to transportation. Through its website and app, you can check in detail which route you need to take to get from one place to another. It provides information about stations, timetables, duration, and distances… And believe me, if a train in Japan says it departs at 10:17, it will leave at 10:17, not one minute earlier or one minute later. The punctuality was one of the things I appreciated most during this trip. You can also use Google Maps, but sometimes, especially in Tokyo, it can be a bit confusing because you often have to go to a specific floor of a building and it can be quite difficult to know which one. However, it is very useful for GPS navigation, as many streets do not have names, and with Maps you can see the exact location of what you are looking for.