ntrain
Traveller
123 comments
Posted 8 years ago
For this country most people are only offered the whole country JR-railpass, for 7 or 14 days.
There are however also many more railpasses for smaller parts, and thus cheaper.
These are f.e.
for only Hokkaido island
for only Kyushu island
for only Shikoku island
For urban/metropolitan areas around the superbig city/conglomerations: Tokyo and Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto. These are also for shorter timespans, like 1/2/3/5 days, and some can now be bought In Japan, though for a slightly higher price
JR-WEST also has passes for only its own network.
The full country railpass is fairly cheap compared to normal local tickets for the super-hi-speed ShinKanSen trains (''bullet trains''')- the 7 days about same price as return from Tokyo to Osaka and 14 days for the whole returntrip Tokyo-end of line into Kyushu/Hakata.
BUT Most trains in Japan are much slower meter gauge stopping trains and these have much lower prices-though still not very cheap. In Japan schoolholidays there is a special offer of a ticket for 7 or 13 days (I think) ONLY valid on these trains and this works out much cheaper in this still rather expensive country.
Japan also has loads of private railways and some of these now also offer railpasses, notably the KINTETSU between Osaka and Nagoya.
