Without a doubt, Japan is an exceptionally popular travel destination, with many eyeing this beautiful, cultural, gastronomic country as a bucket list item or even a place to come back to over and over again. It is, however, considerably more expensive than its neighbouring Asian countries, the budget for visiting being closer to a western country. Just a couple of days in Japan could last you a week in Southeast Asia, so it’s a great idea to take advantage of all the foreign visitor discount tickets to cut down on costs where possible.

Everywhere throughout Japan you’ll find a plethora of regional tourist tickets that offer discounts for experiences, restaurants, and souvenir stores, as well as for travel within cities and regions. With a little bit of research and a plan for your day – even if it’s flexible – you could knock off enough savings per day to get yourself another collaboration T-shirt at Uniqlo or upgrade your bowl of ramen.

One of the most famous tourist discounts is the Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass). However, with so many resources and websites which are not so intuitive, and dozens of options and plans ranging from US$20 to US$800, it can be confusing to know which one is suitable for your travel plans, or if it’s even worth it at all. As such, with a lot of research of our own, Twinspeak is here to break down the system with our guide to the JR Pass.

An Introduction to the JR Pass

The Japan Rail Pass is a multi-pass ticket sold by the Japan Rail Group which allows you access to trains, subways, bullet trains, buses, and ferries that operate under the Japan Railways Group. This ticket is available for purchase by anyone who is NOT a Japanese passport holder and is visiting Japan for 90 days or fewer for tourism. Alternatively, if you ARE a Japanese passport holder, you must have lived outside of Japan for the last ten years or more, with proof.

Limits

Unsurprisingly, there are limits, and these can be a little confusing if you’ve never travelled to Japan before. One of the main things that even locals get confused about is that there are several different transport companies that operate throughout Japan, many of which are not affiliated with the JR Group. For example, the Tokyo Metro subway is independent of the JR Group, which means that JR Passes cannot be used for rides. This means extra planning is required if you’re looking to plan your routes so as to not get a shock when you’re barred from jumping onto the platform with your pass.

The second is a pretty common restriction that is mentioned frequently throughout the websites that offer the JR Pass. The bullet trains operated by the JR Group is named according to the route that they cover, and the Pass does not cover rides on the Mizuho or Nozomi train lines. Again, this may mean extra planning to avoid any surprises, but far easier to work around.

Types

As mentioned, there several types of JR Passes, and in order to determine which one is right for you, there are 3 main things to consider:

• Age – Child passes are available at half the price of Adult passes, but are only valid for those up to and including 11 years of age. Adult passes are for anyone twelve and up.
• Duration of pass – Typically, there are passes valid for 7, 14, and 21 days, though there are plenty more options when considering regional passes to be discussed later. The pass can start on the day of your choosing.
• Ordinary vs. First-Class “Green” Passes – Ordinary JR Passes can get you rides on the trains and bullet trains with seat availability being on a first-come-first-serve basis – the pass itself does not guarantee its holders a seat. A more expensive Green Pass allows you to reserve specific seats on the so-called “Green” trains, which refer solely to the class and not the literal colour. Green Passes are recommended by the JR Group for those travelling during high-peak season such as during Japan’s Golden Week holiday period. Seats on the Green cars are also allegedly more comfortable, but the ordinary cars are already top-class, in true Japanese style.
• Regional passes – as mentioned, this will be discussed later.

Purchasing and Activating Tickets

There are three main methods of purchasing a JR Pass:

• Travel agents – This is the cheapest way of purchasing tickets, and can be done at a number of travel agents outside of Japan that are registered to sell JR Passes. The full list of these is available on JR Pass websites. Being the cheapest method of purchasing JR Passes, they must be purchased before you arrive in Japan.
• Online – This requires a credit card, and can be significantly more expensive than if purchased from a travel agent.
• Upon Arrival / In Japan – this is in some cases more expensive than buying online. You can purchase a JR Pass in Japan at selected offices or station counters. A list can be found here.

Once you have your ticket, you will still need to exchange this in Japan for your official JR Pass. This is done at a range of selected offices or station counters. Be sure to allow some time for this – if it’s busy you may need to wait in line, and the exchange also takes a few minutes. When you exchange the ticket for the JR Pass, you will need proof that you are visiting Japan for 90 days or fewer for tourism, and this is only done in one way – with the immigration stamp. Even if you have an e-Passport which allows for electronic entry through the automated gate, you will need to get an immigration stamp at the manual gate, which will show that your purpose of travel is for tourism.

Using the JR Pass

The JR Pass is not an electronic ticket, which means that in order to use it you will need to use the manned gate and flash the pass to the station staff. They will check for the date of validity before letting you pass. This is the same for buses, and we suppose it is also the case for ferries, though we did not use this service on the duration of our trip.

Is a JR Pass Worth the Money?

The answer to this question depends on a lot of factors, such as where you’d like to go and how long you are staying, and it’s not a decision that can be made last-minute. An ordinary Japan-wide JR Pass costs ¥30,000 (US$280) for adults, so considering that a train ride within a city can be as cheap as ¥200 (US$2), this is not a cheap investment. It is more economical if you are looking to use a JR Pass to make stops in a few cities.

For example, a return trip from Tokyo to Osaka is almost ¥30,000. Make a stop in any of the cities along the way and you’ll have met the value of your ticket. You can check this route using Google Maps by typing into the search bar the names of the major train stations in the cities you’re looking to visit (e.g. Osaka Station, Tokyo Station, Kyoto Station), and Google will give you the approximate price of the ticket. Make sure to check if the route is covered by a JR train. From there, it’s maths as to whether you’ll be saving money with a JR Pass.

Regional Passes

As mentioned, there are also regional passes, which can be a much cheaper alternative compared to purchasing a Japan-wide JR Pass. Regional Passes include the JR East, West, Central, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu passes, which restrict ticket usage to a specific area. If you’re looking to do extensive travel in one area, it can be more economical. You can check the regions covered by the different passes on the map halfway down this page.

Our Experience: JR West Pass

The JR West Pass is broken down into even smaller regions, and varies from 1-day to 7-day passes. You can check out the options on this page.

JR West Prices

The prices of JR West trains are a little tricky to figure out. There are 2 fares which are factored into the JR West train ticket prices:

• The Basic Fair – local trains that cover small areas
• The Limited Express Fare – trains that run between areas and allows access onto faster bullet trains.

However, if you are taking a Limited Express train, the ticket price is the Limited Express Fare combined with the Basic Fare.

For the most part, the Basic Fare is very cheap, but it does come at the cost of time. If you take a look at the table below, which includes our train rides between cities, you can see that taking Limited Express trains may be far more expensive, but it also cuts almost 9 hours off our travel time. In that regard, we were happy to pay ¥19,000 (US$180) for the JR West Sanyo-San’in pass, which is a little more than the price of just taking Basic Fare trains but a heck of a lot faster. This is extremely valuable if you’re only in Japan for a short while and can’t afford to spend a whole day on a train.

Start Station	End Station	Basic (¥)	Basic (h)	Limited Express (¥)	Bullet (h)
Hakata	Hiroshima	5300	6:00	8500	1:00
Hiroshima	Shin-Inokuchi	200	0:15	200	0:15
Shin-Inokuchi	Okayama	3000	3:15	5600	1:00
Okayama	Kobe	2600	2:10	5100	1:20
Kobe	Takatsuki (Shiga)	3000	2:20	3000	2:20
Takatsuki (Shiga)	Nagahama	240	0:10	240	0:10
Nagahama	Kyoto	1300	1:10	2700	0:35
	TOTAL	15,640	15:20	25,340	6:40

The prices don’t include our smaller journeys from one neighbourhood to another which, although are only around ¥150-¥300 (US$1.40-$2.80) each time, does add up over the course of seven days.

Why We Chose the Sanyo-San’in Pass

We chose the 7-day Sanyo-San’in Pass during our trip in June of 2019 which covers the region from Hakata Station in Fukuoka all the way up to Kyoto and the Lake Biwa area. This is because we landed in Fukuoka and were looking to travel east towards Osaka, and it would give us the opportunity to hit some major cities such as Hiroshima.

We also wanted to do a ryokan Japanese inn experience, and the Pass gave us an opportunity to go to an area which would otherwise be expensive to travel just on a whim. We decided to focus our searches in the Lake Biwa area, where we could get a good view if we chose a ryokan with an outdoor onsen hot pool.

We also decided to travel from Kyoto to Nara and Osaka after our pass had ended, as travelling between the cities is cheap, at only around ¥600 (US$5.60) one way per person. This gave us plenty of time in those three cities without worrying about cramming them within the 7 days allowed by the pass. As you can see, this pass highly depends on where you’re looking to travel, and what sort of travel you’re looking to do. Though we can’t give anyone a definitive answer as to whether to use the JR Pass, we hope that this will provide some insight to aid a decision.

Watch also: our itinerary with the 7-day JR West Sanyo-San’in Pass

Links (All English)

japanrailpass.net/en/ – One of the many JR Pass websites.
japanrailpass.net/en/purchase.html#anchor02 – A list of overseas travel agents where you can purchase a JR Pass.
japanrailpass.net/en/exchange.html – Where to purchase and exchange JR passes in Japan.
www.jrpass.com/regional-passes – Purchasing a regional JR Pass.
www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ – JR West Page.
www.westjr.co.jp/global/en/ticket/pass/ – JR West Pass regional options.

*Please note that due to Covid-19 restrictions, there may be some passes or routes that are not available. We recommend checking the appropriate websites for more details.

If you’re thinking of visiting Japan we highly recommend getting a Japan Rail Pass and pocket WiFi for stress-free travel! You can check out our post on choosing the best JR Pass for you, or click here to purchase a pass on the JRPass.com website. Purchases made using our affiliate link won’t cost extra, but we earn commissions which help to support us as small creators.