Last Updated: Nov 26, 2023

Mishima Skywalk

Possibly Japan’s Best View of Mt. Fuji

This story was originally published on donnykimball.com and has been syndicated here on Medium

They say that all good things eventually come to an end, and sadly, this statement proved true for the incredibly affordable Japan Rail Pass. If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t already heard the bad news, the price of the country-wide pass, as well as many of JR’s other regional ones, is going up by quite a large margin. In fact, the Japan Rail Pass itself is seeing a massive hike of around 70% for the standard one-week option. At the new price point of 50,000 yen, travelers would actually lose money on a standard Tokyo → Kyoto → Hiroshima → Tokyo route.

To make a Japan Rail Pass worth it now, travelers are going to need to make more concerted use of the bullet train. Rather than zipping from one end of the country to the other, those looking to make their pass a worthwhile purchase are going to need to get off at many more stops along the way. Thanks to this, an entirely different style of traversing Japan is going to become almost necessary for those who elect to purchase a Japan Rail Pass. Otherwise, normal tickets will just be the better buy.

Luckily, I’ve got you covered. Even for standard itineraries, there are plenty of easy-to-add-on allures along the way to the (now overly crowded) likes of Kyoto. Today, I’d…