Planning Your Trip

Planning your route in Japan

Japan’s rail network is dense, punctual and very well documented, which means the planning tools available to you are genuinely good. The main thing to get right is filtering out services your pass does not cover, so you are not looking at a Nozomi timetable when you cannot board one without paying extra.

Navitime Japan Travel

Navitime is the tool we recommend first. It is built for visitors, works in English, and has a Japan Rail Pass filter that strips out services the pass does not cover.

Search your origin and destination, then look for the rail pass filter in the search options. With it enabled, Nozomi and Mizuho services drop out of the results and you are left with the Hikari, Kodama and Sakura services you can actually board, along with limited express and local connections.

Open Navitime Japan Travel

Jorudan Japan Transit Planner

Jorudan is the other strong option and some people prefer its interface. It also offers a Japan Rail Pass filter, and it tends to be better at showing you the full set of alternatives on a route, including slower options that might suit if you are not in a hurry.

Open Jorudan Japan Transit Planner

A note on Hyperdia

Many older guides and forum posts still recommend Hyperdia, along with instructions to untick the Nozomi and Mizuho boxes. Hyperdia discontinued its public timetable search, so those instructions no longer lead anywhere. If you find a guide telling you to use it, that guide has not been updated in some years, which is worth bearing in mind for whatever else it tells you.

Working out whether the pass pays off

Before you commit, it is worth adding up what your planned journeys would cost as individual tickets and comparing that against the pass price. A pass earns its keep on long distance travel, particularly repeated Shinkansen legs, and rarely on city travel alone.

Our Japan Rail Pass calculator does this for the most common routes, and will tell you plainly if a pass is not the cheaper option for your itinerary.

Practical planning tips

• Check the last train. Japanese cities shut down earlier than you might expect, with last services often before midnight. Missing one means a taxi or a capsule hotel.
• Build in buffer at transfer stations. Tokyo, Shinjuku and Osaka stations are enormous, and ten minutes between platforms is not always enough.
• Reserve seats for long legs. Reservations are free with the pass and guarantee you a seat on busy routes, particularly around weekends and holidays.
• Watch the holiday periods. Golden Week in late April and early May, Obon in mid August and New Year all see heavy domestic travel, with reserved seats booking out well ahead.
• Consider luggage forwarding. Takkyubin services move suitcases between hotels overnight, which is far easier than carrying them through transfers.