We loved our Japan Rail Pass (JR pass). For anyone who isn’t aware, a JR pass is a rail pass that gives you unlimited travel around Japan. It is valid for a specific number of days ( 7, 14, 21). You must purchase your JR pass in your own country before travelling to Japan.

To chose the number of days you need your JR pass for, think about your itinerary. We were travelling around Osaka for the first few days so we didn’t validate our JR pass until we wanted to take our first long trip on the shinkansen. For us, this was to Hiroshima. To get value from your JR pass you need to be taking a few big trips to offset the initial cost. After that, the sky is the limit. Once validated our JR pass also covered most of our local travel around Osaka.

When my husband and I had traveled to Tokyo for the last week of our holiday, we both became sick with flu like symptoms. I was okay for my long awaited day at Disneyland. However, I was sick the next day at Disney Sea. I could hardly stand up. Ironically I liked the long queues to some of the rides as I got to rest. By the next day, neither of us had any energy for sightseeing, so we decided to change our plans. Instead of exploring Tokyo, we decided to use our JR pass and travel to country Japan. It was perfect.

The trip on the shinkansen each day took about 2 1/2 hours each way and we then spent approximately 4-5 hours slowly exploring the city. As we had two days left in Japan we visited Matsumoto and Nagoya. We chose these cities because of their castles. Without our JR pass this would have been a very expensive. Instead our JR pass was a lifesaver. We loved exploring regional Japan from the comfort of our train seats.

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