Guide to plan your trip. Fare Calculation

dentaku calculatorFare table
2010.08.29
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This website shows you a lot of the train passes. But some of you plan to buy a regular ticket. Even if you will use the rail pass, you may have to compare the price of the pass and the regular fare to make sure that you can get the worth of it or not.

In this post, I would like to share the information about the fare calculation with you.

Hyperdia

You can get a fare very easily. (click to view larger image)
You can get a fare very easily. (click to view larger image)

This is the easiest way to get the fare and the timetable of most trains in Japan. Please refer the link below to learn more:

Hyperdia perfect guide, train timetable and route search engine
If you want to build your itinerary by yourself, Hyperdia will help you a lot. This site is transportation search engine. You can search the timetables and routes of all trains, flights and airport shuttle bus. But this site is a bit tricky and too many functions and options to you. This guide will help you to find the way to use this site.
jprail.com
2013.11.26

Google map

Google map can show you the train and the public bus routes. It also shows you the fare.

JR’s rule on passenger’s ticket

JR companies have the biggest train network in Japan. If you travel between major cities, you will take JR train in most cases.

The fare rule is so difficult to understand for the tourists from overseas. Even some travel agents in Japan do not understand the rule completely.

I wrote about this rule as simple as possible in the post below. You can learn the rule of purchasing and using a regular ticket.

For non JR pass travellers. Guide to use JR single ticket, basic rules, validity and stopover
The train ticket rule is very complicated in Japan. But you may have to use the regular fare ticket because it is cheaper than the rail pass. This post explains you the basic ticket rule as easy as possible.
jprail.com
2013.07.04

JR company’s official site

Some JR companies have the timetable and fare search engine in their official sites.

JR Hokkaido official website

This website offers you the fare and timetable search of most JR trains.

JR West English website

This website offers you the fare and timetable search of most JR trains.

JR Shikoku English website

This website shows you the fare table of most of JR Shikoku lines.

Comments

  1. Wana Siri says:
    February 16, 2018 at 12:53 am

    Hi Takeshi-San

    My wife and I are planning a trip to Japan from 7-14 April. We land in CTS in afternoon and plan to fly to Tokyo (NRT) arrive by 7 PM (same Day). This is to see Sakura (hopefully the trees are still in bloom). Below are our plan once we arrive in Tokyo.

    We are planning to either buy 7 day JR pass, or 6 days JR East-South Hokkaido Rail Pass.

    7 Apr, take train to Hotel near Tokyo Station
    8 Apr, explore Imperial Palace, Ueno, Yoyogi parks
    9 Apr, Take JR to Sendai for more Sakura viewing (hopefully they will bloom, if not i might consider Fukishima) Stay the night in Sendai
    10 Apr, Take JR to Hakodate (i read from your website that Shinkansen trains to Hakodate do not have non reserve and we need to purchase reserve seats also?) If this is the case, we might consider flying from Tokyo direct to Hakodate instead of going via JR and skip Sendai.
    11 Apr, spend 2 nights in Hakodate
    12 Apr, Leave Hakodate to Sapporo.
    13 Apr day trip to Otaru via JR
    14 Apr take JR to CTS.

    Could you please help to comment on the reserve seat mandatory on JR from Tokyo to Hakodate and also Hakodate to Sapporo, as this will be main decider if we fly to Tokyo and fly back or we should fly to Tokyo and take JR back (using one of the 2 passes i mentioned).

    Thank you so much

    Matto

  2. Monty Vernon says:
    February 3, 2018 at 5:53 pm

    Hello,
    I have a JR pass question. I will be in Japan for 2 weeks. I week in Tokyo and the second week using JR to go to Hiroshima. This is during Golden Week.

    My question is can I make reservations without the pass being validated in Japan? Due to golden week numbers of people travelling I dont want to miss out on a bullet train.
    Thank you in advance

    • Takeshi / JPRail.com says:
      February 3, 2018 at 7:43 pm

      Hi Monty,

      Unfortunately you cannot book a seat without actual JR pass. But you can exchange the pass in advance. In your trip, you will be starting to use JR pass in second half of your trip. You can go ahead to exchange the pass when you arrive in Japan. You can choose the date when you want to start using the pass. Once you get an actual pass, you can go ahead booking.

      Cheers,

      Takeshi / JPRail.com

  3. Amy says:
    January 29, 2018 at 11:08 pm

    Hi Takeshi

    Thanks for the awesome blog posts !

    could I please ask if it worth to get a 7 days JR pass if I wanna travel from
    1. Narita – Tokyo
    2. Tokyo – Hakone
    3. Tokyo – Kyoto
    4. Kyoto – Nara and back
    5. Kyoto – Osaka and back
    6. Kyoto – Tokyo
    7. Tokyo – Narita

    Thanks very much for your help

    Regards

    Amy

  4. Jennifer Borka says:
    January 12, 2018 at 1:21 am

    Hello! I am staying in Yokosuka for a short time but want to visit friends in Sendai! I need to know the round trip cost for two adult! Can you help? Thank you!

  5. Stephanie Asuncion says:
    January 8, 2018 at 2:19 am

    Hello. We will be traveling from Nagoya to Takayama on Jan. 22. We will be arriving at Nagoya airport at 5 a.m. and going straight to Takayama. What train do we take to go to Takayama from Nagoya? Is there a JR train that has this route? How much is the fare one-way? Is it cheaper if we buy a round-trip train ticket? Thank you for your prompt reply.

  6. Rhen says:
    January 3, 2018 at 7:47 pm

    Hi, Takeshi! We will be having a 4-day trip to Japan and we’ll land at Narita Airport. We’d like to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka (if possible). Is it practical to purchase the JR pass? or do yo advice us to just get the single ticket journeys?

    Thank you!

    • Takeshi / JPRail.com says:
      January 3, 2018 at 8:57 pm

      Hi Rhen,

      If you have round trip to Kyoto and Osaka from Tokyo, JR pass 7 days works. It takes about 3 hours from Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka by Shinkansen. You will spend many hours to get these cities. Please keep it in your mind.

      Cheers,

      Takeshi / JPRail.com

  7. Kezia says:
    January 1, 2018 at 11:39 am

    Hi Takeshi!

    My boyfriend and I are traveling from Osaka to Tokyo and we would like to stop along the way in Kyoto, Shizuoka and Odawara.

    We would be leaving Osaka on the 30th of June and aim to arrive in Tokyo by the 8th of July. What would be the cheapest way to make this journey by train? Could we just get one ticket from Osaka to Tokyo?

    We would also like to climb Mt Fuji during our stay and were wondering if it would be easier to do that from Odawara or directly from Tokyo?

    Thanks for your help!
    Kezia

  8. Camille says:
    December 24, 2017 at 8:29 am

    Hi Takeshi!

    I will be arriving from Osaka (KIX) on May 23, 2018 then going to Kagoshima and then back to Osaka for my flight on May 28, 2018. What would be the best JR Pass to get?

  9. alvs says:
    December 21, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    Hi Takeshi,

    WE will be travelling to Tokyo.
    Our itinerary :
    Narita airport
    Disney SEA
    Around Tokyo Loop Line
    Maybe mount fuji, etc

    My question is that the JR passes for 7 days is expensive at almost 30k yen.
    Since we are not travelling to osaka etc, would it be cheaper just to pay single ticket journeys or what would you recommend

  10. abigail says:
    November 17, 2017 at 5:41 am

    Hi TAkeshi,

    We will be travelling to OSAKA on jan 24-30 2018.

    Would like to have any suggestion on what travel passes should we get?

    From KIX AIRPORT to BEntecho station and vice versa.

    We will be staying in around Bentencho station for the whole 6 days and will be travelling to Kyoto, nara and Osaka.

    24th: arrive at KIx around 8pm

    25th- Universal studios Japan

    26-27- Osaka

    28-29- Kyoto

    30-NAra (morning)

    30- 5pm go KIX AIRPORT (8.45pm flight)

    Any suggestion will be much appreciated.

    thanks in advance
    ABI

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