Japan - Driving Instead of Buying Rail Pass?

themightyboost on 12/07/2016 - 15:24

Hello,

Headed to Japan/Tokyo soon for the first time with 4 others. We aren't there for very long (7 days for some, 10 days for the rest) so we are generally agreed that the weeklong rail pass isn't worth the cost (which is more than the plane tickets) considering we want to stay in Tokyo for most of the trip.

Renting a car is a cheaper alternative, and fortunately they drive on the same side of the road as us.
Does anyone know from experience:

  • If I'd have a hard time driving considering I don't know Japanese? Not so much worried about directions as I can get a GPS, but more about warning/ road signs.
  • If there's are crazy road tolls between Tokyo and say Osaka? Or around those areas?
  • If there are any big cars in Japan? It would need to fit 5 people (2 are pretty tall guys) and luggage

Other general trip suggestions welcome, we're pretty unplanned at the moment. The only thing I'd currently really like to leave the Tokyo area for would be to see Hiroshima, but as we're not there very long I'd rather fly to Osaka next time and explore the "bottom half" of Japan.

Cheers

Travel

Comments

  • Nutrino on 12/07/2016 - 15:48
    +1

    Weight in the cost of parking your vehicle too.

    • themightyboost on 12/07/2016 - 18:05

      Would you happen to know if you have to pay for parking 24hrs/7 days a week?

  • flyingdoormat on 12/07/2016 - 15:57

    Get a JR pass. You can use it in Tokyo and then can get to Osaka and Kyoto and Hiroshima. Travelling by train in Japan is a delight. I can't imagine driving. Navigating would be a nightmare.

    • pyramid on 12/07/2016 - 15:59
      +2

      I guess JR Pass use in Tokyo will be limited to JR Yamanote line only so Suica card would be better for tokyo.

    • altomic on 12/07/2016 - 17:17
      +1

      hey Bruce, for 5 people you are looking at $350 minimum for a week each for JR pass. for 5 people $1750. a rental car will cost less than half of that. even with fuel and toll ways it will be less. plus you have the flexibility of "oh, that place over there looks interesting, let's go there". navigating in Japan is a lot easier than australia. japan is very orderly in regards to navigation. if you show any japanese person an address they'd be able to give you you approximate directions. Japan uses a very systematic address system. they have prefectures (state), then regions (councils). then neighbourhoods. and then blocks. and houses/buildings are given a number on that block. very similar to Englands postal system.

    • themightyboost on 12/07/2016 - 17:59

      The JR pass sounds like a great idea (and really fun to travel in) but maybe more something I'd like to try next time I go there.
      For a cost comparison, if you OzBargain well (and I assume we all do alright) you can get return tickets to Osaka from Aus for less than the JR pass. And then we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot by trying to go too many places in too short a time.

  • lupiter on 12/07/2016 - 15:58
    +1

    You don't have to get the rail pass. First time I went it was cheaper to book long train tickets and buy a Suica (loadable train/bus card) for travelling inside the city. Also Tokyo -> Osaka is a 6 hour drive with tolls, from what I can see it'll be about 15,000¥ one-way. So… yeah. Not cheap. If you want cheap, fly to Osaka from Haneda.

    • themightyboost on 12/07/2016 - 18:01

      Great, the Suica sounds like a good alternative. Does it extend to the outskirts of the city? I am under the impression that there are shrines and castles just outside of Tokyo that I'd love to check out. If not maybe I could hire a car for a day

      • lupiter on 12/07/2016 - 20:35

        Suica can be used almost anywhere, they are also known as IC cards. We found 2 country lines that didn't take Suica, but in Tokyo the JR lines and all the subway lines are OK. There are lots of maps online. The IC cards have different brands in different regions (PASMO in the south, Suica in the east) but they are all the same.

        You can even use Suica at some vending machines! If you're flying into Narita then just buy a Suica when you get your NeX (fast train to Tokyo) ticket at the JR East shop.

        • themightyboost on 13/07/2016 - 12:16

          Thank you for the info! Sounds just like (although hopefully better than) Myki in Melbourne

  • altomic on 12/07/2016 - 16:03
    +7

    I just got back from Japan yesterday. I previously lived there for 4 years. You must have an international license to rent a car. MUST MUST MUST

    driving in a Japan is relatively easy.

    I had a japanese driving license for 3 years and did a heap of driving. I never got pulled over for speeding on the expressways. they have a zero tolerance for drink driving. I was once pulled over and the police officer wanted me to breath on him so that he could smell my breath. true story.

    road signs on the express ways are in Japanese and english. but even then the Japanese Kanji (iconographs) are very rarely more than 4 characters in length so it's easy to remember generally what you need to look for.

    the main thing is parking. generally (unless the hotel has parking) you have to pay for it. there is usually places around. (small blocks that have "ticket" machines. in Tokyo the approx rate was 1000yen ($14) for overnight.

    The road tolls aren't that crazy. I drove around Europe last year and was like "yep, ok, no problem, similar to Japan."

    I caught bus from Tokyo to Japan and briefly registered that the prices as around 2000yen ($30) for that distance. It certainly isn't ridiculous and definitely a lot cheaper to drive.

    i used the site economycarrentals to book a car and it seemed the cheapest from a lot of sites that I checked out. they are an agent for europecar. pick up from Terminal 3 at Narita airport. again, you must have an internal license. and for any other drivers. they will not give you the car if don't have an international license.

    why am I emphassising the international license thing so much? because, as I had a japanese license previously and had only used my queensland license in Paris and Hawaii to rent cars then I didn't think that I need an international license to get a car in Japan. WRONG. on June 27 I arrived at Narita airport expecting to pick up my car and drive to the booked hotel nearby and then the next day drive to Osaka (etc, etc). No international license = no car. hmmmmmm

    My plans changed drastically (it actually worked out better as it meant we spent quality time in Tokyo - I previously had lived there but my kids enjoyed the time) and then caught a bus up to Sendai and back again (Yen 7500 each way for 1 adult + 3 children - 5 hours). quality time over rushed time.

    definitely use airbnb to book accomodation as it is so much cheaper adn more space. - look for houses.

  • dannyflop on 12/07/2016 - 16:09
    +1

    A few years ago, me and 2 mates hired a campervan and went to ski resorts on Honshu and Hokkaido.

    We found petrol very expensive compared to Australia and the cost of tolls was crazy. All main highways were tolls, costing roughly $50 per hour of driving.

    In regards to navigating, we couldn't find a GPS in English, so just used the Japanese one in our van. All phone numbers are linked to an address, so we would google the phone number for where we were going then enter the phone number into the GPS, had to get someone to show us how the first time.

    I'd probably stick to the train.

    • altomic on 12/07/2016 - 17:05

      yeah, but for 5 people….

      there are plenty of apps for road navigation in english.

  • plmko on 12/07/2016 - 16:42
    +1

    crazy road tolls between Tokyo and say Osaka?

    I did the entire 600kms+ one way without tolls a few years back, very very dangerous and will take 2 days. But I'm young so I put it down to a funny story to tell and an adventure.

    But would do tolls next time if I were to drive, and yes they are expensive.

    Are the roads doable without knowing Japanese? Definitely, if you stick to major roads all direction signs are bilingual. But I think a lot of the roads will confuse or frustrate Australian drivers, especially those weird bottle neck suburban roads where they are two way but there is only one lane LOL.

    • altomic on 12/07/2016 - 17:02

      exactly. if you get on to the express ways/toll roads then it is smooth sailing. but if you take local roads - derp.

    • themightyboost on 12/07/2016 - 18:03
      +1

      At least you have the funny story!
      You can't put a cost on a that (unless you are a comedian)

  • shadowarrior on 12/07/2016 - 20:47

    I saw the Top Gear special in Japan where Jeremy drives the Nissan GT-R. Navigating turned out quite complex, and his GPS only announcing in Japanese didn't help. Richard took the train and was quite happy with the experience.

    • altomic on 13/07/2016 - 00:06

      that episode was 6 years old and now with a smart phone acting as a GPS then it's quite easy.

  • kiwizz on 12/07/2016 - 21:51
    +2

    If I remember right the tolls from Tokyo -> Osaka should be between 10,000 and 15,000 JPY. See here for details: http://search.w-nexco.co.jp/ (In Japanese, you can calculate your route - they have English but fewer features)

    • themightyboost on 13/07/2016 - 12:30

      Argh I wish I stuck with that "Learn Hiragana" game I downloaded off steam! That helps give me a good idea of tolls (one way I presume), thank you muchly

  • werdnanostaw on 13/07/2016 - 10:38
    +3

    Beware that the Japanese Stop sign looks like an inverted triangular International Give Way sign.

    On our first day just after leaving Narita Airport I drove through one on a left turn slip road (where you would expect a Give Way sign), so not as bad as going straight through, and got stopped by a police car. I drew a picture of the octagonal International Stop sign and they let me off.

    I have read elsewhere and the web page below confirms that they are changing to the International Stop sign in 2016 but the conversion may not have been completed yet.

    https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Road_signs_in_Japan

    It's about 10 years since I was last in Japan so the following may not apply.

    When you stop for fuel don't get out of the car. It confuses the hell out of the fuel pump operator. They wonder what you want.

    You have seen the scene in Back to Future 1 where he sees a gas station and 4 people rush out to:

    1. pump gas
    2. check oil and radiator
    3. check tyres (sorry tires)
    4. clean windscreen

    This is what it is like in Japan. When they have finished one guy steps out into the road and stops the traffic while the other 3 line up and bow.

    Totally off location but sort of on topic: In Oregon and one other state that I don't remember you're not allowed to pump your own gas. They are all manned (sorry personned).

    Another example of over servicing, that's nothing to do with driving, is that they have manual lift operators in department stores and possibly elsewhere. One girl we saw looked totally spaced out with boredom and called out the floor numbers like a robot while staring at the wall in front of her.

    We had the choice of buying a road atlas mostly in Japanese with major towns in English or a totally Japanese one for a quarter the price. We got the latter. We had a tourist office brochure with the city / town names in English and Japanese so we were able to navigate by character matching, eg character that looks like a TV with an antenna coming out the top or man carrying lantern.

    Now that satnavs are available everything will have changed but we found it very easy to navigate using a map because they "believe" in road numbering like in USA (I imagine due to post war occupation) not like in Australia (WA) where road numbers were only introduced relatively recently and nobody uses them or could tell you the number of any road.

    In USA they also use compass directions in road numbers so when you come to an intersection you know whether to go left or right, eg Route 66W. I can't recall whether they do this in Japan.

    When you are planning a route you note the road numbers, and if you are alone you stack them up in your head and read them out as required.

    Road numbers are displayed on direction signs before every intersection (not like in Oz where their implementation is very hit and miss) and confirmation / reassurance numbers on shields are displayed after the intersection and frequently along the road.

    We had a great time driving in Japan. We didn't take any freeways, we never do, because we are more interested in what lies between A and B, not getting from A to B. Traffic is very relaxed. It takes a lot longer to get anywhere than you expect at first because open road speed limit is, I think, 80km/h or was it 50km/h, not that you'll ever get to an open road (Ho Ho).

    If you want to visit villages and see what the countryside looks like take a car - you don't see much of the countryside on a Shinkansen at > 200km/h.

    If you want to to see the cities take the train - in a city a car is a millstone around your neck.

    I have done both and they are both fun. Enjoy.

    • themightyboost on 13/07/2016 - 12:25

      Cheers for the ideas!
      It sounds like considering our time restraints maybe car hire is not the way to travel city to city.
      What you described as their stop sign was my main kind of worry rather than navigation.
      I had a similar problem when driving in the USA when I ran into a four way intersection with a stop sign at each exit (I got honked a lot) - I didn't want to run into anything like that in Japan!

  • phocus on 22/07/2016 - 17:06

    What ever you do, regardless of transport. Get your hotel to send your luggage to the next hotel. Roughly $12AUD each time, but so so worth it. It can even be sent to the airport for the end of the trip. Make sure you leave a day or two for postage

  • azzatron on 04/08/2016 - 15:23

    Drove around Japan back in 2012. At the time it was difficult to get a car that had GPS in English. This has probably changed, but keep that in mind.
    Driving was very straightforward even in the city. Probably easier than in Australia if you knew where you needed to go. I can't remember what we paid in regards to tolls. Oh and yes, don't get out at petrol stations, they do everything!
    One nice surprise was getting a partial refund when we returned out car. Essentially we returned the car about 6 hours early so gave us money back. Wasn't expecting that!

  • petestrash on 23/08/2016 - 11:49

    I'm just back from Japan a week ago.

    I can confirm what others have said after this and previous trips.

    • An international Driving permit (IDP) is a must. I don't know of any car rental places in japan that accept an Australian Licence.
    • The upside down give way signs, which are actually stop signs are everywhere still.
    • Speed limits are low everywhere, a lot of paid toll roads are only 80kph.
    • Tolls are very expensive on expressways as has been mentioned http://search.w-nexco.co.jp/ can be used to calculate tolls.
    • Tolls are cheaper if you rent a K class car (micro car), but probably couldn't do that with 5 people.
    • You can always avoid tolls, but the trip will be much slower as most country roads are 50kph. The upside is the scenery is often better as there are no noise walls and less tunnels.
    • Most inbuilt GPS systems are still Japanese only, but there are English options with some cars. English is only for directions, the menus and address inputs (usually phone numbers) are still Japanese.
    • Avoid driving in Tokyo
    • If you're driving in snow areas get a car with snow tyres or chains.
    • I often use timescar rental http://www.timescar-rental.com/campaign/0000005036/en/index.… either direct or through one of the aggregators like rentalcars.com depending on who is cheaper.
    • Night buses are cheap alternative to trains, if you are a non-smoker check if the one you want to take is non-smoking as the smoke can be oppressive.
    • themightyboost on 27/08/2016 - 17:56

      Cheers mate and thanks for the insight, I've just returned also. I ended up going the rail pass in the end, but after going there and viewing all the road signs I'd say car rental would've definitely been a viable option.

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