How to Get Around Japan: Trains, Buses, Flights, Ferries and Driving

Japan Railways runs the shinkansen and most intercity lines; private railways and subways fill in the cities. Fares are distance-based plus a supplement for fast trains, reservations open a month ahead, and an IC card such as Suica handles everything local. The nationwide Japan Rail Pass costs 50,000 yen for 7 days and only pays off on itineraries with three or more long shinkansen legs; regional passes such as the 17,000 yen Kansai-Hiroshima pass or the 16,000 yen JR Tokyo Wide Pass are better value for most trips. Fast trains have a 160 cm combined-dimension luggage rule on the Tokaido and Sanyo lines. All of this, with fares for every main route, is in Japan trains and the JR Pass.

Japan’s domestic air network is dense, and for a foreign visitor it is often cheaper than the train. Both full-service airlines sell discounted fares to non-residents who hold an international ticket into Japan: the ANA Experience Japan Fare and the JAL Japan Explorer Pass price almost every domestic route in three tiers of roughly 5,500, 7,700 and 11,000 yen one way, including a checked bag, seat selection and the regular cabin. Tokyo to Sapporo (1h 35m), Fukuoka (1h 55m), Kagoshima (1h 55m) or Naha (2h 45m) typically falls in the 7,700 or 11,000 yen band. Compare that with the shinkansen: Tokyo to Hakata is 5 hours and about 23,400 yen, and Sapporo has no shinkansen at all (Hakodate is still a 4-hour train plus 3.5 hours more). Book on the airlines’ English sites with a foreign-issued card and your passport details; seats are limited per flight and sell out around holidays.

The low-cost carriers are cheaper still on sale days but charge for bags and seats. Peach (bases at Kansai and Narita) and Jetstar Japan (Narita, Kansai, Nagoya) have the biggest networks, with Narita to Sapporo or Fukuoka from around 5,000 to 9,000 yen; Skymark flies from Haneda, which is a big convenience, with a free 20 kg bag; Spring Japan, Solaseed, StarFlyer, Air Do and Fuji Dream fill regional gaps. Check airports carefully: Narita is 60 to 90 minutes from central Tokyo, Haneda 20 to 30, and Osaka’s domestic hub is Itami, not Kansai.

When flying beats the train: anything involving Hokkaido, Okinawa and its outer islands (Ishigaki and Miyako are reachable only by air from the mainland), Tokyo to southern Kyushu, and Tokyo to Fukuoka if you value the time. When it does not: anything under about 600 km, where a 2-hour city-centre-to-city-centre train beats a 1-hour flight plus two airport transfers. Domestic check-in closes 20 to 30 minutes before departure and security is quick; arrive an hour early, not two.

Highway buses connect every city and most resort towns at a third to a half of the train fare. Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka (7 to 9 hours overnight) runs from about 4,000 yen on a basic four-across seat midweek to 8,000 to 10,000 yen on a three-across reclining seat with curtains at weekends, and 12,000 to 15,000 yen for the premium two-across “business class” buses. Daytime buses cost similar money: Tokyo to Nagoya 3,000 to 5,000 yen in 5 to 6 hours, Tokyo to Sendai 3,500 to 6,000 yen in 5 to 6 hours. Prices are dynamic, so Fridays, Sundays and holidays cost more and early booking (7 or 21 days ahead) saves 10 to 20 percent. Buses are also the main way to reach places the railway skips: Kamikochi, Shirakawa-go, Takayama from Kanazawa, and Mount Fuji’s trailheads.

Operators that take English bookings include Willer Express, whose Japan Bus Pass gives 3, 5 or 7 non-consecutive days of its network within two months (from about 10,200 yen for 3 Monday-to-Thursday days; check current prices, as they change), Japan Bus Online for dozens of regional companies, and the eight regional JR Bus companies, whose tickets you can also buy at JR station counters. Kyushu’s SunQ Pass (3 or 4 days of unlimited highway and local buses) is excellent value there, and Shikoku has a similar pass.

Tokyo’s main hub is Busta Shinjuku, the four-storey terminal above Shinjuku Station’s south exit, with others at Tokyo Station’s Yaesu side; Osaka’s are at Umeda and Namba (OCAT), Kyoto’s outside Kyoto Station. Discount operators sometimes use a kerb a few streets from the station, so confirm the exact stop on your ticket. Buses have a toilet or make rest-area stops every two hours, allow one or two suitcases in the hold, and are quiet after lights-out; bring an eye mask, earplugs and a neck pillow. Highway buses do not accept IC cards or the JR Pass.

Ferries are slower than everything else and the only option for hundreds of islands, and the long overnight routes are a cheap bed with a public bath. Short routes that visitors use most: the JR ferry to Miyajima (10 minutes, about 300 yen each way including the island tax, JR Pass valid), Kagoshima to Sakurajima (15 minutes, about 250 yen, 24 hours a day), the Seto Inland Sea art islands from Takamatsu or Uno (Naoshima about 20 to 50 minutes, 300 to 1,300 yen), Hiroshima to Matsuyama by Superjet (about an hour, around 9,000 yen) or slow ferry (3 hours, about 6,000 yen), Niigata to Sado by car ferry (2.5 hours, from about 3,000 yen) or jetfoil (about 70 minutes, around 7,500 yen), and Kagoshima to Yakushima by high-speed boat (about 2 hours, around 12,000 yen).

Long-distance car ferries link Honshu with Hokkaido and Kyushu: Osaka or Kobe to Kitakyushu overnight (about 13 hours, from 8,500 yen in a shared second-class cabin), Osaka to Beppu (12 hours, from about 15,000 yen), Oarai near Tokyo to Tomakomai near Sapporo (18 to 19 hours, from 12,000 yen), Aomori to Hakodate (4 hours, from 2,500 to 3,000 yen) and Kagoshima to Naha (25 hours, from about 17,000 yen). Second class without a bed means a carpeted or tatami floor with a blanket; a bed in a dormitory costs 20 to 40 percent more, and private cabins about double. Fares rise in peak season and a car adds 17,000 to 50,000 yen depending on route. Book directly or via Direct Ferries for English; English-speaking staff are rare at terminals. Okinawa’s outer islands are served from Naha’s Tomari port (Kerama Islands in 35 to 70 minutes) and from Ishigaki to Taketomi, Iriomote and Hateruma, with cancellations common in typhoon season.

Japan drives on the left, roads are well signed in English, drivers are polite, and a car is wasted in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto, where parking costs several hundred yen an hour and trains are faster. It is the right choice in Hokkaido (lavender fields, Shiretoko, Lake Toya), Okinawa (where the monorail covers only Naha), southern Kyushu (Aso, Takachiho, Kirishima), the Japan Alps and the Noto, Izu and Kii peninsulas, where buses run a few times a day.

The paperwork is the first hurdle. Most visitors need an International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention, obtained in your home country before travel (AAA in the US, the Post Office in the UK, NRMA and equivalents in Australia); it is valid in Japan for a year from entry, alongside your home licence. Licences from Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco, Taiwan, Estonia and Slovenia are not covered by the 1949 convention and are instead accepted with an official Japanese translation from the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF, about 4,000 yen, order online or at a JAF office) or your embassy. Licences from elsewhere without either document cannot be used, and rental companies will refuse you; a 1968 Vienna Convention IDP is not valid in Japan. The minimum age is 18 and the drink-driving limit is effectively zero (0.03 percent), with heavy penalties that extend to passengers.

Rental costs about 7,500 yen a day for a compact car, 5,000 to 6,000 yen for a kei car (the tiny yellow-plate cars, fine for two people and fine on expressways), 10,000 yen for a mid-size and 20,000 yen for an eight-seat van, including unlimited mileage and basic insurance; add about 1,000 to 2,000 yen a day for the full damage waiver and the “non-operation charge” cover that avoids a 20,000 to 50,000 yen fee if the car is off the road after an accident. Toyota Rent a Car, Times, Nippon, Orix and Nissan all have English booking; comparison sites such as ToCoo and Rentalcars work well. Cars come with English GPS (enter a phone number as the destination), and snow tyres are fitted free in Hokkaido and the north in winter; if you have never driven on ice, do not start in Hokkaido in February.

Expressways are tolled and the tolls are high: Tokyo to Osaka is roughly 12,000 to 13,000 yen one way, Sapporo to Hakodate about 6,000 yen. Ask for an ETC card with the rental (a few hundred yen) so you glide through the purple ETC lanes, and look at the regional passes that give unlimited expressway use for a flat fee: the Hokkaido Expressway Pass, Tohoku Expressway Pass (about 14,900 yen for 7 days), Kyushu Expressway Pass and the nationwide Japan Expressway Pass (about 20,000 yen for 7 days and 34,000 for 14, excluding the Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka urban expressways and Hokkaido). All are for foreign-passport visitors with a rental ETC card and must be arranged with the rental company. Petrol is around 170 to 190 yen a litre, attendants fill up for you at many stations (“regular, mantan” means a full tank of regular), and hotels outside the cities usually have free parking. Rest areas (michi no eki) with good food and clean toilets appear every 30 to 50 km.

Japanese taxis are expensive but spotless and trustworthy: drivers use the meter, do not expect tips, and will hunt down an address from a phone number. The rear left door opens and closes automatically, so do not touch it. Tokyo’s meter starts at 500 yen for the first 1.1 km and adds 100 yen per 255 m, so a 3 km hop is about 1,300 yen and Shinjuku to Asakusa about 4,000 yen; Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka are 10 to 20 percent cheaper. Between 22:00 and 05:00 fares rise 20 percent, and expressway tolls are added. A red sign in the windscreen means vacant, green means taken. Find them at ranks outside every station or flag one on any street where stopping is legal; on Friday and Saturday nights after the last train the ranks have 30-minute queues.

The GO app has the most cars and an English interface with card payment, and Uber and DiDi work in the big cities as taxi-hailing apps (true ride-share exists only in tightly limited pilot zones since 2024). Most cabs take credit cards and IC cards, but a minority are cash only, so keep 5,000 yen handy; door stickers list accepted payments. Fixed-fare airport runs (Haneda to central Tokyo roughly 7,000 to 10,000 yen; Narita about 20,000 to 30,000 yen) must be requested when you book. Sightseeing taxis with an English-speaking driver cost around 20,000 yen for three hours and are a good deal for a family in Kyoto or Hakone.

Inside cities you need an IC card and, on heavy days, a day pass: the Tokyo Subway Ticket (24, 48 or 72 hours for 800, 1,200 and 1,500 yen, Tokyo Metro and Toei lines, sold to foreign visitors at airports and major stations), the Osaka 1-day Enjoy Eco Card (820 yen on weekdays, 620 at weekends) and Kyoto’s 1,100 yen subway-and-bus day pass. Detailed guides: getting around Tokyo, getting around Kyoto and getting around Osaka.

Nagoya’s Centrair is 28 minutes from the city by Meitetsu mu-Sky (1,250 yen), Fukuoka’s airport is two subway stops from Hakata (5 minutes, 260 yen), and Sapporo’s New Chitose is 37 minutes from Sapporo Station by JR rapid (1,150 yen). Trains stop around midnight everywhere, so a late arrival means a bus, taxi or airport hotel.

Luggage is the other city problem. Coin lockers at every station take IC cards and cost 400 to 500 yen for a small locker, 600 to 700 medium and 800 to 1,000 yen for a suitcase-sized one, usually for up to three days; the big stations fill up by mid-morning, so look for staffed baggage rooms (600 to 1,000 yen a day) or apps such as ecbo cloak that store bags in shops. Takkyubin luggage forwarding (Yamato’s Kuroneko or Sagawa, at hotel desks, airports and convenience stores) sends a suitcase to your next hotel for 2,000 to 3,000 yen, arriving next day on Honshu and in two days to Hokkaido, Kyushu and Okinawa; same-day services operate between Tokyo or Kyoto hotels and the airports. It is the single best trick for a multi-city trip, and it sidesteps the shinkansen oversized-luggage rule.

Japan is flat where it is populated, drivers are careful, and most cities rent bikes by the day (1,000 to 2,000 yen, or a few hundred yen an hour through the HELLO CYCLING and Docomo bike-share apps with an IC card). Kyoto and Nara are better on two wheels than by bus, and Hokkaido’s Furano and Biei flower country, the Lake Biwa circuit and Okinawa’s smaller islands are classic rides. The showpiece is the Shimanami Kaido, a 70 km dedicated cycleway over seven bridges across the Seto Inland Sea from Onomichi to Imabari, with a blue line painted the whole way. Rental bikes cost about 2,000 to 3,000 yen a day from the terminals at either end and can be dropped at any of the roughly 10 stations along the route for a small fee; e-bikes and road bikes cost more. Most riders take 6 to 10 hours in one day or split it with a night on Omishima or Ikuchijima, and the bridge tolls for bicycles (about 500 yen total) are currently waived. Helmets have been legally recommended for all cyclists since 2023, cycling on pavements is tolerated where signed, and bikes may be taken on trains only when bagged.

Google Maps is accurate for trains, subways and city buses in Japan, including platform numbers, fares and which car to board; its weak spot is rural buses and ferries. Japan Travel by Navitime (English, with offline maps) adds JR Pass-only routing, highway buses and ferries, and Jorudan’s Japan Transit Planner is the clearest for working out shinkansen fares and seat types. Download the Suica or ICOCA card into Apple Wallet before you arrive, the GO app for taxis, and Safety Tips (the government earthquake and typhoon alert app) for the trip. Signage in stations is bilingual and station numbering (for example JY01 for Tokyo on the Yamanote line) means you can navigate without reading a word of Japanese.

Accessibility is good in the cities and improving elsewhere. Almost every station in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto has elevators and tactile paving, shinkansen have wheelchair spaces and accessible toilets (reserve the space by phone or at a counter), station staff will meet a wheelchair user at the gate with a ramp if you ask, and the Toyota JPN Taxi that makes up most big-city fleets takes a wheelchair with a fold-out ramp. Older private-line and rural stations can still be stairs-only, so check the route on the operator’s site or ask the hotel. For everyone: stand on the left of escalators in Tokyo and the right in Osaka, keep phone calls off trains, queue at the floor markings, and let people off before boarding.

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