Tokyo to Sendai and back, with a Niigata side trip thrown in, costs about ¥33,540 in individual reserved-seat Shinkansen tickets at 2026 fares. The same itinerary on the new unified JR EAST PASS is ¥35,000 for five days, with another four days of free movement around Tokyo, Niigata and the whole Tohoku interior baked in. … Read more
Most travellers planning a Kansai-and-Hiroshima trip click straight to the national Japan Rail Pass. They see "unlimited rides for seven days" on the JR Group homepage and assume that's the answer. Then they pay ¥50,000 a head for a route that a ¥23,000 regional pass would have covered, with the same Shinkansen, the same reserved … Read more
The Japan Rail Pass is no longer a no-brainer. After the October 2023 price hike a seven-day pass costs 50,000 yen. Here is the math, the breakeven for the three trips most people actually plan, what the pass covers, the Nozomi exclusion, ordinary versus Green Car, and when a regional pass beats the national one.
