Guide to Seishun 18 Kippu (4/4): Day Trips Travel Guide
This part four of a four part series on the Japanese train pass, Seishun 18 Kippu (青春18きっぷ).
- Part one introduces what the Seishun 18 Kippu is and how to use it.
- Part two features some of my thoughts and musings on why people use it.
- Part three shows you how to travel across Japan with the Seishun 18 Kippu.
- Part four shows you how to use the Seishun 18 Kippu to go on day trips from a base city.
Seishun 18 Kippu Day Trips Travel Guide
Itinerary at a Glance
Planning Resources
Rediscovering the New and Familiar
Sample Itinerary (Kyoto Base)
Final Itinerary Stats
Itinerary at a Glance
For Travelers Interested In: DIY travel planning, off-the-beaten-path adventures, budget travel, curiosity
Travel Pace: you decide – between ultra-leisurely to fast-paced
Recommended Travel Time: two weeks – one month
Recommended Pre-planning: flexible – moderate planning required
The Seishun 18 Kippu offers freedom of movement when it comes to traveling around Japan. It’s perfect for budget travelers to get off the beaten path and soak up the local atmosphere of a city for a few days.
However, when using the Seishun 18 Kippu, the pace can be a bit grueling. You need generally need to take 4+ hour long train rides in order to make it worth your money. If you are a real local train masochist, you might end up taking 10+ hour long rides to really get bang for your buck!
If the thought of shuttling from town to town for hours on a one way trip doesn’t appeal to you, you can also use the Seishun 18 Kippu to go on day trips from a base city.
When taking day trips, you can forget having to pack your luggage every few days and leave everything in your hotel room.
You can have a sense of familiarity in a place far away from home.
You don’t need to take extremely long one-way train rides as shorter round trip distances often make up the price of the ticket.
In this final Seishun 18 Guide, I will show you how to design an itinerary full of day trips from a base city of your choice!
Planning Resources
The planning resources are the same ones from Part 3 of the Seishun 18 Kippu series.
Japan Guide Japan Guide is a comprehensive one-stop resource for all things Japan.
Japan WikiTravel WikiTravel is a good peer aggregated resource that has “street-level” tips, but it isn’t updated frequently so take some of the information with a grain of salt.
Booking There are a tonne of websites that aggregate hotels, and you probably already have one that you like using the best. I like using Booking because they often have penalty-free cancellation policies (read the fine print for each hotel) which is useful for planning in advance and being flexible.
HyperDiaHyperDia is the best resource to use when planning long distance train travel. To plan train travel using Seishun 18 Kippu, make sure to select these specific options from the drop down menu in the “Vehicle Type” section:
Rediscovering the New and Familiar
Last year, I went to Kyoto during spring holidays and used Kyoto as a base city to take day trips from. From Kyoto, I went to Awajishima, a large island in the Seto Inland sea, and Amanohashidate, a naturally-occurring land bridge in the northern part of Kyoto prefecture.
Kyoto is a city that is on the Golden Circle route of Japanese tourism. It’s been near-apothsized as a must-go destination, and I’ll admit, I’ve been to Kyoto quite a few times myself.
However, having been to Kyoto a few times, I feel like I barely know Kyoto at all. I always end up at the same few places. For example, Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion, or I somehow always wind up at the top of Kiyomizu-dera without knowing how I even got there!
So, when I was planning this trip, I decided that I had two places I wanted to definitely go to: Awajishima and Amanohashidate. From there, I decided that Kyoto would be a good base from which to travel to these two places as it was a relatively central location to both places.
Staying in Kyoto for a longer period of time meant that I could also visit and experience other sites other than Kinkakuji and Kiyomizu-dera!
When creating an itinerary where you stay in a base city, I recommend that you do research on the logistics of the day trips you’d like to take.
How far is the place you want to visit for a day trip?
How much will the round-trip train ticket cost?
How many places do you want to go to on a day trip?
Will it justify the cost of using the Seishun 18 Kippu?
Answering those will be instrumental in helping you save money (and time!) for your trip.
Sample Itinerary (Kyoto Base)
Route 1: Tokyo – Kyoto (東京 – 京都)
Duration: 503 minutes (about 8 hours) one way
Cost of Local JR Train Ticket: 8210 yen
Amount Saved Using Seishun 18 Kippu: 5840 yen (8210 – 2370)
Notes:
- We stayed in the Nakagyo Ward at Guesthouse One More Heart Emmachi. The rooms were reasonably priced and the location was good for sightseeing.
Route 2: Kyoto – Awajishima Day Trip (京都 – 淡路島)
Duration (one way): 80 minutes to JR Maiko station
- From JR Maiko station, board a highway express bus to cross the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge to get to Awajishima (about 15 minutes to get to Yume Butai).
- Alternate routes are also availabe from JR Sannomiya station or Osaka. Check the Awaji Kotsu bus site for more information.
Cost of Local JR Train Ticket: 1580 yen one way, 3160 yen round trip
Cost of Bus Ticket: Depends on your stop. From Maiko – Yume Butai, it’s 510 yen one way, 1020 round trip.
Amount Saved on Local JR Train Fare: 790 yen (3160 – 2370)
Recommended Activities:
- visit Tadao Ando’s Honpuku-ji, Water Temple
- explore Yume Butai, a sprawling hotel complex designed by Tadao Ando – perfect for architecture and botanical enthusiasts
Route 3: Kyoto – Amanohashidate Day Trip (京都 – 天橋立)
Duration (one way): 174 minutes to Nishimaizuru (about 3 hours)
- Change trains to the private train line, Local Tango, to Amanohashidate (640 one way)
Cost of Local JR Train Ticket: 1660 yen one way, 3320 yen round trip
Amount Saved on Local JR Train Fare: 950 yen (3320 – 2370)
Recommended Activities:
- visit Chionji temple and get your fortune on a fan
- rent a bicycle and cycle across Amanohashidate
- go up to Amanohashidate View Land and check out the panorama view of Amanohashidate
Route 4: Kyoto – Hamamatsu (京都 – 浜松市)
Duration: 226 minutes (about 4 hours)
Cost of Local JR Train Ticket: 4430 yen
Amount Saved: 2060 yen
Notes:
- I went to Hamamatsu one my way back from Kyoto as I have friends there and went to visit them. It’s a lovely small city, that has a lot of great attractions you can check out at InHamamatsu.
- You could substitute a stop in Hamamatsu with other cities that you’re interested in, but this was the route I took!
Route 5: Hamamatsu – Tokyo (浜松市 – 東京)
Duration: 279 minutes (about 4.5 hours)
Cost of Local JR Train Ticket: 4430 yen
Amount Saved: 2060 yen
Notes
- Hamamatsu is also directly in between Kyoto and Tokyo, so by stopping off there, I was able to break up my super long train rides.
Final Itinerary Stats
Total Time Spent on Trains: 1516 minutes (about 25 hours)
Total Amount of Local JR Train Ticket Fare: 23, 550 yen
Cost of Seishun 18 Kippu: 11, 850 yen
Total Cost of Other Public Transportation (Bus and Private Train Lines): 2300 yen
Total Amount Saved Using Seishun 18 Kippu: 9400 yen (23, 550-2300) – 11, 850
We’ve come to the end of the Seishun 18 Kippu series, so, I’d like to compare the final statistics from Part 3 of the my Seishun 18 Kippu series and Part 4.
In Part 3, I showed you how to utilize the Seishun 18 Kippu to travel across Japan. The time spend on trains traveling from Fukuoka to Hamamatsu totaled 25 hours, which is the same as taking day trips from a base city.
I find this interesting because whether you are traveling across Japan or taking day trips from a base city, when using the Seishun 18 Kippu, it appears that 25 hours is the average amount of time that should be traveled in order to yield some substantial savings.
Of course, “substantial” is an subjective term, but saving around 7500 – 9500 yen is worth it to me. As a local train masochist, it is but a mild inconvenience to take the local train.
Perhaps, 25 hours being the reoccurring number is also indicative of the way I travel as well. It might indicate that I value savings money, but also some form of my personal sanity as I do not usually embark on an 8+ hour train ride more than once when using the 5 days of the Seishun 18 Kippu.
Jump back to Part 1 if you need a refresher on what the Seishun 18 Kippu is, but I hope that this series has been helpful for you. I hope that it can inspire you to take some slow trips around Japan!
As always, drop a comment of send me a message on my Connect page if you have any questions! I’m always happy to chat anything travel!