Japan, by rail

Work out what your Japan trip actually costs.

Most Japan travel writing tells you a place is beautiful. It rarely tells you which ticket to buy, what it costs this month, or when the famous advice is simply wrong. We do the arithmetic instead. Starting with Nara.

Check if a rail pass saves you money

Every fare on this site was checked against the operator on 2026-09-21.

The street entrance to Kintetsu-Nara station, its blue sign reading Nara Station (Nara Park), with steps leading down to the platforms. — The station is underground; this is the entrance on Omiya-dori, signed for Nara Park. Our photograph, taken at Kintetsu-Nara station on 21 September 2026. Reuse it under CC BY 4.0.

Start here

The one most people need

Is a rail pass worth it?

Put in the trains you will really take. We total the ordinary fares, compare every JR and Kintetsu pass, and tell you plainly when the answer is to buy none — which, for most Nara trips, it is.

Check if a rail pass saves you money → Before you book anything

JR or Kintetsu into Nara?

Two companies, two stations twenty minutes apart on foot. From Kyoto the fare gap is ¥40 and the walking gap is fifteen minutes, so the cheap ticket is not the cheap journey.

Once you have the dates

Will the blossom be out?

Sixteen years of recorded bloom dates, matched against your travel window.

Are the deer dangerous?

The injury figures, and what people were doing when it happened.

Why start with Nara?

Nara is one of the most visited places in Japan and one of the least written about in English beyond a single park. Almost everyone arrives on a half-day trip from Kyoto or Osaka, sees the deer and Todaiji, and leaves before finding Yoshino, Asuka, Horyuji or the oldest road in the country.

It is also small enough to cover completely. That matters, because we would rather be the best source on one prefecture than a thin source on all of them.

How we work

Every price on this site carries the date it was last checked against the operator's own website, and the link we checked it against. Where we publish a number, we publish where it came from. Where we have not verified something yet, we say so rather than guessing.

The photographs are not ours yet. They are borrowed under licence and credited beneath each one, and each is on a list to be replaced by a picture we have taken — the credits page says which, and in what order.

Some links to passes and bookings earn a commission. That never changes the recommendation — the calculator on this site regularly tells people not to buy a pass at all, and that is the point of it.