We will be flying into Nagoya on May 9th and need to get to Hiroshima on May 11th. We plan to purchase a JR pass for either 7 or 14 days. Since we are going to be in Japan for 3 1/2 weeks our first question is...should we purchase a one way train ticket to Hiroshima or look into alternative transportation? We feel we don't want to activate our JR pass at this time since we will not be able to use it later in our trip. Also...how long does it take to get a JR pass? When we went to the JR site, it seemed like we had to use a local entity to procure it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try calling the JTB office nearest you. They can sell you the voucher.

Use www.hyperdia.com to determine the cost of tickets as well as schedule and time. Whether or not you should use your JR Pass for Nagoya to Hiroshima depends on the other travel you plan to do. You'll need to sit down and route out your trips, price them on www.hyperdia.com (using the total price, not only the fare, as the total price is what you need to pay), then do the math to figure out for yourself which JR Pass to buy and when to activate it.

You may want to explore bus between Nagoya and Hiroshima...but I've never seen up to date bus info in English. Bus fare is generally 1/2 the price of train, and takes 2 or 3 times as long. There may also be flights, which usually price about equal to train. ANA and JAL both offer special fares for tourists.

You also don't need to post the same message twice. If you can't find your message, just click on your name and all the posts you have posted to will appear. If you want to bring your post to the top of the list in hopes someone will see it and reply, just reply to your own original message and it will go to the top of the lsit.

ok, I answered on your other post - I go to a local entity to procure the exchange order for the JR Pass.

Can't advise you what pass to order because we don't know what your itinerary is.

If you don't fly to Hiroshima on the same day that you fly into Nagoya then you will want to take the shinkansen from Nagoya to Hiroshima. Whether you use the pass for it or not depends on your entire itinerary.

Dear kimjapan and mr. wunrfl,
Sorry about the double posting. I post, review, and send; then-- poof-- it disappears. This has happened to me a number of times. I still can't find the first posting,

At the top of this webpage you should see, in the orange area where it reads:
Welcome: <u>bobobob</u>

Click on your screen name, it is a link and it will load all of your posts in the left frame, from the most recent down.

Ok, now in that frame on the left see just below the &quot;-- forum change --&quot; option where it has:
User - <u>bobobob</u>

Click on your name there, it will reload the left frame. After you make a new post click on your name there and then you should see the post that you just added to go to the top.

After I logon to fodors, I click on my name in the orange area and then click again on my name on the left. This makes certain that the most recent replied-to of &quot;my&quot; threads is listed.