TOUR CLUB KYOTO
 

I am thinking of staying at the Tour Club in Kyoto on my planned trip to Japan. I do not see any references about it. Has anyone stayed there? My thoughts were to stay there the entire 2 weeks and take day trips from there using a 7 DAY JR RAIL pass. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You.

The tour club is more along the lines of a deluxe hostel. I know people who have stayed there and LOVED it. Lots of young people who are happy to share their tips and experiences and very clean.

If you will have a rail pass though, why bother doing day trips? Pack lightly and hit the rails for the 7 days! It is easy in Japan...

Many stations will have some sort of booking desk where they will call and find you a room for the night.

Japan is so safe, and even the worst accomodations will not be horrible. Two great guidebooks are Japan Solo and Gateway to Japan. Both are a few years old, but excellent otherwise.

"...Two great guidebooks are Japan Solo and Gateway to Japan. Both are a few years old, but excellent otherwise..."

I have purchased both of them in the past year - Japan Solo is a 4th ed., 1998 and Gateway..3rd ed., also 1998. Most things probably don't change a whole lot ;)

They are just chockful of information...Since I will be in the Kyoto area this trip I hate to say it but I may very gently tear out the relevant section as the books are too heavy to be carrying around from one sight to another.....

Mara- Aren't they great!I've been using Gateway since 1984, and currently have the 98? one. I actually wrote Kodansh and asked them to hurry up and update it!! E-mail addresses are the main thing they need to add.

I do the same thing of pulling out just relavent chapters....finally bought a pot of padding compound and now I can paste the chapters back inside!

travelingmommy - I recalled a posting on Tour Club, found it (by searchng for "Kyoto Tour Club"), and have sent it to the top of the posts for you. Tour Club is in the title.

Thank you all for your help. These books sound great. I am an experienced European traveler but this is a new venture for me so I need all the tips I can get.I will be posting later when I get an itinerary set to see what all you good people think.

I agree with lucy that there is no reason to be doing day trips for a week from Kyoto.

You could base out of one place and day-trip on a JR Pass but there are better choices than Kyoto for that.

But you would be better off taking lucy's advice to pack light and hit the rails.

Will be interesting to see your itinerary.