00:00:06 John Daub: Greetings. Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining me. I thought that this would be the final part of this series on the Japan Rail Pass price hike, which shocked the world, or at least everybody who travels by train here in Japan. The comments have come in pretty hot and heavy. We got hundreds of comments on a video from Monday.

00:00:36 John Daub: Where I was on the platform walking around somewhat in shock about the 68% increase on the ticket prices. If you don't already know the news, the price of the JR Rail Pass has skyrocketed. The seven-day pass went from about 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen. That's a massive increase. We kind of assume, because JR is not forthcoming with information, this price hike is a result of JR Central having a line that's just overrun with tourists. It's not a bad thing. They need to use the Nozomi (super express) trains, and they are much pricier. JR Central wouldn't compromise on that.

00:01:36 John Daub: For those of you that are upset, these comments I'm going to read sort of show that. Just keep in mind there are other passes. This is not the only pass. There are regional passes that work out a lot better. Irvin, who might be watching right now, suggested getting a cheap flight to Fukuoka or Osaka or someplace and then using a regional pass, which makes a lot more sense. But I highly encourage everybody to get off the beaten path. I know maybe you want to see Kyoto. You want to see Osaka. You want to see the big touristy stuff on your first trip here to Japan.

00:02:06 John Daub: But that's sort of the problem. And this is why the prices were hiked, we believe, because there's just too many people riding the Shinkansen all at the same time. Reports are that it's standing room only. Sometimes there's a lot of luggage issues going on, too. So hopefully this price hike resolves a little bit of that. Bottom line, whether you agree with this or not, people are going to be riding the Shinkansen. People are going to be riding the trains in October with the price hike or not.

00:02:38 John Daub: All right, let's go to some of the comments that I saw. I'll start with number one. This one came in just recently from Too Good. It says, if Paolo from Tokyo and Jeff Goldblum had a baby, it would make this man. That's really funny. You didn't even see Karate Kid at all? Okay, it's funny, I guess. Some people say there's some truth in the negative comments. I don't even think that's a negative one. I think it's pretty funny.

00:03:42 John Daub: If you're only planning to go to a few places like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, or Tokyo, Hokkaido, what I would always do to save time and money is fly into one of the locations and fly out of another. For example, flying in, fly out of Kansai. This is great advice, Jun. A lot of people don't realize how long Japan is. It's not like European countries where each country has its own pass. Japan is way longer than people realize. To get from the very top of Hokkaido to drive from one side to the other takes a full day. That's a lot bigger than some countries besides Russia, America, Canada, Mexico maybe.

00:04:35 John Daub: That's why these regional passes are such a great deal. Thanks for the comment, Jun. That was really good advice. We bought the 21-day green car pass. It's a bargain if you truly use and abuse it. We used it for Narita Express, junkets from Tokyo to Osaka to Hiroshima and back, side trips to multiple tourist sites, local trains, subways, etc. We hardly spent any money except the occasional subway ride, usually 300 yen, or a local bus to get from a local station to a particular castle or site, another 300 yen. Keep track of what separate trips you have. Cost us, we got more value than we paid for. Yes, Linda. I think in the end, you get more value than you paid for out of the JR Rail Pass, even with the price hike.

00:05:30 John Daub: That ticket was never meant for everybody who just wants to go down to Kansai from Tokyo and back and forth. If you want to get a hotel, I would recommend getting a hotel and not basing out of Tokyo to do really long day trips. It sort of also helps the local economy. One of the things that me and a lot of other YouTube creators that live here in Japan, residents, we want you to see the countryside. We want you to help support the local economy. We want you to make an impact because a lot of these towns are dying, not just in Japan, it's all over the world, including the US. A lot of old towns aren't seeing population increases and they need you. They have a lot of history. Every town has an attraction, believe it or not. They just really stink at promoting it. Every town has a crazy chef that's genius and has amazing food. You just have to find it.

00:06:28 John Daub: The green pass was a maybe at the current price. With the new price, it's an absolute no, unless they allow Nozomi and Mizuho, and even then, not so much. You know, the green car price, you can really see how hurtful it is when you look at it. Check it out. Look at the 21-day pass. That's 140,000 yen. It will probably equal maybe some of the price of the plane tickets that even come here. I completely disagree. I see these passes in a completely different light. I have to pay full price and the tickets are really expensive. To get a JR Rail Pass, it pays for itself in like one trip. Anyone who thought that the JR Rail Pass was overpriced before the price hike, you're crazy.

00:07:24 John Daub: Comparably, Japan is not like Thailand. Japan is not like India. The cost of living and the wages here are pretty comparable to the United States and Europe and other places that are very well developed. This is a big economy. It's one of the G7. So you cannot expect to be paying the same price as a country that is not in the G7. It's just a very expensive place in that sense. You're getting a ridiculous discount and why should they give tourists that aren't even going to those countryside locations a discount? The regional passes are what those are for. I kind of, in a way, don't defend JR. I think the price hike is ridiculous. It's too high and too sudden. They should have been raising the prices incrementally like 5% every year or something. Inflation is happening around the world. It doesn't happen in Japan, which is why even the Japanese are like, whoa, that's a big price increase.

00:08:41 John Daub: They raised the price of beer last October and every man was hoarding cases of beer. There were a lot more beer off the shelves as a result of it. A lot of people are going to be buying them September 30th, I have a feeling. Glenn writes in, I used the Japan Rail Pass for the past 16 years. The price until now has been a premium product that is worth paying for. Furthermore, at that premium, much higher than comparable countries. What is a comparable country? It makes Japan a must-see destination. But sadly, this price rise is unjustified. It takes it from a premium product among train systems worldwide to prices like caviar champagne. I can't disagree more. What are the countries you're comparing it to? Have you ever seen their rail systems? Have you ever seen Japan's rail system? I think Japan's rail system is heads and tails above any other country in the world. Maybe China has some pretty good trains, but they're also quite packed because of the population.

00:10:17 John Daub: I can't even believe you're comparing it to other countries and saying that it's too much. In terms of services to tourists in English now, it's a totally different situation than even five years ago. They've added so much more value to that pass. I can't believe that you considered a JR Rail Pass a premium product after you paid three times a ridiculous price to fly here. Traveling to Japan is a premium. Is it unjustified? I don't think so. It's uncomfortable now on the Shinkansen because there's just too many people and you can't even get reserved seats on the Hikari because of all the tourists packed into these two trains per hour. It's not enough. They need to move it onto the Nozomi or restructure this. JR Central controls the pass. We've learned more details over the last week. They're the ones who raised the price.

00:11:43 John Daub: Kanai and I did a JR Rail Pass about six years ago. Some countries were really great, like Germany. Then there were a lot of countries that were not. A lot of Europe, I was just shocked. Plus you're paying for reservations. You don't have to pay for reservations in Japan. It's free and I think that the price was well below what you were getting if you compared it to other countries. I'll just put that out there. I have to be a little bit combative because that was pretty harsh on JR. What country are you comparing it to? It's going to be really hard to make the JR Pass make sense at these rates. The old rates ended up only bringing a 20% savings over buying tickets. Where were you traveling for this? How would you only get a 20% savings if you went back and forth to Kyoto once? You paid for it and then you have six days.

00:13:41 John Daub: I can't understand where did you travel. If you leave a comment like that, give me some specifics. Where did you actually go to get only a 20% savings? If I bought that pass and I used it for my work, I would be taking the train down to Fukuoka just because I could because I like to eat ekiben (station bento) and enjoy the ride. That pays for itself on that one trip. There's people get like 300% savings, which is why the price increase to those people won't be so hurtful. And you have other passes that aren't raised. Danny boy, the price jump is insane. Kind of a bummer especially since previously Tokyo to Kyoto Osaka and back was almost the price of a seven-day one and with some local transport you could make it worth it without having to city hop all the time. With the new price a lot more travel, a lot less stay is required.

00:14:23 John Daub: I think people were doing it wrong. I think people were using the pass wrong. The pass I don't think was actually meant just to get like a 5% discount or 10% discount on buying a regular ticket down to Kyoto and back. If that's what people were doing then they should have raised the price. Why do you need the pass? Why aren't you going out to the countryside? Why aren't you taking these other scenic trains, riding the rails? I think a train pass is for using the train, using it. I wish that you know what the answer is. It's not so much they have to raise the price. It's just I don't think they're going to lower the price. There's no question about that unless the government steps in and forces JR. But I think that Japan Rail should have maybe what Europe does like a 15 days in two months type of pass. That's the one I typically bought in Europe. It allowed us to stay in places longer so we didn't feel like we had to jump onto the train right away.

00:15:57 John Daub: The way Japan does it is all-you-can-ride within that time period so you're kind of forced in that one week to travel as much as you possibly can, which is why they upsell the two- and three-week passes. If you're traveling around Japan a three-week pass almost pays for itself in the lack of stress and not having to ride the train every single day, but you still make up the price pretty good. Tokyo Cheapo, right Toby writes in, I don't understand travel anymore. This is why I haven't left the country in the last three years besides the situation that was going on. Hotels are at least double the price. Even APA is way overpriced. I've seen what used to be a 5,500 yen standard room for APA is now like 12,000 yen. A lot of people had locked in their prices before they'd opened up, which meant they got a pretty good deal.

00:16:46 John Daub: Too bad the price hike is so steep. This is going to discourage a lot of people from ever traveling to Japan in winter to take some advantage of the cheaper hotels. I think it'll discourage like five percent of people. But they probably weren't going to spend that much money in Japan anyways. From a tourism point of view it probably is not going to have any kind of an impact at all. Would you not come to Japan because they raised the travel ticket and go somewhere else? I think you're coming here more for the culture, the food, the attractions than the price of the ticket. If you can afford a three-thousand-dollar flight to Japan or even a one-thousand-dollar one, I don't know, a hundred bucks more on a train ticket where you can ride the Nozomi and not waste 30 minutes on a crowded wait for a train or on a less crowded train, I think that might even be worth it.

00:17:48 John Daub: They're going to be adding in more benefits to this apparently. So we're awaiting some more value that they'll put into this ticket. I was there in early 2018 for the JR Hokkaido Rail Pass. I don't think that JR Hokkaido Rail Pass is so great. But it's a lot cheaper now than the other one. Seven-day plan and it was like 20,000 yen. JR Hokkaido's issue is that the train times out in the countryside are so limited. There's only one an hour or even worse, one every two or three hours sometimes. Some of the lines are closing down as a result of lack of riders. They just can't keep operating. The populations are declining in a lot of areas. So the pass in Hokkaido is kind of weird. I think it was just better to rent a car. For 20,000 yen with a really budget subcompact if you're really worried about money. You can find a subcompact car for as low as maybe 4,000 yen with insurance. Let's say 5,500 yen. That's four days of travel with the car. But you have tolls and gas so maybe two and a half days of travel for that pass.

00:19:22 John Daub: For me the rail is fun. But you need to have time and patience in the countryside in Japan to make it an adventure. Adventure includes bad stuff happening, including waiting two hours for the next train. Won't be back anytime soon at this rate and prices, and I have planned for a trip at least for a year now. I'm really sorry to hear that this pass increase was so bad, so high, and so shocking to you that you decided not to come to Japan at all. In the comments, let me know if this is actually something that impacts you wanting to come to Japan or not. I'm going to pause here for a second. I'm looking at the live chat now. Let me know right now.

00:20:22 John Daub: Does the price hike stop you from coming to Japan? Here's the poll. Let me know what you think, and I'll read out the results in a couple of minutes. Even Ramsey said the passes are a super deal at two times the price, so why complain? Paul J. writes, John, I agree with you and thank you for all the info. We are in Tokyo for the first time right now. All the information and you showing Japan in your live streams made it feel like I was going somewhere familiar and enhanced our experience. I'm so happy to hear that. In 2020, we were indoor camping and trapped inside. Now it's great to be back outside and making episodes again that show you the beauty of this place. I'll be streaming outside. I hope a lot of people can come out and find me too, because I do have so many of these You Found Me cards.

00:21:52 John Daub: Vic, thank you. And Kay, can't wait to be back in Tokyo from this Saturday. It seems like a lot of the world is descending onto Tokyo. You can feel it. When I was in Tokyo Station a few days ago it was really incredible to see more people with roller suitcases. I hadn't seen that in ages. As a response to this comment, we have 175 votes now. It's 90% no, and 10% yes. So it looks like most people are not going to be impacted by this.

00:22:41 John Daub: Wow, I thought rail passes were expensive at the old price rates in double net. Compared to what? What country that's so cheap are people comparing it to? Thailand? Thailand doesn't have a really extensive rail network. United States? Amtrak? Really? For countries that don't have a train culture like the United States, I'm not sure what you're comparing it to. Europe? Are you kidding me? The Eurail Pass is really expensive when you add in all the extra costs and the reservation fees and waiting at windows. Japan, the Japan Rail Pass is so simple.

00:23:44 John Daub: Shane writes, Japan opens up in slow stages and yet the JR Pass increases in one hit. No, John, the Japanese don't do band-aids. JR is price gouging, making up for poor mismanagement in the pass. Mismanagement of what? The mismanagement was that they didn't raise the price in three percent increments every year. I think they should have done that to save everybody the hassle. They did an awful job of releasing this on a Friday. Greg Lane from Tokyo Cheapo commented that they released the press and the information on a Friday so it would get lost. It had the opposite effect. People are debating it the entire week now.

00:24:48 John Daub: Eichen writes, you seem to be missing the definition of value, John. It's up to the individual to determine value for themselves. You're absolutely right. But I'm shocked. It's like saying McDonald's burgers are expensive. I have to put it in perspective from the way I see the ticket and the value that as a resident here, just the tourists are getting really amazing value. So maybe it is JR's fault for pricing it so cheap for so long. If you do a one trip from Osaka and back to Tokyo, which is about a five-hour round trip, that pays for your pass for seven full days. I can't understand how that's too expensive.

00:26:06 John Daub: The Shinkansen in itself is expensive. But there's local trains that are an alternative for anybody who doesn't have the money for that. Is it good value for me to ride the Shinkansen to Nagoya for 10,000 yen? As a resident here that's the price and it seems to be fair. If you were to drive around the same locations it would be more expensive than the pass like times 10. Japanese citizens here would be shocked at the comments saying that it's too expensive. Value is what you perceive to be a good value. So perhaps people who couldn't afford to come to Japan at all are coming. My family just moved to Yokohama. Will follow behind in August. I'm stuck behind typing off, taking care of loose ends. Just happy my mother-in-law and wife and two-year-old are safe in Japan. California is getting too wild.

00:27:43 John Daub: I'm really happy that you're here too. As a parent of a two-year-old I know that it can be hard moving around so I have a lot of respect for you moving to the entire new country. Kanai and I like to go down to Yokohama every now and then. It's a beautiful place. I think Yokohama is maybe more livable than Tokyo, just a lot more relaxed. Hamaneko writes, comparatively to the Eurail Pass probably requires a separate seat reservation fee. We had to go to a window to get that especially for sleeper cars. However the Japan Rail Pass is all-inclusive. Reserve seats can be reserved as many times as you like without additional charges. The difference is big. Moreover it is punctual and more comfortable than European trains. That's probably true. It's still cheap. I'm guessing Hamaneko lives here in Japan because he gave an explanation in Japanese.

00:29:14 John Daub: To me I'd still buy it. I buy the JR East Tohoku Rail Pass every time I go up to Fukushima or Aomori or Iwate. It's a steal. Japanese can't buy that pass but foreign residents can with my passport and I think that's great. Foreign residents are more apt to go out to those places and travel off the beaten path than tourists coming for the first time. We have here an increase on the yeses after 300 votes so it's 11% will stop coming to Japan as a result of the hike. If that's true that's pretty high. I think half of those people are probably saying that because they know such a shock might impact lowering the price. But this is not a Japan decision, this is a JR Central decision. They have to make a business decision and they lost a lot of money over the pandemic. They laid off workers which is very rare in Japan at a big scale.

00:30:42 John Daub: They're trying to find creative ways to generate revenue which I think is great. Even the post office in Japan sells products. All these older types of companies are finding new ways to make revenue. They were very dependent on just ridership so they had to lay off a lot of workers and they're trying to bring them back as well as building a new Shinkansen line which will be coming in 2030-2035. That'll be twice the speed. Silent Wraith writes, the answer is it is not worth it anymore. Just like the channel eight-ten years ago it was phenomenal but the value is no longer here. This channel is only six years old. Flights are now faster and cheaper. The last three years we were trapped inside. Now we have better audio, 1080p. I think the channel is doing just fine.

00:32:54 John Daub: Vitalik, maybe problem is trains in Japan are totally overpriced for no reason comparing to the US or EU. Why would you do that? Regular one-time ticket still comparison you made not really relevant. In EU you don't need a whole EU ticket but have each country. We have regional passes of Italy. What's the difference between a regional pass for Hokkaido and say Spain? It's the same and it's cheaper. Have you ridden the trains in Europe? They're not as great as Japan trains. They're on time here and the stations are pretty orderly. I don't get pickpocketed. I love Rome, I've been there maybe 10 times, and every time I arrive at Termini station I spend the first 15 minutes just standing there watching pickpockets in plain sight. Nothing violent.

00:35:03 John Daub: Prices for stuff in Japan haven't gone up really in like 20 years. The price of a Shinkansen ticket from Tokyo to Nagoya is pretty much the same as 25 years ago when I got here in Japan. Prices just didn't go up so can you imagine how expensive it was 25 years ago before tourists came here at all? Inflation in other countries has been well higher so your money goes a lot further and this even includes Europe. Wages in Europe have gone up much higher than in Japan over the last 10 years. So you have way more money than the Japanese do in that sense to pay for this stuff. You're visiting a country that's clean and safe, got deep culture, delicious foods. You know that the prices are quite high, so I'm not sure what people are complaining about.

00:36:38 John Daub: Price increases for rail passes, hotels works against making Japan attractive for tourists to come and visit especially when Japan is newly opened and wants tourists because tourism is a huge boost to Japan's economy. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. But it's rail pass not rail passes. There are regional passes just like in Europe. You have a Spain pass and a UK pass. We've got regional passes in Japan too. You just don't know about it. Most people are saying they were only saving like 20% on a ticket. They weren't getting that much value out of the rail pass to begin with because they were just traveling the golden route between Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji Castle, maybe Hiroshima. If you know about the regional passes and you do your homework I think comes down to doing your homework before you travel.

00:38:09 John Daub: The rail pass was so cheap you didn't have to do it. Maybe you could just travel and not worry about it. And now you have to think about it a little bit more. If you were to travel to Europe you would think more about it and plan it better than coming to Japan because the train ticket was that simple. US and EU trains are not even the same league as a Japanese train system. I will be happy to pay more for high quality awesome trains. You will have higher quality trains in the coming future and we all will probably pay more for that privilege. Everybody has a different perspective and what is really great about reading the comments is that I as a creator even learn about myself, the way I react to it and seeing your reaction to that really informs me. I'm not always right. I make a lot of mistakes too.

00:39:23 John Daub: Ikin writes that the travel money goes to JR now not spread over producers businesses. It takes from people tourists want to spend their money in. This goes to the root of the issue. There's three things in play why this price increase happened and probably necessary. One, they needed to have a price increase. They just hadn't raised the price in ages. Look, the airlines raised the prices and plane tickets. People are not stopping to get on those planes to come to Japan. It's more and more. Anyone walks around Japan right now, particularly Tokyo and Kyoto, you're gonna see all these people. My ticket to go back to the US would be three times more than I paid two years ago, but those flights are full.

00:40:31 John Daub: Everything is going up. The prices are going up. The yen is much weaker, but it might not be weaker for good. The other thing at play is that because tourists, it's your fault, visitors coming to Japan, you don't go anywhere else. You're only taking the Tokaido Shinkansen. You're not taking the other Shinkansen lines. You're not taking JR Kyushu enough, JR Hokkaido enough, JR Shikoku enough. You're riding the same lines everybody back and forth. You're getting a hotel in Tokyo and riding to Kyoto for day trips. You can still do it, it's just going to cost you more because you choose that train line. JR Central is compensating for its popularity. They have to open up other train lines that they don't want to. They're not wanting to open up the Nozomi but they're compromising.

00:41:55 John Daub: Greg introduced a pass where you could ride the Kodama for a massive discounted price. It'll take you like 30 minutes longer but it's kind of a cool experience. You get to ride the Shinkansen and it takes a lot longer for those that like to ride the train but you save like 20% off the ticketed price. The price hike is not gonna happen for the other passes. I talked with Greg in length and we believe the regional passes are not gonna raise the price. This price increase is a direct result of the Tokaido Shinkansen having too many people riding just that. A lot of people don't even get rail passes when they come here. They just stay in Tokyo. My friend Dean Newcomb just stayed in Tokyo and he had a great time.

00:43:14 John Daub: If you're just going to Tokyo and then you buy one Shinkansen ticket to Kyoto you can take the local train, the Shinkaisoku (new rapid express). Write this down: shin-kai-so-ku. This is a limited express train that is pretty darn fast. It's half the speed of the Shinkansen but you're not going massive distances. That gets you to Kyoto from Osaka and 30 minutes away from Tokyo. And it's priced like 540 yen. You could take the Shinkansen that's priced like 3,000 yen. You can see where the value is in learning about the other trains. To use an IC card and get around on the Shinkaisoku is so much cheaper than riding around on a Shinkansen. Everybody had this luxury and was taking advantage of it and traveling probably the wrong way. It created a lot of packed Shinkansen trains where people in Japan probably needed that for business as well.

00:44:40 John Daub: Kreho writes, glad I visited pre-pandemic. Yeah, plus it's going to be growing pains. It's not just Japan. A lot of people aren't picking France because they have protests and it's really tough to go to France right now as a tourist. Japan is a really great place right now to be. There's a pretty safe haven if you discount the earthquakes and missiles coming over every now and then. Jun writes another alternative between Tokyo and Osaka, Kyoto is the sleeper bus. Save yourself some money from a hotel night stay too. If you're coming here as a budget traveler, the Shinkansen probably is not one of the things you consider as a budget thing. Backpackers have a lot more free time. Everybody wants to ride the Shinkansen, but if I was backpacking I did have a Eurail Pass but I got the cheapest one. Time is not an issue.

00:45:58 John Daub: There's a Seishun 18 Kippu (Youth 18 Ticket), which is the local train pass. That's only four times a year, winter, spring, summer, fall. You can travel unlimited local train, and it's so cheap. It's like 2,500 yen a day as far as you can go, but you're on the train a lot. No matter how you cut it, in order to make it work you were traveling on train a lot. That's not what a lot of people wanted to do. So that's why you didn't get a lot of value out of it. The pass was popular because it's a Shinkansen. Every single citizen here who realizes how much you were paying is in shock that it was this cheap.

00:47:00 John Daub: Here's the price increases one more time. Does anybody really think that a seven-day Shinkansen all-access pass for 29,650 yen is expensive? Really? The final response is 15% yes on the poll. The majority of people are not going to be buying it. I think of that 15% some people are still going to come. Despite the fact that you voted yes, are you still coming to Japan? I bet you that's split. I don't think it's making that much of an impact. If you are that upset about the Japan Rail Pass price increase 68% or so, do you know about the other regional passes? Like here's from JR, if you want to just take the Shinkansen around the Tokyo area, there's a Tokyo Wide Pass. You're only going to be traveling for a short amount of time. You can go to Karuizawa, Echigo-Yuzawa, Utsunomiya on this pass. It's like 10,000 or 12,000 yen for three days of unlimited train travel including the Shinkansen.

00:48:49 John Daub: There's the JR East Pass which takes you up north, which I encourage. That's the one impacted by the tsunami and earthquake of 2011, and they need a lot of people going to visit there. That's a great value. It's 20,000 yen for five days of unlimited travel. So you have 50,000 yen for seven days and 20,000 yen for five days in this particular region. The Shinkansen up in the north goes faster. The fastest Shinkansen in Japan is up there, 320 or 350 kilometers per hour. The people who are upset, I want you to explore the JR East and the regional passes. Then tell me if you're still not going to come to Japan. I feel bad about that.

00:50:00 John Daub: Before I end this live stream, thanks for the comments. It was interesting, including the one that compared me to the son of Paolo and Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum is a very handsome man. And so is Paolo. When you buy it you have to nominate when it will be valid. So you cannot buy it cheap before October and use it after. I'm not sure. What Greg and I decided after reading the news, if you buy it before the price hike typically they will honor that. Sam Hunt writes, I think JR should simulate a trip to show its value to people on their site, demo it out. That's a great idea. Tokyo Cheapo has a rail pass calculator. I'll put a link in the description.

00:52:12 John Daub: Here it is. They have this Shinkansen fare calculator and you can pick all fares originated from Tokyo. One way trip to Shin-Aomori, you can see the prices here and the time as well. A one way ticket from Tokyo to Kagoshima is less than the price of the ticket right now. One day on the JR Rail Pass, a one way ticket to Kagoshima which is six and a half hours on the Shinkansen pays for the whole seven days. If you do the round trip it paid for your entire ticket. Sendai round trip is 10,000 yen. So if you go there and back you paid about 78% of your ticket. You'd have to go back and forth to Sendai five times. Or you could get the JR East Rail Pass for that.

00:54:09 John Daub: Shinosaka here is 13,870 yen. Round trip ticket one time from Tokyo to Osaka basically pays for the seven day pass. One round trip ticket to Osaka paid for seven days of unlimited Shinkansen travel. I don't understand how people could say the JR Rail Pass is so cheap. Japan should take a loss to encourage people to come here? The price is the price. Do you see how the prices before October 2023 are undervalued in terms of Japan? Hiroshima was 18,380 yen. A round trip ticket to Hiroshima more than pays for seven day pass. A round trip ticket comes almost 10,000 yen less than a 14 day pass. One round trip ticket to Hiroshima is more than half of the total of a 21 day pass. Just go there and back. I've done day trips to Hiroshima before. It's a really long day, but that's half of the 21 day pass.

00:56:33 John Daub: That price comparison you're doing doesn't include the local travel. You can get around Tokyo to get to the station. You can get around Hiroshima. If you're going to Miyajima that includes the ferry. So you're getting a lot of other stuff. I hope that this stream was sort of useful and maybe a little bit humorous. I'm somebody who's very hard to be offended. I've been called everything you can imagine. But the comments on the Rail Pass is just curious because everybody comes from different places and different socio-economic backgrounds. Japan is Japan. It doesn't make concessions. No country that I know of will make a concession because you're coming from a different country. Has any country made concessions except for domestic travel? India maybe they had local prices and tourist prices. Tourist prices are always more because people coming as tourists made a lot more income than the locals.

00:58:22 John Daub: People hide behind screens and just spew nonsense. That's part of the world now. Just never take it seriously. This is talking to other YouTubers too, especially new YouTubers. It can be really hard. You're never going to be successful if you don't put yourself out there and you're never going to be successful if you read the comments and take it personally and seriously. But the negative comments sometimes there's a grain of truth and you can learn a lot about yourself from feedback. People don't hold back because they're anonymous. That's part of the beauty of the internet. If you were in church or a group of people you don't stand up and shout whatever's on your mind. But on the internet people do that.

00:59:48 John Daub: We have our Discord server going. If you have any questions, follow-up, concerns about the prices, you want to yell at me for dumb comments, whatever, it's okay. You can go over to the comments and then you'll have to deal with our moderators, who I love very much. I just got back from Japan last week, writes Justina. I found the JR Pass very convenient. I would pay for one again after the price increase. Just everybody, before you get upset, go take a look at these regional passes from JR. There's dozens of them. This is just from JR East. Do your homework. Look at the passes. Consider flying domestic. There's not just JAL and ANA. They have tourist discounts. You have to book in advance. But there's other airlines like Jetstar, Skymark, Solaseed, Peach.

01:01:31 John Daub: Fly to an area which saves you time. You have a limited time as a tourist. You don't want to be spending it going A to B the whole time. Fly down there. Especially like Kochi, which I love. It's so much quicker to fly down there. And then from there you can get a rail pass for Shikoku or rent a car, which gives you a lot of freedom. Time is precious. Time is valuable. If you only have 10 days here, the last thing you want to be doing is spending it on long Shinkansen rides. So in that sense you're doing it wrong. Maybe you shouldn't be using a Shinkansen to travel down to Kyushu. Maybe you should fly or take a night bus, the luxury ones where you could sleep and wake up and save a night on a hotel.

01:02:28 John Daub: Just keep in mind that there are other ways to get around Japan and the most popular one is a train because a lot of YouTube creators promote that. A lot of other tourists on social media promote the trains because it's cool. But there's other ways. The ferries are great too. You can get a ferry from Odaiba to Tokushima and Kyushu. They arrive quite early. It's a great way to get around. You can eat and sleep. You can ride a bicycle across Japan. I've done it. In 2005 I rode from Tokyo to Kyoto in five days. I had a tent, camped along the way. A little bit dangerous. Wear a helmet. Know the roads. Try to stay off high-traffic roads. But it's an amazing adventure.

01:03:47 John Daub: If you're on a family trip you might just have to bite the bullet or rent a car, which is so convenient. You put your luggage in the trunk and you drive around. More and more people are renting cars. So much so that I can't even rent a car. I wanted to drive out to a location to shoot. I can't get a rental car from Toyota. I have to go to another company because the rental cars here are quite popular. In my opinion, the rail pass pays for itself if you rode it for like 10 hours in one day, you had seven days of free travel compared to the ticket. Apparently a lot of you weren't getting the same savings out of it, which means that you were doing it wrong.

01:04:34 John Daub: I think if you want to make a comment to JR, do so and ask for different pass types like Europe. The Eurail Pass is that 15 days in two months pass. Japan is not as big as Europe in scale but it's quite long. Maybe they should have like a five days in one month pass. That would make a lot of sense where you could travel on the Shinkansen a long way in those five days. That would keep people from feeling like they could commute to a tourist destination beyond like two hours. I'd rather get out of Tokyo. Don't get your hotel in Tokyo and stay in the countryside. That's what I would hope. The pass was so cheap that people were commuting out of Tokyo. I'm glad that you're here, but who are you supporting? Not that that is your job, but that is my hope as a creator to introduce you to new places and make you want to see them and stay there. Tokyo is cool for first time visitors.

01:05:58 John Daub: Alright, thanks everybody for watching. This has been fun. I'll see you in another livestream. Maybe tomorrow. I'll see if I can get Peter von Gomm back on. Because I think Peter has some things that he wants to share about travel opening up again. Have a good day. Have a good night everybody. Sorry if I missed any of the Super Chats. I apologize.