Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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well with beer. Pizza, pasta, rotisserie roast chicken, and seared tuna with garlic oil and
soy sauce are just some of the dishes offered; prices range from ¥1,470 to ¥2,310.
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HAKONE
97km (60 miles) SW of Tokyo
Part of
Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park,
Hakone is one of the closest and most popular
weekend destinations for residents of Tokyo. Beautiful Hakone has about everything a
vacationer could wish for—hot-spring resorts, mountains, lakes, breathtaking views of
Mount Fuji, and interesting historical sites. You can tour Hakone as a day trip if you
leave early in the morning and limit your sightseeing to a few key attractions, but adding
an overnight stay—complete with a soak in a hot-spring tub—is much more rewarding.
If you can, travel on a weekday, when modes of transportation are less crowded and some
hotels offer cheaper weekday rates.
ESSENTIALS
GETTING THERE & GETTING AROUND
Getting to and around Hakone is half the
fun! An easy loop tour you can follow through Hakone includes various forms of unique
transportation: Starting out by train from Tokyo, you switch to a small three-car tram
that zigzags up the mountain, then change to a cable car, and then to a smaller ropeway,
and end your trip with a boat ride across Lake Ashi, stopping to see major attractions
along the way. From Lake Ashi (that is, from the villages of Togendai, Hakone-machi, or
Moto-Hakone), you can then board a bus bound for Odawara Station (a 1-hr. ride),
where you board the train back to Tokyo. These same buses also pass by all the recom-
mendations listed below, which is useful if you wish to complete most of your sightseeing
the first day before going to your hotel for the evening. A bus runs directly between
Togendai and Shinjuku in about 2 hours (fare: ¥1,960).
Odakyu
operates the most convenient network of trains, buses, trams, cable cars, and
boats to and around Hakone. The most economical and by far easiest way to see Hakone
is with Odakyu's
Hakone Free Pass
which, despite its name, isn't free but does give you
a round-trip ticket on the express train from Shinjuku Station to Odawara or Hakone
Yumoto and includes all modes of transportation in Hakone listed above and described
below. The pass lets you avoid the hassle of buying individual tickets and gives nominal
discounts on most Hakone attractions. A 2-day pass costs ¥5,000 and a 3-day pass is
¥5,500. Children pay ¥1,500 and ¥1,750, respectively.
The trip from Shinjuku to Odawara via Odakyu Express takes 90 minutes, with
departures two to four times an hour. In Odawara, you then transfer to another train for
a 15-minute trip to Hakone Yumoto; trains depart four times an hour. If time is of the
essence or if you want to ensure a seat during peak season, reserve a seat on the faster and
more luxurious
Odakyu Romance Car,
which travels from Shinjuku all the way to
Hakone Yumoto in 1
1
⁄
2
hours and costs an extra ¥870 one-way with a Hakone Pass (you
can still make a stopover in Odawara to see the castle, if you wish).
All these passes can be purchased at any station of the Odakyu Railway. In Tokyo, the
best place to purchase Hakone Free Pass tickets is Shinjuku Station, at the
Odakyu Sight-
seeing Service Center,
located on the ground floor near the west exit of Odakyu Shinjuku
Station (
&
03/5321-7887;
www.odakyu.jp/english; daily 8am-6pm), where you can
obtain English-language sightseeing information in addition to purchasing tickets. If you
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