Experience Hakone from Okayama (Jan 2024)

For our trip to Hakone, we stayed at Okayama and bought the Hakone area pass which was valid for 3 days. This gave us unlimited travels within the designated area which helps to save some cost from accommodations in Hakone itself. However, we had to plan ahead and spare more time for our programme and itinerary in Hakone. We also visited Okayama castle just before returning back to Tokyo on our last day in Hakone-Okayama. From Okayama, we travelled to Hakone via bus, train, and tram etc. We also managed to ride the iconic Hakone ship to take the cable car up to a viewpoint of Mt. Fuji. Hakone is also a very popular spot for viewing of Mt. Fuji, apart from Kawaguchiko. We spent a total of about 2 trips over 1.5 days to cover 80% of Hakone. We took the Romancecar from Shinjuku to Okayama and back using the same route. Overall, our experience in Hakone was a memorable one even though we didn’t manage to see the skywalk and bridge as our travel period fell during the closure period of the sky bridge but we did get to go to Gotemba Premium Outlets where we had a close up view of Mt. Fuji (see images). #hakone2024 #japan2024