Tokyo to Hakone
On our way down to Kyoto we made a pit stop at Hakone. It takes about an hour to get to Hakone station from Tokyo and another 30 min car ride up to Hakone Shrine. We suggest you leave as early as possible if you want to try and snap a photo at the infamous Tori gate. We got in too late and the line for photos were probably 1+ hour wait.
This is how you get from Tokyo Station to Hakone Station:
Ride the Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Odawara (4 stops)
If you have luggage, you can drop off your luggage at a coin locker at Odawara.
Transfer to the Hakone Tozan line and get off at Hakone Yumoto Station.
From here you can catch the bus that takes you up to Hakone Shrine. 💡 Tip: If you have 3 or more people, we recommend hailing down a taxi. There were many taxi cabs at the station when we were there and the cost for 4 people was about the same as taking the bus. It got us up to the shrine faster and more comfortable. BUT you’ll most likely need to take the bus down because it’s difficult trying to find a cab going down the mountain.
We only got to explore the shrine and enjoyed some pastries by the lake at Bakery and Table due to limited time constraints. Even though we tried to leave as early as we could, everything that morning was going against us. We would definitely want to come back next time to explore more of the area.
The shrine itself is nestled in the mountains with trees towering all around you, you really feel just how small we are all.
If you’re going to Kyoto after we want to give you a little warning in terms of google routing. Depending on the time that you route, it will tell you that the fastest way to get to Kyoto from Hakone would be to take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo and from Tokyo go back down to Kyoto. It’s weird. It’s confusing. We recommend you checking the Shinkansen times on the JR website and don’t rely on the times given through google maps. If something looks off, theres a high chance that it might. One minute it will give you one routing saying that you can go direct and the next minute it will tell you to do some roundabout route that makes no sense.
We thought the last train from Odawara to Kyoto was 4PM? So we ended up rushing back thinking that we won’t make it just to find out that theres trains running past 7PM. Google maps failed us and showed that the last train out was 4PM or something like that. Just a little warning but we hope you won’t run into the same problem as us.
