Today, let’s talk about the Youth 18 Ticket.
This is a seasonal ticket sold by Japan JR during the spring, summer, and winter periods each year.
Yesterday, some of you felt that the youth discount (18-29) at Hoshinoya Resorts was unfair. Just over 900 yen for a one-night stay with two meals at Hoshinoya! Choose from 22 locations.
Therefore, I decided to write an article about a travel discount called the Youth 18 Ticket, which can be used by people of all ages, despite its name. Talk about survival instincts.
Train travel is far from outdated. I’ve always believed that China, Japan, Switzerland, Africa (Pride of Africa), and Alaska in the United States (Aurora Train) are the best destinations for train travel.
If you choose the right route, the scenery along the way can be limitless.
The Youth 18 Ticket is priced at 12,050 yen (about 608 RMB) for a set of 5 tickets. Each ticket allows unlimited rides on JR regular and rapid trains within a single day.
Do the math, and you’ll see that unlimited rides on JR trains for just over 100 RMB a day is no exaggeration. The best cost-performance ticket in Japan is undoubtedly the Youth 18 Ticket.
I first learned about the Youth 18 Ticket because of the annual series of posters. These posters are immensely appealing to a train enthusiast like me.
Traveling is about slowing down the pace of life.
Let me explain how cost-effective the Youth 18 Ticket is.
A set of 5 tickets costs 12,050 yen, which means each ticket is worth 2,410 yen (about 121 RMB). With such a ticket, you can travel from Tokyo to Osaka on JR trains (Tokyo-Atami-Shizuoka-Hamamatsu-Ogaki-Maibara-Osaka).
Just over 100 RMB to travel from Tokyo to Osaka—this cost-effectiveness even shames overnight buses.
You can also journey from Tokyo to Little Kyoto, Hida (Tokyo-Atami-Shizuoka-Hamamatsu-Toyohashi-Gifu-Takayama).
Some people even used a single Youth 18 Ticket to travel from Hokkaido all the way to South Kyushu, stopping at Morioka, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Setouchi, Hiroshima, and more along the way.
Using it well can save a lot of money.
The Youth 18 Ticket for 2023 has already been released.
The Youth 18 Ticket is a limited-time offer that is mainly sold during school vacation periods, available three times a year: spring, summer, and winter.
The specific dates for 2023 are as follows:
With this summer as an example, you can buy the Seishun 18 ticket between July 1 and August 31. The usage period is from July 20 to September 10.
The ticket itself has no age restrictions and can be purchased by people of all ages (there are no child tickets, of course), and there are no restrictions for foreigners either.
Our youth is always with us; even after eighteen, we are still young.
The usage rules for the Seishun 18 ticket are as follows:
The Seishun 18 travel ticket can be used for 5 days. You can choose any 5 days within the usage period.
The 5-day usage can be used by one person, two people, or a group, but if multiple people use it simultaneously, it must be used for the same trip. Each person can use it for one day. Therefore, if 5 people use the Seishun 18 travel ticket on the same day, they can use it until the end of that day.
The validity period on the day of use ends at midnight. If you are on a train at midnight, it is valid until the first station the train stops at after midnight.
How to use the Seishun 18 travel ticket: When you start using it, please present your pass at the station or in the train. The staff will stamp the date on your ticket. This pass cannot be inserted into automatic ticket gates.
Within the free travel area, you can take unlimited free rides on all JR lines’ regular and rapid trains and ferries.
Compared to the JR PASS, the biggest advantage of the Seishun 18 ticket is that it does not require consecutive travel days, and its cost-performance ratio is extraordinarily high.
However, there are downsides. The JR PASS covers almost all types of trains, but the Seishun 18 ticket has limitations on the train types you can use.
Indeed, the Seishun 18 ticket does not allow you to ride all JR lines.
The Seishun 18 ticket can only be used on all JR lines’ regular and rapid trains (including special rapid and new rapid trains with “rapid” in their categories). Express, limited express, and Shinkansen trains cannot be used.
Additionally, the Seishun 18 ticket can only be used on JR lines. Other private railways, subways, and locally operated railways are not included.
In summary, the Seishun 18 is suitable for friends who have time and enjoy leisurely travel.
For those with limited time who only want to use the Seishun 18 ticket as a transportation discount, it might not be very suitable as it can slow down your entire trip.
For example, traveling from Tokyo to Osaka: by plane, it takes 1 hour; by Shinkansen, it takes 3 hours; by Seishun 18, it may take 9 hours with various transfers in between.
The meaning of travel is not in rushing but in the scenery along the way. Like Switzerland, Japan is incredibly beautiful for slow travel by train.
How to buy the Seishun 18 ticket?
You can buy it at JR stations or certain designated ticket vending machines. Buying it at the ticket window is simple: just go to the JR station ticket office and say, “Please give me a Seishun 18 Ticket.”
This ticket requires manual ticket inspection upon entry.
On the first use of a new day, the ticket inspector will stamp your ticket, and it will be valid until 24:00 that day. Similarly, when exiting, you need to present the ticket to the staff at the gate.
The Seishun 18 Ticket can be traded, meaning if you’ve used it for three out of the five days, the remaining two days can be traded to other friends traveling to Japan.
At second-hand ticket shops like Daikokuya, you can buy “used” Seishun 18 tickets with two or three uses left.
I specifically checked in Daikokuya—the advantage of second-hand tickets is that you don’t need to buy a full set of five days at once; you can buy the remaining 1, 2, or 3 days individually, but the price per day is often a bit higher than 2,410 yen.
How to strategize your Seishun 18 journey?
It is recommended to use the app “Norikae Annai” with Seishun 18, as Norikae Annai can exclude Shinkansen in the transport route search and also clearly indicate which trains are limited express or express (which Seishun 18 cannot be used on).
Very convenient.
Here’s another web version for you, which is specifically used for searching train schedules and routes available for Seishun 18.
https://www.jorudan.co.jp/norikae/seishun18.html
Super practical.
There’s also a god-level research website on Seishun 18 called “Seishun 18 Ticket Research Institute,” which has all the tips and tricks on Seishun 18, and also posts many routes for Seishun 18. Incredibly useful.
https://seisyun.tabiris.com/
Also, the official JR Seishun 18 website
https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/pass/seishun18.html
By the way, flight tickets to Japan have currently dropped in price. Flights from Hangzhou to Osaka are as low as 790 yuan including taxes and baggage, a direct flight with Changan Airlines.
Direct flights from Shanghai are slightly more expensive, but 900 yuan including taxes is sufficient.
Currently, traveling to Japan is genuinely a great deal.
May we sail through myriad experiences and still return as young at heart. On the journey, one’s age is eternally 18.
Related Reading:
Understand Japanese Transportation Easily with This Article
