Every Hakone day trip from Tokyo, compared
The ladder, cheapest first
I have ordered these by price rather than by how good I think they are, because the price is the thing that decides most people’s day. At the bottom of the ladder, ¥2,000 buys one ride on the ropeway. At the top, ¥38,499 buys a guide who does all the thinking for you and meets you at your hotel. Everything in between is a question of how much of the day you want to hand over.
Cheapest way inHakone: Hakone Ropeway One-Way / Round-Trip E-Ticket
Do it yourselfHakone: Train Pass with Unlimited Rides & Activity Discounts
Best ratedRopeway ticket includedMt. Fuji & Hakone Tour: Arakurayama, OshinoHakkai, Owakudani
Most bookedRopeway one-way includedTokyo: Mt. Fuji Tour, Hakone Ropeway, Owakudani, Lake Ashi
Cruise + cable carRopeway + cruise includedTokyo: Mt. Fuji and Hakone Tour with Cable Car and Cruise
Shinkansen homeRopeway, cruise & ShinkansenFrom Tokyo: Mt. Fuji & Hakone Tour w/ Return by Bullet Train
All-inclusiveRopeway, cruise, lunch & ShinkansenTokyo Mt Fuji 5th St & Hakone Cruise Bus Tour w/Bullet Train
Private, from your hotelHakone Private Tour: Bespoke Day from Your Hotel
The two that are not tours at all
The first two rungs are tickets, not tours. The ¥2,000 ropeway e-ticket is exactly the one-way adult fare the ropeway charges at its own counters, valid 90 days, with a round-trip option you can spread across two consecutive days. There is no guide and no coach. You turn up and ride. It has only 13 reviews, which is thin, and I have written up what those reviews say on the ropeway page.
The ¥7,100 Hakone Freepass is Odakyu’s own pass at Odakyu’s own price. It covers the round trip from Shinjuku to Odawara plus unlimited rides on eight transport systems inside Hakone, and it gets you discounts at more than 70 facilities. Two things about it catch people out. The minimum validity is two days, so there is no one-day version to buy. And the Romancecar limited-express surcharge is not in the price: that is ¥1,200 extra each way. I have done the sums on whether it pays back in a single day on the Freepass page, and the answer is closer than most sites will tell you.
The six coach tours, and what they leave out
Every coach tour on this list departs Tokyo between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning and runs 8 to 11 hours. That early start is not the operator being difficult. Hakone’s transport winds down between about 16:30 and 17:00, so a coach that leaves late simply cannot fit the ropeway in.
What separates them is the small print. The ¥7,800 tour is the best rated of the eight at 4.9 from 336 reviews, includes a ropeway ticket, and treats the Lake Ashi cruise admission as an optional extra fee. The ¥8,640 tour is by far the most booked, at 7,661 reviews, and its ropeway fare covers one way only, with the pirate-ship cruise sold separately at about ¥1,700 on the day. The ¥14,400 tour includes both the ropeway and the cruise and adds hotel pickup, but it is the weakest rated here at 4.0 from 65 reviews, and I would not hide that from you. The ¥18,160 and ¥24,000 tours both send you home from Odawara on the Shinkansen, which is the one thing a coach cannot do at the end of a long day.
The ¥38,499 private day is the odd one out and the easiest to misread. It is priced per person, not per group, and it starts in Hakone. Travel from Tokyo is explicitly not included. Your guide meets you at your hotel and moves with you on public transport.
Three of them side by side
These are the three coach tours people usually end up choosing between: the best rated, the most booked, and the one that includes everything. The rows that matter are the cruise and the ride home.
| Mt. Fuji & Hakone Tour: Arakurayama, OshinoHakkai, Owakudani | Most bookedTokyo: Mt. Fuji Tour, Hakone Ropeway, Owakudani, Lake Ashi | Tokyo Mt Fuji 5th St & Hakone Cruise Bus Tour w/Bullet Train | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | ¥7,800 | ¥8,640 | ¥24,000 |
| Rating | 4.9 from 336 | 4.7 from 7,661 | 4.4 from 5,303 |
| Length | 10 hours | 10 hours | 10 hours |
| Ropeway | Ticket included | One way only | Ticket included |
| Lake Ashi cruise | Optional extra fee | Optional, about ¥1,700 | Included |
| Lunch | Not included | Not included | Buffet if selected |
| Home from Odawara | By coach | By coach | Bullet train |
| View → | Book this → | View → |
Carry cash. Two of these tours sell the Lake Ashi cruise as an on-the-day extra, and one reviewer, LeVan, wrote: "The tour was great, little annoyed cash was needed. Had to spend time and money getting cash from an ATM." An ATM hunt in Owakudani is a poor use of your 30 minutes there.
Live availability
Dates below are for the most-booked coach tour, the ¥8,640 one. If the day you want is gone, the ladder above is deep enough that something else will fit.
Which one I would actually book
If you can navigate a train platform, buy the pass and do it yourself. You will see the same places, you will not spend four hours of your day sitting in a coach on the Tomei Expressway, and you can stop when you want to. Traffic is the recurring complaint in these reviews: Delfin, who still gave five stars, wrote that "Tokyo traffic pushed back the schedule and made it a long day." Kristina, on the best-rated tour, was fogged out of Fuji entirely and called the day "a fantastic and memorable experience" anyway, which tells you something about what you are really buying.
Book a coach tour if you want Mt. Fuji itself in the day as well as Hakone, if you are short on time in Japan, or if the thought of changing trains twice with luggage is what would stop you going at all. I have written each one up properly in the tour reviews, and if you are working to a budget, start with what a day really costs before you pick.
Can’t make these dates?
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Frequently asked questions
How many Hakone day tours from Tokyo are worth booking?
Eight, and I list all of them above. Six are Mt. Fuji coach tours that stop in Hakone; the other two are a Hakone Freepass and a Hakone Ropeway ticket, both sold at the transport operator’s own fare. Prices run from ¥2,000 to ¥38,499 per person.
Which Hakone tour is the most booked?
The ¥8,640 Mt. Fuji and Hakone coach tour, with 7,661 reviews at 4.7. Read the small print before you book it: the ropeway fare it includes covers one direction only, and the Lake Ashi cruise is an on-the-day extra of about ¥1,700 that you pay in cash.
Do any of these tours include the bullet train?
Two do, both for the return leg only from Odawara: the ¥18,160 tour and the ¥24,000 tour. Neither runs a bullet train to Hakone, because no Shinkansen station exists there. Every route from Tokyo is set out here.
Is a guided tour better than doing Hakone yourself?
It depends on how much of your day you want back. A coach spends around four hours on the road and the schedule slips in Tokyo traffic. Doing it yourself costs less and you set the pace, but you have to start early — see whether one day is enough.
Can I book a Hakone tour for tomorrow?
Sometimes, and the availability widget above will tell you honestly rather than guessing. Most of these have free cancellation up to 24 hours before departure, so holding a seat while you watch what the wind is doing costs you nothing.