When you go around Japan, railway will be the best way. And JR has some useful tickets and passes. One of them is "Seishun 18 kippu." This will be the most reasonable ticket to go far if you have time. Here is the rule of the ticket. Seishun 18 is sold as 5 sheets, its holder is entitled to enjoy one-dayunlimited travel on all JR lines (local and rapid trains only, not express). You can use it for 5 days by yourself, or you can share it with your friends.
Then one guy tried to go as far as possible in one day on Sat March 4th . His rule was simple. Ride on the first train in the morning, Make the fastest connection always, and keep on going until he can't make connections or time runsout.
The South route.
5:20--Tokyo(Tokyo) 321M local to Shizuoka. : Tokyo is the biggest station in Japan.
8:28--Shizuoka(Shizuoka) 736M local to Hamamatsu. :Shizuoka is famous for green tea.
9:51--Hamamatsu(Shizuoka) 5117F rapid to Ogaki :Hamamatsu has special sweet named Unagi pie. Unagi pie means eel pie!
11:44--Ogaki(Gifu) 3215F local to Maibara :This city is called "water city". The special sweet mizumanjyu is yummy.
12:56--Maibara(Shiga) 3253M rapid to Himeji. :This is the famous station, even though Shinkansen stop here, there is nothing.
15:34--Himeji(Hyogo) 967M local to BanshuAkaho :Himeji castle isa world heritage site!
15:54--Aioi (Hyogo) 1325M-463M local to Mihara : The beautiful city Kobe is in Hyogo.
18:28--Mihara(Hiroshima) 377M local to Hiroshima : Mihara city has nice view of Setonaikai (Inland Sea).
19:53--Hiroshima(Hiroshima) 5487M Tukin liner to Tokuyama :I can tell you Hiroshima is abeautiful city now. I hope you have a chance to visit once.
21:50--Tokuyama(Yamaguchi) 5487M local to Shimonoseki :Yamaguchi is the westernmost prefecture in mainland of Japan.
23:49--Shimonoseki(Yamaguzhi) 5273M to Kokura :Don't miss eating blow fish here!
0:03---Kokura(Fukuoka) : There are many many delicious foods in Kyushu.
Total distance : 1107.7km, Time : 18h 43m, he took 11 trains. Usually it costs 12.850yen to take Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kokura, this trip cost 2.300yen. Cheap!
He did the samein theNorth from Ueno Station. He left Ueno at 5:10 and arrived at Aomori at 22:39. What? One hour and half more he had? Yes, but Aomori is the northernmost prefecture in mainland, there is no part you can take Seishun 18 kipputo the north anyfarther. Total distance : 720.km, Time : 17h 29m, he took 11trains too. The distance was shorter in theNorthern route because of bad connections of trains he said.
Okay, we can go to Fukuoka and Aomori for one day by 2300yen only with Seishun 18 kippu. By Shinkansen, you can reach Mishima (Shizuoka) onlyfor 2300yen. Do you want to try? I think I will pass, time is money that is for me. :-)