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There are no reservation systems for buses that run up to Mt Fuji stations, you just need to go early as it's first come first serve. They really pretty frequently during the hiking season so you shouldn't be waiting too long. You can reserve bus tickets in advance form Shinjuku down to Kawaguchiko though- you can use the following website to do so: highway-buses.jp/course/kawaguchiko.php

You don't have to travel for your pass to be valid, but it would be a wasted day of your pass if you don't use it. With this in mind you probably want to work out how many days of travel (days you will use trains) and work out whether it's worth saving money over a pass that let's you be more flexible and travel any amount of days within a timeframe. Hope this makes sense. Please note you can often make use of trains even if you're not travelling out of the country. For example, we used the trains quite a lot while travelling around Cinque Terre in Italy so it might be worth including days within a country as a travel date. Let us know if you have any other questions :)

No problem, hope it was helpful!

But it is red...what you're referring to is spring season when the Nemophila bloom. The video show's Hitachi Seaside Park during autumn when the Kochia bushes turn red.

Hey, thanks so much. No you don't need to take oxygen but some do bring cans of oxygen to help alleviate altitude sickness. In all honesty, the oxygen will do very little if you are already feeling symptoms of altitude sickness, you're better off taking it slow, take a break at each station when you climb and allowing your body to acclimatise.

Yes there's phone reception even at the top of Mt Fuji

No you can use one trail to ascend and descend on another trail if you like but please note using the Yoshida Trail requires reservation and a fee now. There's a link in the description with more info. Hope this helps!

So happy to hear the video was helpful! Hope you have the best time on your trip!

Thank you so much :)

hey, as long as you're a resident of the UK then you use Interrail. Otherwise Eurail

Well, I just found that TrainPal works for foreigners as well. They also have train cards on sale. Hope this helps:))

You don't need wifi to access your pass in the app, if you have slow or intermittent internet and it's freezing the initial load of the app (happened to us a couple of times), you can turn data and wifi off completely before accessing the ticket section. But if you need to add a new train route to your pass then yes you will need wifi. We had an esim so it wasn't too much of an issue but if you're thinking of going without mobile data make sure you have your trains added to your pass before you leave your accommodation in the morning as not all train stations have pubic wifi.

You're correct, it seems as though ZRS trains aren't covered by mobile passes for now (we just learnt this ourselves). Unfortunately we're not entirely clear on how best to proceed and hether you can get both a mobile and paper pass at the same time (normally you can't). Would suggest reaching out to customer services at Interrail to ask but it would seem the best method would be to use a paper pass in this case. We did use a paper pass on our first Interrail trip and it was fine too, not as convenient as you need to fill in the train info each time you take one but wasn't too difficult either.

So glad you found the video helpful. Honestly we felt the same at the start. Planning a multi country trip can be really stressful at times but once you're out there it'll be worth it! Also don't worry too much if your plans don't go quite accordingly, it's all part of the messy process we call travel :) At the end of it all I hope you have some really amazing memories you can tell stories about to others

Thank you so much :)

That's really kind of you and I'm really happy to hear your excited for your climb up Mt Fuji! It's still one of our most memorable experiences from our travels in Japan. Unfortunately, the hotel we stayed at before has closed down now but I took a quick look on booking.com and found a similar price and quality hotel plus it's even closer to Kawaguchiko station than the place we stayed. Here's the link if you're interested www.booking.com/Share-RLKo9N

Just a quick tip, when browsing around hotels in booking.com. Click on the reviews left by others and search the term luggage - lots of others also look for a similar luggage over night service so if they offer it you should see others talking about it. Hope that helps!

No problem, there's no requirement for a guide and it's not really necessary either as the trails are really easy to follow with signs along most of then way. Just take your time acclimating to the altitude and you'll be fine :)

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose Thanks a lot for the information!

Unfortunately it's less about how long in advance and more about when the huts decide to start taking bookings for the year (it can vary from year to year as it depends on when the owners decide to open up bookings). Having said that, the hut that we booked have just posted an update that they will be taking bookings near the end of March - no exact date but defaintely keep an eye on their website to stay updated. www.fujimountainguides.com/mountain-hut-reservations.html

TLDR: we expect bookings to go live in the next week or so

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose Hey man! thank you so much! Will definitely keep an eye on this! Much appreciated man, cheers!

Hey, you have one outward and inward train journey from your departing country. So if you're setting off from the UK then you have one train leaving (london to paris) and then one train back (paris to london/ brussels to london). You can take more than one train a day. You can take as many as you like inside one travel day. When you say sleep on them, I'm assuming you mean night trains. Yes most trains are included, including night trains, but this does not necessarily mean you get a bed/private cabin on that train. This might be an additional cost depending on the train service. Interrail have a page (www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/trip-ideas/trains-europe/night-trains) that provides additional info on night trains. Hope this helps

Something similar might be TrainPal. It’s a new app honestly but I found it useful when booking train tickets!!

thanks so much!

thank you! Yes a "travel day" allows you to travel across multiple countries and within a country as many time as you like. The only exception is your outward and inward train from your "home" country. You can only travel out and back to your "home" country once using the pass. By home country I really mean the place you've decided to start your trip from.

hope this makes sense, if not let me know and I'll try my best to elaborate more

it does! thank you so much <3

The passes are for return: you have one journey out of the your starting country and one journey back

Thank you, how exciting! Yes, if you're referring to the train clip that was on the Glacier Express in Switzerland. Not exactly sure which part of the route but it's fairly early on on the train ride on the way out from Zermatt. Quick note, the Glacier Express is a special train which is not covered with the interrail pass but you can get a discount (it's in the benefits section of the app if you search switzerland). If you really don't want to pay you can ride a normal train which traverses the same route it just doesn't have the fancy ceiling windows but you still get the same gorgeous views. Hope that helps and if you have any other questions just let us know :)

Hey, no problem! I recommend checking your country’s travel advisory to confirm but on the EU website it mentions EU citizens can use their EU ID instead of passport (europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-citizen/indexamp_en.htm)

Hey, thanks for letting me know. Prices can vary from each person, depends on where they go, what they do and also the varying prices from year to year. Glad things worked out cheaper for you than it did for me.

Really glad to hear! Are you planning on doing an Interrail?

Thanks! We booked our hut at the end of April for our climb at the end of August. We highly recommend booking a hut as it will be very very unlikely they will have space if you turn up on the day. They haven't started taking bookings this year yet but should announce when they will start in the coming month or so. There is an additional fee of 2,000 yen to climb mt fuji if you are using the Yoshida Trail (this is on top of the 1,000 yen "voluntary" donation). So far there hasn't been any news about limiting the number of people that can climb but rumours are there might be some measures to be introduced (whether this year or next we're not sure yet). Let us know if you have any other questions :)

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose Thanks so much for the answer! I was wondering wether i should climb one of the other trails to avoid crowds, I really don't want to wait in line to climb. if I do end up taking another trail, will it be possible to go down the yoshida trail anyways?

​@@GooDLucKYT Yes you can ascend one trail and descend another. It's actually a pretty good idea as you get different views on the ascend and descend and like you said you will miss most of the crowds. The Yoshida trail is much better to descend down vs other rails as it's relatively flat all the way and consists of volcanic sand rather than sharp rigid rocks. Might be helpful to know, we didn't have to queue during any of the sections but there is a traffic of people as your near the summit, especially if you're arriving early in the morning to watch sunrise.

If you ever have questions just let us know :)

That's the year we went too! We went on the last of the three days and it was so much fun!

Thank you so much for dropping this comment! Best of luck on your climb!

Ah thank you so much! Let us know how it goes if you do go!

Hey, no worries and thanks for the questions. 1. You fly into New Chitose which is on the outskirts of Sapporo. From the airport you can take the train, bus or taxi. All are pretty convenient. If deciding between bus or train I would look at where you're staying and seeing how far away from Sapporo Train Station it is. It might be more convenient getting the bus. When you arrive at the airport they have a bus information desk who can advise you if a bus stops nearby where you're staying. 2. Personally we've only stayed around Sapporo Station area and Susukino area. Either of these two areas are great as it gives you most access to the transport and things to do in the city. To be honest, any hotel along Odori Park strip would be great too as it'll have easy access to the underground passage. If prices are too expensive we recommend looking a little further down at Nakajima Park area, it's only one stop down from Susukino. 3. Both options are fine, Airbnb should be slightly cheaper than hotels around this time of the year but tend to be fewer options and may be located on streets which require 5-10 minute walk to the nearest underground station (not all but they the ones near stations are snapped up fast). Hope this helps and let us know if you need more information or have more questions!

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose I can’t thank you enough for the time and energy you put into your thoughtful and detailed response. This really helped envision the itinerary so I really appreciate it! Really dig your presentation and attention to detail in the video too. Great execution! Keep it up and thanks again!

@@paul1010 Thanks so much, means a lot to hear!

Thanks so much! We started planning around the end of spring so April/May. Because these huts are individually run they don't have an official date when they start taking bookings. It's frustrating but you need to keep an eye out for when they do. You may get a heads up if you email them though, support@fujimountainguides.zendesk.com Just an example, this is a link to another hut www.mfi.or.jp/~taisikan/ (a little lower than the one we stayed at) and they mention on their page they will announce the date they start taking bookings at the end of March. Also, a little bit of news. 2024 might be the first year they limit the number of climbers for Mt Fuji due to overtourism over the last few years. It's worth keeping an eye on how this develops as right now we unfortunately don't have much more information as to how this will work. Sorry it's probably not the answer you were looking for but hopefully it gives you some info into when you should be checking and what to look out for. We'll keep an eye on things too and if we get some information we'll add it to the description box.

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose this is perfect and even more than I was looking for :) thank you so much for the detailed answer! I’ll keep this in mind when planing my trip to Mt. Fuji :)

That's awesome! Hope you enjoy it as much we did. Let us know what the Tsudome venue is like!!

@@ChopsticksOnTheLoose Yup i’ll update on our channel of course ❄️😍

U got the hotel already? It seems the price increase fast, hiks.. High price than usually due to peak season 😢😢

​@@lizzcharlotte17 We just had a quick look and the prices are similar to what we paid last year. Please note this year will likely see more visitors than 2023 which had 1.7 million people attend. If you're only planning to visit Sapporo for a few days, try shifting your schedule and visiting one of the later days of the festival? Sometimes you'll find cheaper options become available. Hope this helps a bit

No worries, hope it helps a little in your planning 😊

So much fun! Finally got round to making this guide one year later >.<