Hakone Ryokan

Almost everyone types the same words into the search box — Hakone ryokan — with the same picture in their head: a tatami room, a hot spring bath, dinner brought to the table and Mount Fuji somewhere out of the window. What nobody tells you before you start booking is that the room and the mountain are two separate purchases, they are sold by different people, and most visitors end up doing one of them in a single day from Tokyo.

The first thing on sale here is that day. A coach leaves Tokyo in the morning, climbs to a viewpoint on Mount Fuji or to the 5th Station itself, runs the ropeway over the Owakudani valley, puts you on the boat across Lake Ashi past the torii standing in the water, and has you back in the city by evening. These days run ten to twelve hours from pickup to drop-off and start at $55 out of Tokyo.

The second is the pass. The Hakone Train Pass covers unlimited rides on the local trains, buses, the ropeway and the boat for two or three days, at $45, plus discounts at the sightseeing places along the loop. It is the one item on this page that assumes you are sleeping in Hakone rather than going home the same night, and that is exactly who it suits.

That difference is what most people find out too late. A ryokan night and a day tour answer different questions. The ryokan is where the onsen, the kaiseki dinner and the quiet morning live; you book that with the inn. The tour is how you reach Owakudani, the lake and the mountain without renting a car or working out four changes of train. If you have one day, the tour is the whole trip. If you have two, the pass fills the second one.

Our top pick is the day that solves the way home: Mt Fuji 5th Station and the Hakone cruise with the bullet train back to Tokyo, ten hours, rated 4.4 across 5,333 reviews, at $152. The most reviewed listing on the page is the ten-hour Fuji, ropeway, Owakudani and Lake Ashi day at $55, which 8,054 travellers have rated. Between the nineteen tours here there are 21,920 reviews to read.

The fares stretch a long way at the top end, and it is worth knowing why. A seat on a shared coach is $50 to $152 depending on whether the 5th Station and the bullet train are in the ticket. A private day with a car and an English-speaking driver runs from $307 to $667, and that figure covers the car and the driver for the day rather than a seat on a coach.

Where the tour starts changes your day more than the route does. Twelve of the nineteen leave from Tokyo, mostly from Shinjuku, and two begin in Hakone itself — the pass and the day that pairs Owakudani with Enoshima. The rest are listed from Fujinomiya or Fujiyoshida, on the mountain side. A Hakone start means the travelling is already done; a Tokyo start means two hours of it sit at each end of your day.

These tours run all year, so the plan that works is the plain one. Decide first whether you are staying the night in Hakone or going back to Tokyo, because that alone rules out half the page. Check whether the ropeway, the boat and lunch are inside the fare or bought along the way. Then hold your date as soon as it is firm: every tour here has free cancellation.