Plans Almost Finalized!

[mrosema88 0]

Hi everyone!

We are staying in Sapporo but plan to hit up some if not all of these resorts:

Sapporo Teine-40-45 minutes from center city sapporo

Kokusai-an hour away from center city sapporo

Rusutsu- 90 mintues from the airport...so maybe 2 hour drive from center city sapporo?

Kiroro-80 minutes from center city sapporo

Niseko-2.5 hours from center ciyt sapporo

 

We have a car rented through Toyota Rental and I recieved an email about applying for a Hokkaido Express Pass. The rates were 7,500yen for 7 days. Will be in japan for 7 days (Feb 2-9).

 

my question is how much are the tolls??

I'm all about getting this pass IF it helps with time AND is worth the money considering in a perfect world i'd like to hit up 4 ou tof 5 of the resorts.

I'm just trying to avoid getting ripped off or getting something that i may not use.

 

 

thanks!

[Tubby Beaver 209]

For going to Rusutsu from Sapporo, I don't think you need to use any of the toll roads, you go south through Jozankei and then over Nakayama Toge and over to Rusutsu using route 230.....this is a national highway, not an expressway so no tolls.

 

Kokusai is almost the same route through to Jozankei and follow the turn off....no toll roads

 

Niseko you could take the expressway up towards Otaru and then cut in over route 393, so that short stretch of road will cost you 1100￥ one way for tolls....theres an ETC discount (electronic card) of 880￥. Thats if you take the expressway....you can drive through the city on the regular road up to Otaru and take the same turn off onto route 393. It would add time to your drive but would cost nothing in tolls OR you could follow the same route as if going to Rusutsu and hang a right onto route 276 and travel around Mt Yotei.....this would be no tolls, but it has to be said that in winter, Nakayama Toge may be slow going due to snow.

 

Kiroro would be the same toll road route as Niseko, up towards Otaru then turn off so would be roughly the same in tolls or nothing if you follow the normal roads.

 

and Teine.......sure you could take the toll road up and cut through the city in no time or just take the regular roads through the city.

 

All toll prices I've taken from the NEXCO website

 

Having a quick look at google maps shows that the difference of using tolls or no tolls to Niseko as only being about 10-15 mins.....that said, I dunno how the snow would change those times

[mrosema88 0]

thanks tubby! you have been a great wealth of knowledge!

i've changed our flight to land a day earlier and i was looking at staying in Niseko for 2 days before heading back to sapporo....seems as though all the hostles online are already booked from feb 1-3....is this normal? am i to late for this idea?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

which websites are you checking for rooms? It may well be true that all of them are booked out.....it is high season, but in my experience I've found that when the english websites are all saying fully booked, you can still get a room through a Japanese travel agent.....I dunno how that works, maybe they keep back a portion for the domestic agents. Of course this means having or knowing someone that can help you in Japanese.

[mrosema88 0]

agoda and hostelworld

[Tubby Beaver 209]

have you tried contacting directly the places posted on here? Usually if they are on here they are english friendly and you may just find a spot. If you don7t have any Japanese maybe try using google translate....yes it can be a right pain trying to decipher what it says but you might strike gold with a Japanese site

[mrosema88 0]

what places are you talking about? i havent found a list or anything? im not against calling the places directly! just need names of some nice/decent places

[SnowJapan 178]

Tubby means here as in on SnowJapan:

 

http://www.snowjapan.com/japan-places-to-stay

[mrosema88 0]

I'm calling places now! =)

[SnowJapan 178]

Good luck.

And please do give SnowJapan a mention!

Thanks.