Nikko is one of the popular day trips you can do with the 3-day foreigner-exclusive Tokyo Wide Pass. As usual, I felt the research to be quite challenging especially when the official websites are not updated post-covid.
You can take the Nikko 1 Limited Express from Shinjuku or Ikebukuro to Tobu-Nikko station. The link from the English website was broken, so it was only possible to check the timetable from the Japanese website, or queue up at a JR ticket counter to ask. To reduce your pain, here is the first and last trains you can take with Tokyo Wide Pass.
Nikko 1 Limited Express (Nikko-Kinugawa)
07:37 Ikebukuro - Tobu-Nikko
16:38 Tobu-Nikko - Ikebukuro / Shinjuku
Reserve your seat at the vending machine or ticket counter before the trip. The announcement in the train said that it is not allowed to board the train without a seat reservation, unlike the Fuji Excursion train where the announcement said you can sit somewhere until you are asked to give up your seat.
Sightseeing Bus
You may purchase a Nikko Bus Pass at the Tourist Information Center at Tobu-Nikko station for 2300 yen, which is valid for 2 days. This pass is worth it if you would like to visit the Kegon Waterfalls, because the single trip bus ride would cost 1200 yen already.
The JR East website mentioned that there is a 500 yen Sightseeing bus for unlimited rides on the World Heritage Site loop. Note that this will not get you to Kegon Waterfalls, which is OK if you are just interested in the shrines. The updated price in December 2022 is 800 yen. Inflation not updated on website.
Here is the map and bus schedule. You are welcome.
Day Trip Suggested Itinerary
The counter lady at the Tourist Information Center did an excellent job to explain the best possible day-trip itinerary, I felt obliged to regurgitate as much as I can remember.
- Take the bus from Stop 2 to Stop 7 and visit the World Heritage Site area. You will see the Nikko Bridge, then visit the shrines which would take approximately 2 hours.
- After visiting the shrines, take the bus from Stop 9 to Stop 26 to Chijizo-Onsen, where you can turn right from leaving the bus stop to the Kegon Waterfalls site. This takes about 40 minutes.
- Take the bus from Stop 26B to return back to Tobu-Nikko station, which takes about 50 minutes.
Tip #1:
Track the bus stops to know when to get off. We got misled by the screen which wrote "Next stop: 7", when it was already at Stop 7. As a result we got off at Stop 8, so we missed the bridge.
Visiting the Shrines
Here’s the price list of visiting the different parts of a shrine. We bought the 1000 yen combo ticket and visited just this shrine. I won’t imagine it is possible to visit more shrines in a day trip without rushing it through.
For most parts of the shrines, photography is prohibited, do respect it. There are also several donation opportunities along the way, and I suggest that you give something.
Japanese Praying Ceremony
There is a ceremony conducted about 4 times a day near the garden, i think the time slots were 9am, 11am, 12:30pm and 2pm (or 2:30pm). I forgot to note down the time slots, but we stayed around to watch the 11am ceremony. It lasted 30 minutes.
I think there are wooden strips you can purchase for 200 yen, and you can write your wishes on them. The monk conducting the ceremony would pick up every one of those sticks and maybe bless and burn them. We also saw a family who sat inside the ceremony area to receive a direct blessing.
Like most other regions in the shrines, no photography is allowed and you must be totally quiet during the ceremony.
Food
There is a souvenir shop near the garden where we had lunch after viewing the ceremony. I had Yuba Soba for 1000 yen, and felt satisfied with the meal. There is also a cafe at the museum behind the garden selling coffee and cakes but we did not try it.
There are some dining options near the Kegon Waterfalls too but they close quite early. They were all close when we walked past at 3pm.
Kegon Waterfalls
As we took our time in the shrines and the ceremony and lunch, we only started making our way to the Waterfalls at the 2:15pm bus from Stop 9 which brings us to Stop 26 at 3pm. This is really the last possible time slot and cutting it very close. Go earlier if you can.
There is a souvenir shop right opposite Stop 9. We did not know about that, so instead we went to a smaller one further away while waiting for the bus. We bought some castella cake after trying some samples.
The entrance to the elevator which brings you down to the Waterfall cost 570 yen, which is up from the 300 yen mentioned in some of the pre-pandemic Google Reviews. There’s some real inflation!
The Kegon Waterfalls up the mountains, so the bus ride was quite scenic and it is a lot colder up here. It snowed a bit when we were here too, which was nice. We only had about 15 minutes to enjoy the Waterfalls, because we walked the wrong way initially.
As we were rushing back up the elevator to catch the bus by 3:34pm, a family behind us asked to wait for them for the elevator. Actually we can’t do anything because it is manually operated by someone up there.
We chatted a bit with the travellers from Hawaii, but we had to rush for our bus to catch our train. In fact it was quite likely that we would miss the bus by about 1 minute. Moral of story – the 2:15pm bus at Stop 9 to Kegon Waterfalls is too late if you need to catch the last train back to Tokyo. Take at least one bus earlier. What we should have done when we missed Stop 7 was that we should have went straight to the waterfalls first.
Ojizo-San (Surprise!)
It turned out that the very kind travellers from Hawaii offered to drive us down the mountain! They also mentioned that they would like to visit the Ojizo-San, which is a row of cute mini buddhas.
Long story short, they brought us to view the Ojizo-San, took some pictures, and drove us right to Tobu-Nikko by 4:30pm, just in time to catch our last train back to Tokyo.
It was a miracle that we even see one more interesting landmark when we missed the last possible bus back to the train station and still made it on the train just in time.
Remember that I suggested you donate something at the shrines? We think that maybe the Buddhas helped us because we donated some coins at the shrines earlier in the morning. Maybe we got some collateral blessings because we sat behind the blessed family during the Praying Ceremony? We don’t know, but thank you Buddhas.
Closing Words
It was a nice day trip, especially the surprise ending for us. If I were to come back to Nikko again, I am likely rent a car and go on some hikes in the region.
If you are using the Tokyo Wide Pass, you may be interested my other two day trips:
Yohuifang 