Kyoto Bus One Day Pass - Kyoto, Japan

A lot of reviews I read on TripAdvisor suggested to get Kyoto Bus One Day Pass which allows unlimited rides on Kyoto City Bus and Kyoto Bus. This pass doesn't cover all the buses in Kyoto but still allowed us to visit all the popular tourist attractions in Kyoto. The buses are also very tourist friendly as they pretty much bring you to the doorstep of the attractions. Most buses that we took actually had a screen that shows the name of the next bus stop in English, Chinese and Korean.

Saves money
The bus pass is valid for one day. Not 24 hours. So if you start using it at 9 in the morning then the pass will be valid until the last bus of the day. According to Kyoto City website, the pass is good if you take bus more than three trips a day. And believe me you would be taking more than three trips a day. The first day we used the pass we got on a bus that went the opposite direction than where we were going. That wasn't the last mistake we made though. So having had the pass saved us money.



How to ride the bus
Different from other countries maybe but passengers for Kyoto Bus and Kyoto City Bus should enter the bus from the middle door. When you use the pass for the first time in the day you need to feed the card to the card reader by the driver side. The card reader will mark the back of the pass with that day's date. The next time you use the pass (within the same day) just show the back of the pass to the driver as you get off.

Where to buy
The first time we bought our passes from a convenient store outside Omiya Station. But later on we found out that the bus stop just outside Omiya Station actually has a vending machine that sells bus pass. Just find out ahead of time how much the pass cost. Knowing the cost helps in case the vending machine doesn't have English instruction on it.

This is the link to Kyoto city website with additional information on the pass. And also information on the one day or two day subway and bus pass.

Date printed on the back of pass after first use

Line for one of the bus outside Kyoto Station

Vending machine where you can buy the buss pass

How the Kyoto Bus and Kyoto City Bus look like.and how the bus stop logo looks like