When talking about our move to Japan I frequently fall short in explaining what the distances are like. How big is Kanazawa? How long does it take to get from Tokyo to Nanao? Are we going to visit Fukuoka every weekend, once a month, or once a year?
How big?
Here is a website that will help understand how large Japan is compared to the U.S., and Ishikawa prefecture versus Minnesota: thetruesize.com. From that site you can move the pieces around to make your own comparisons, but I found that the entirety of Japan over the eastern seaboard of the U.S. was good perspective.
And, more locally, here is Ishikawa prefecture over the Twin Cities metro area, and Minnesota over Ishikawa prefecture:
I find it interesting that the Ishikawa over Twin Cities image makes it look like Minneaplis is enormous, until you remember that is the whole metro area and as you get further from downtown the density just keeps falling. Minnesota has 5.3 million residents, and Ishikawa has 1.3 million, which figures to 71/sq mi and 701/sq mi, respectively.
Getting Around
From Tokyo you can board the Shinkansen bullet train and arrive in Kanazawa between 2.5 and 3 hours later. The route has a few stops across central Japan and along the coast a bit north of Ishikawa as shown on this map. The cost is ~$100 right now (~14500¥), but different rail passes can be used as well and depending on travel will likely be a better bargain for tourists. The same trip by bus is ~7-8 hours but a quarter of the price.
From Kanazawa to Fukuoka near the southern end of Japan, you’d likely fly which would actually be embarked on from Komatsu outside of Kanazawa. The flight would be roughly 1.5 hours, non-stop. By car, you’d be looking at 10.5 hours according to Google Maps. There is of course a rail option, including long stretches on Shinkansen, but with several transfers it’s tough to get a handle on what the transit time would be like.
Between Kanazawa and Nanao, the roughly 45 miles would take an hour by car or 1.5 hours by train.
Most importantly, it’ll be about 3 blocks to the nearest heated coffee can vending machine.