Hiroshima to Miyajima: train, streetcar or tour

By rail the route is a single line. JR West says train travel from Hiroshima Station to Miyajimaguchi Station takes about 28 minutes on the JR San-yo Main Line.¹ From there the JR ferry is the natural next step, and its regular timetable shows a boat leaving Miyajimaguchi at 10, 25, 40 and 55 minutes past each hour through the morning.¹⁰ Pick the departure that fits the rest of your day; the crossing itself is the same whichever line you start on.

Payment is the other half of the rail story. The JR ferry accepts the Japan Rail Pass and the JR-West Rail Pass,⁹ and it also takes payment by IC card.⁸ Holding a pass or a charged card means the only money left to find at the pier is the island visitor tax, which comes up again further down this page. Anyone holding a pass will find this the least fiddly way to start, with nothing to learn on the platform.

The timetable shows a boat every 15 minutes in the morning. Missing one costs a quarter of an hour, not a day, so there is little reason to sprint along the platform. Use the time to buy water, check the tide hours for the afternoon, and decide whether you want the plain crossing or the sailing that runs closest to the gate. It is the gentlest choice for a first-timer who does not want to think about tram stops at all.

JR West runs a special set of crossings it calls the Great Torii ferry. These operate from Miyajima-guchi from 9:10 a.m. to 4:10 p.m.; those boats take you closest to the Great Torii.¹⁷ The crossing time is the same as a regular one,² so the choice costs nothing but a glance at the board to see which departure is which. Think about where the sun will sit, since a front view straight into the light photographs poorly in the middle of the day.

JR's route page gives one piece of seating advice: the view is on the right side when facing forward.¹¹ The page still carries an old note that a restoration project is underway for the Great Torii, although that repair has since been finished.²² Look at a recent picture of the gate before you decide how much of your morning to spend on that angle. Ask a member of staff if the printed board confuses you; the torii sailings are marked on the timetable itself.

The tide changes the picture more than the boat does. The Miyajima Tourist Association's tide page lists, for the day you choose, the hours when you can walk down to the Great Torii and the hours when the shrine looks as if it is floating on the sea.²³ The boat is a way to see the gate whatever the water is doing, which is its real value on a day when the walk to the gate is not possible. Waiting for the right boat is a better use of a few minutes than catching the wrong one in a hurry.

The coach day behind this site is a Viator listing of 8 hours, for up to 45 travelers, with a live guide in Japanese and English and cancellation free of charge until 24 hours before. The crossing is one of its stops, with nothing for you to time or pay at the pier. If a group of mixed ages is traveling, a guided day removes the need to agree on a plan at every junction, and it spares whoever is the family navigator.

A rival coach day from $121 also lists English and Japanese guides, with audio guides in six more languages. A small-group day on trains is a 6-hour listing from $87 with an English guide, and an island-only half day runs 3 to 4 hours from $76. Read each listing's cancellation terms before booking, because the dates and conditions are set by the seller and can differ, and a booking made with a flexible date is easier to move if the weather turns.

Doing it alone costs a fare of 200 yen plus the 100-yen island tax.^15,6 What a tour adds is a guide and a fixed schedule, and what it takes away is the freedom to stay until the tide suits you. Both are fair trades; the cards and the calculator below put the listings side by side. The cheapest-looking option on a page is not always the one that suits your day, so compare length as well as price.