JR Pass - Two months in Japan

Hi everybody,
A friend of mine and I will travel (almost) all over Japan in two months.
The general plan is Hokkaido, Tohoku, Chubu, Kansai, Chugoku, Okinawa, Chubu again and Kanto.

What would be best for us, transportation wise? Can we just buy 2 JRPasses each? Does it cover most places?

Thanks in advance!

It entirely depends on the details of your schedule. If you travel everything in small steps, rail passes are unlikely to pay off. They only pay off for large distances in a relatively small time frame.

Overnight buses can be very cost efficient to cover medium distances. And air is often the cheapest and most practical for long distances.

I spent six weeks traveling all over Japan with the same goal in mind. However, as Uji said, I realized early on in planning that having more than a 21 day rail pass was not to going to pay off in any way--it's just too difficult to travel those long distances when you're spending several days in the same region. And it makes no sense hopscotching across huge distances just to make a JR pass pay off.

What I would suggest is to look into the regional JR and private rail (i.e Kintetsu) passes, which can give you some flexibility as you stay within the same region for a week or so (or longer).

For example, the JR east pass covers Tohoku and even offers you the option of flexible 4 days of unlimited travel over 10 days. That means you can pay for single fares for local transport, but use the pass to take the large shinkansen trips to make your way down for example to Tokyo. Another great thing about JR east pass is that it covers some lines that are not covered by the nationwide JR pass--specifically, you can get to the Izu peninsula on the JR east pass.

I do suggest getting a national wide JR pass of some type during this trip, because JR Central has no regional pass and it seems like you will have to make at least one huge trip (either north or south), which will pass through Tokai area. This will make a JR pass pay off. Alternatively, you can fly using an airpass (i.e Star Alliance).

Overnight buses can also be used to cross areas and times that lie outside your passes (actually the Willer bus pass does much of the same route as the JR pass, at least for big cities). Thus, a mix of different rail passes and some overnight buses can help keep the costs much lower than investing in multiple national JR passes.

Happy hunting.

Thank you so much for your answers.
So basically, we should get one JRPass along with other kind of passes relevant to where we're traveling?
Assuming we are going to travel many places, which type of JRPass should we get?

One last question- is it better to buy plane tickets on the spot? (Probably from Yamaguchi to Okinawa)

I must say I'm actually a bit confused with all the passes so thank you for clearing things.

So basically, we should get one JRPass along with other kind of passes relevant to where we're traveling? Assuming we are going to travel many places, which type of JRPass should we get?

It depends on the details of your itinerary!

is it better to buy plane tickets on the spot? (Probably from Yamaguchi to Okinawa)

No, I would avoid that by all means. The earlier you reserve, the cheaper are the fares:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2364.html