ss, and you wish to travel overnight from Tokyo (or any other distant city), you may want to split up your journey, stopping at an intermediate destination en-route in order to sleep somewhere. The cost incurred will only be for the hotel room; the Rail Pass covers your transportation. This is a good way to travel overnight, especially if you are able to find cheap accomodations, such as a business hotel. Yes, it may be a little hectic, and it might require some research, but this method carries two significant advantages: location and money. You will more than likely find good accomodations very close to a main train station in a smaller city, compared to a big city such as Tokyo, and it will more than likely be cheaper than hotels found in big cities. You could use the money you save to forward some of your luggage to Fukuoka using a luggage delivery service and take an overnight bag with you, which will make the journey easier.
As of March 2012, here is one way you could go about this from Tokyo: at 7 PM, leave for Himeji by taking the Hikari train and changing to a Kodama service at Shin-Osaka station. Once in Himeji (arriving around 11 PM) you can take a rest at Himeji's Toyoko Inn which costs as low as �5230 for a single room or �2990 double occupancy. At 6:54 AM the next morning, board the first bullet train of the day, a Sakura service, and you will be in Fukuoka by 9:15 AM. This trip takes longer than taking the overnight train and bullet train connection as described above, but it is cheaper; you only have to pay for the hotel room, complete with your own toilet and shower.
By bus
Many overnight bus services run into Fukuoka from other parts of the country.
The Moonlight overnight bus runs from Osaka Umeda to Fukuoka in 9 hr 30 min (�10,000 one way); The Kyoto overnight bus runs from Kyoto to Fukuoka, also in 9 hr 30 min (�10,500 one way); and the oddly-named Dontaku runs from Nagoya to Fukuoka in 11 hr (�10,500 one way)
