2nd Trip to Japan – October Itinerary Feedback

Hi all,
My wife and I almost finished planning our 2nd trip to Japan in mid-October. In our first trip we did: Tokyo, Hakone, Osaka (Kobe and Nara), Kyoto and the Alps region (Takayama, Shirakawa-go, Kamikochi) – we had a great time.

This time we will be flying in/out of Narita, we have 19 nights (and 19 full days) at our disposal. We will visit Hokkaido this time and we plan on spending around a week there – we will start with 3 nights in Tokyo and then we’ll take a flight to Sapporo. Besides that, we have some doubt on how to **continue** from Hokkaido (2 main options):

1. **Currently preferred**: Sapporo > Hiroshima (by flight) > Kyoto (we really liked it the first time) / Osaka > Tokyo
2. **Alternative**: Sapporo > Northern-Central part of Honshu: Aomori region / Sendai / Fukushima region > Niko > Tokyo

I would love to get some feedback on what you think will be the better option after Hokkaido – should we focus on Northern-Central part of Honshu instead of Hiroshima? are there too many things to do there and maybe we should postpone it to another time? do you think that 3 nights at Hiroshima are enough?
We don’t like to rush ourselves and our main interests when we consider what to do are: great food, nature and moderate hiking, history, art and design museums/centers and a bit shopping.

(Here is our **current (option 1)** itinerary for reference – its not too descriptive)

**Days 1-3**: Tokyo

**Days 4-10**: Tokyo > Hokkaido by flight (Sapporo, Otaru, Yoichi, Jozankei and Lake Shikotsu, Furano and Biei, Daisetsuzan and Asahi-Dake, Shiretoko if possible)

**Days 11-13**: Hokkaido > Hiroshima by flight (Hiroshima and Miyajima)

**Days 14-17**: Hiroshima > Kyoto

**Days 18-19**: Kyoto > Tokyo

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Thanks in advance!
Any help/small tip would be appreciated