Hi all! Sorry in advance for the wall of text! My partner and i will have about 10-11 days free in late Feb to early Mar 2023 and intend to take a trip to Japan during this period.
I’m aware that the timing is neither here nor there in terms of major events/festivals or seasons, so i thought of bouncing my initial plan(s) off you all and getting some ideas too!
Some background – we’ve been to Japan multiple times and have been to most of the “must see” places and attractions. We also travel quite slowly and like to spend multiple days in an area rather than rush around (e.g. on our trip last month we spent 5-6 days just driving around the Lake Tazawa and Hachimantai area and still felt it wasn’t enough).
We’ve found that flight tickets from our country to either Fukuoka, Osaka (KIX) or Nagoya during this period are for some unknown reason half(!) the price of tickets to Tokyo, so it would make sense to make one of these cities our base.
Right now we’re leaning towards flying into and spending time in Fukuoka + see the Rokumanzan temples and sites in Oita pref. over 3-4 days + maybe 2-3 nights in Beppu. Alternatively, i was thinking we could fly into Nagoya/KIX and go to Kanazawa and Gero Onsen, but then what? We’ve previously already spent 10 days in Kyoto and 2-3 days each in Nara, Takayama and Shirakawa go. I did think of Zao onsen to chill and see the snow monster light up but we’re not into winter sports and Ginzan Onsen seems to be booked out so that would mean travelling all the way to Yamagata for just … 1 thing. We’re also not confident driving in snow so that rules out quite a few places too.
I guess what i’m really asking is – whether anyone has ideas as where we can travel to and what we can do during this period in the rough areas mentioned above, that isn’t centered around winter sports and doesn’t involve driving in snowy/icy conditions? We like nature, onsens, temples/shrines and museums but are really happy just being in Japan itself! TIA!