Itinerary check: 14 days in Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo, Noboribetsu, Hakodate, Nikko, and Tokyo

Hi!

This is my current planned itinerary for a trip I’m going on with my boyfriend later this year from November 2 to November 15. This will be my second time in Japan; the first time I spent a month in Tokyo with some side trips to Nikko, Kamakura, and Yokohama, and I also briefly went to Kyoto, Osaka, and Kawaguchiko. This will be his first time, so I’d like to redo some things I’d done during my first visit with him 🙂

I realize that this is a fairly packed itinerary! That is uh…. unfortunately how I like to plan both my vacations and my daily life haha. Anything with a question mark is something that I’m down to skip if we’re short on time or energy. Some things may need to shift around depending on my success with reserving things, like Team Lab or Pokemon Cafe or Ghibli Museum. There’s a bit more relocating of hotels than I’d like but I’m hoping with ample use of luggage forwarding it won’t be too bad.

* 2 Tokyo -> Kyoto
* Land in HND at 3:10 PM
* Various preparations like get cash and SIM card
* Get to tokyo station
* Shinkansen to Kyoto
* Want to go to a loft or tokyu hands to get coin purse and goshuincho but whatever if no time
* 3 Kyoto (culture day holiday)
* Fushimi inari (early in the morning)
* Walk along kamo river
* Kiyomizudera
* Post dinner walk around gion and shimbashi
* 4 Kyoto
* Bamboo garden (arashiyama? Smaller ones?)
* Monkey park
* Nishiki market
* Misc time fillers to choose from ??
* Toraya
* Manga museum
* Shoren in
* Netsuke museum
* Museum of crafts and design
* 5 Kyoto -> Nara -> Osaka
* Take train to Nara (45 min JR)
* Nara park
* Todaiji
* Kasuga grand shrine
* Nakatanido mochi pounding lol
* Mechanical toy museum?
* Train to Osaka (45 min by JR)
* Osaka aquarium if we leave nara super early and have lots of time
* Check out dotonbori or kuromon and eat there
* 6 Osaka -> Sapporo
* Fly to Sapporo
* Tanukikoji shopping street
* Walk around
* Historical village of Hokkaido
* Mt moiwa cable car or okurayama if clear day?
* Susukino
* 7 Sapporo -> Noboribetsu
* Day trip to Otaru. 35 min one way by jr
* Sankaku market
* LeTao
* Walk around and look at glass and warehouse district and canals
* Yamanaka dairy farm?? A little far
* Back to Sapporo and then
* Train to noboribetsu
* 8 Noboribetsu -> Hakodate
* Jigokudani (hell valley)
* Oyunumagawa natural footbath
* Walk along coast or to lake kuttara
* Train to Hakodate
* 9 Hakodate -> Tokyo
* Morning market
* Goryokaku
* Lucky pierrot
* Red brick warehouse
* Cape tachimachi?
* Mount hakodate
* Train to Tokyo
* 10 Tokyo
* Team lab planets
* Nittele clock at 12 pm, 3pm, 6pm or 8pm
* Pokemon cafe
* Mori art museum
* Tokyo city view
* 11 Tokyo
* Ghibli museum in the morning
* Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum
* Shinjuku gyoen
* Isetan
* Omoide yokocho maybe?
* 12 Tokyo -> Nikko
* Bus/train to Nikko
* Nikko Toshogu
* Shinkyo bridge
* Kanmangafuchi abyss
* 13 Nikko -> Tokyo
* Kegon fall
* Chuzenji lake
* Senjogahara hike
* Yudaki falls??
* Bus/train to Tokyo
* 14 Tokyo
* Asakusa + surrounding areas
* Kappabashi
* akihabara
* Shibuya
* 15 Tokyo -> Seattle
* Flight at 5:20 PM

Mainly I’m looking for advice on if there’s any changes I can make to have the traveling go more smoothly. Does anything not make sense logically? Also open to any suggestions of activity replacements or additions. My boyfriends biggest wishes are to eat lots of food and also see monkeys. We also both enjoy hiking.

I’ve calculated ticket costs and looks like the JR 14 day pass is pretty worth it (but still pretty expensive). Switching to the 7 day pass and paying out of pocket for the Tokyo to Kyoto trip saves a little but perhaps 14 day is still worth it for the flexibility of being able to take little JR trains whenever? (not sure how common they are for smaller distances. Here’s my notes from calculating this

* Per person calculation: 62810. 14 day pass is 47250.0. If we pay directly for the Kyoto trip, that’d be 43820.
* Tokyo to Kyoto 14,170
* Sapporo to Otaru and back 1,500
* Sapporo to Noboribetsu 4,780
* Noboribetsu to Hakodate 7,460
* Hakodate to Tokyo 23,430
* Tokyo to Nikko and back 11,470