Alright now that travel is allowed again I want to visit japan again (duh). I’ll be with my japanese friend so we had to align our holidays and landed on may next year.
We mostly want to travel tohoku from north to “south” (meaning sendai).
Because we couldn’t find a conveniant flight to Aomori airport, we instead decided to instead fly to Chitose/Sapporo, spend a few days in Hokkaido before taking the shinkansen to Aomori, where we rent a car for the rest of the journey. I arrive a little bit before our itinary starts, but I won’t include that because that’s just me hanging out in Osaka.
As for the actual itinery, I’ll only include the parts that are relevant to my post:
1st Day -> Arrival in Sapporo, Hotel check-in, Walking around Sapporo
2nd Day -> Stay in Sapporo until roughly midday, Car Rental, Drive to Jigokudani, Hotel check-in, Walk around there
3rd Day -> Drive to Hakodate, Return car, Hotel check-in, Spend time in Hakodate
4th Day -> Train to Aomori, explore Aomori harbour a bit, Car rental, Drive to the Hakkoda Ropeway (and ride it up ofc), walk around a bit, Check-in at Hoshino Resort
From there we continue driving south, stopping here and there and then ending up in [Zao](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Zaoonsen,+Yamagata,+990-2301,+Japan/@38.1641366,140.3919204,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x5f8a4b086d2ba325:0xab4b1a1261791e3!8m2!3d38.1692027!4d140.3989917) (link included just so you have an idea where that is) in the afternoon of our fourth to last day.
4th to last Day -> Arrival in Zao, Hotel Check-in
3rd to last Day -> Ride the Zao Ropeway, Walk around at the top, Drive to Sendai
2nd to last Day -> Sendai(?)
Last Day -> Spend the day in Sendai, Fly back to Osaka in the evening.
We’re not sure wether or not the full day in Sendai, combined with the two “half” days we already spend there, isn’t a bit much.
If we were to move that day, we could, for example, stay a night in Aomori or Hoshi Resort thus having more time to explore there / relax.
We could also stay another night in Sapporo, but since we’ve both been there already there really isn’t THAT much left for us to explore. We could rent our car a day early to drive somewhere nearby, maybe.
Now what I would like some opinions on is really what people think about Aomori and Sendai. From my research I haven’t really found THAT much that is worthwhile to spend extensive time in either places. Of course, if you have recommendation for places to visit I’d love to hear them.
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Also I know I’m terrible at writing so please excuse any major mistakes I made. If I wrote something difficult to understand I’ll gladly try and translate myself.
I was in also in that region this year and I would strongly recommend that you fit Noboribetsu Onsen between Sapporo and Hakodate.
Its apparently near the Snow Moneky park that you are going to. (I only know the one on the main Island but the Hokkaido one seems to be worse based on google reviews.)
Edit: When I was in Aomori, I took a trip to Hirosaki which was also pretty nice.
I did not stop in either Sendai or Zao, so I can’t comment on those.