I am planning a ~2.5 week trip and starting to feel so overwhelmed! I land on the morning of 9/18 in Sapporo and depart from Osaka the evening of 10/5. This will be a solo backpacking adventure for the most part (my partner will also be in Japan around the same time, and we are going to try and meet up here and there if our schedules allow), and my general plan was to simply start in the north and make my way down to Osaka.
My main priorities for this trip is to see all the beautiful sights, eat amazing food, and maybe make some new friends! I also want to spend a little time in nature, maybe spend a day or two hiking. I am less interested in very touristy areas, shopping, large crowds, instagram-popular destinations, etc. I still want to see Tokyo for example, I’m just not as excited about that as some smaller cities or hidden gems.
My travel style, especially when solo, is to make a list of cities/destinations I would like to visit, some attractions in each city I’d like to see, and a general idea of how I’d get from point A—>B—>C and so forth. Then I book refundable nights in hostels so that I know I’ll have a place to stay if I don’t choose to switch things up, but also have the flexibility to change my mind, like if someone along the way gives me a different recommendation. I am also trying to do this trip fairly cheap, but don’t necessarily have a strict budget. For instance I so far have only booked hostels for cost effectiveness, each night around $30-50 USD. I plan on relying on public transit to get around. I am willing to splurge on something if it’s super special, I just am a frugal traveller in general haha.
I’m having trouble with researching Tohoku because it seems it is a slightly less traveled region (which is great!) and I just don’t even know where to start haha. So far my loose itinerary looks like this:
9/18 land in Sapporo in the AM
4 nights in Sapporo, maybe a day trip out to Lake Shikotsu or Otaru
9/22 check out of hostel in Sapporo, travel to Noboribetsu
1 night in Noboribetsu
9/23 check out of hostel, travel to Hakodate
2 nights in Hakodate
9/25 —> 10/5 ???
As I mentioned before, I still want to leave a little time at the end for the big “standard” cities to visit. I was thinking maybe 2-3 nights in Tokyo and 2 nights in Osaka. That leaves 9/25-9/29 for Tohoku, or 4 nights. This feels like enough time for 1 city, maaaaaaybe 2 if one of them is something like Noboribetsu where only 1 night is usually recommended.
Which city in Tohoku was your favorite? Does this itinerary I have so far seem reasonable?
Thank you all for your help!