My fiancee and I are planning a 3.5 week honeymoon through Japan and I'm having a hell of a time deciding on where to visit and for how long!

We'll be staying mostly in traditional (yet luxurious!) Japanese-style ryokans, and some five-star properties like the Mandarin O. and Ritz in the the major cities; ie. Tokyo and Osaka, etc.

If it were entirely up to me, we'd spend an entire 2 months during the autumn traveling across the country and stopping in every town and village from major port-cities to isolated mountain spring retreats, but that's unfortunately not possible... Instead, we'd like to maximize our time by planning for each destination so that it doesn't feel as though we're blowing through each city as tourists with a "best-of" guidebook. I realize that it's pretty hard to culturally immerse oneself in a foreign country with only a matter of days allotted to touring so many places, which is why I am asking for all of your help in narrowing down our itinerary.

Please keep in mind that we our traveling on our honeymoon and this will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip for us. We'd like to see as much of the country as possible, but in doing so comfortably!

I have put asterix beside the cities that we absolutely intend to visit. We cannot possibly see all of the following places. I would greatly appreciate your help in narrowing down which of the following could be cut from our 3.5 week trip, and also your suggestions on how many nights to comfortably spend in each city; not only in order to see all the highlights, parks and temples, but also to get a sense of daily life, experience the regional cuisines, marketplaces, etc.

Here's the list I'd made out which needs trimming... I've no clue how many nights we need in each of the following:


• HAKONE-MACHI

• SHIMODA

• HIGASHIIZU-CHO

• IZU

• NIKKO

• TOKYO **

• KYOTO **

• NARA

• OSAKA **

• FUKUYAMA-SHI

• HIROSHIMA **

• HATSUKAICHI *

• CHIKUSHINO-SHI

• YAMAGUCHI *

• SHIMONOSEKI

• NAGASAKI **

• SAPPORO

• HIGASHIKAWA-CHO


I have not looked into rail travel at all, and have not yet figured out how we'll be traveling from each city to the next, however I have a romantic and possibly naive vision of old world train travel... Can anyone tell me how easy and accessible the railway system would be? Cost is not a factor at all with this trip, though we'd absolutely like to stay far away from airports until flying home.

Thanks so much for any help and advice that you can offer!!!

PS - How far in advance is it necessary to reserve for the small higher end ryokans?