Things to definitely do
Day 1 (1/3?)
January 2
January 3
January 4
Rail pass day 1.
Arrive in Kanazawa in the evening.
January 5
Rail pass day 2.
Spend day in Kanazawa.
Arrive in Jigokudani in the evening.
January 6
Rail pass day 3.
January 7
Rail pass day 4.
January 8
Rail pass day 5.
January 9
Rail pass day 6.
January 10
Rail pass day 7.
Arrive in Sapporo?
January 11
January 12
- 10:25 -> 12:15: Flight from Sapporo to Tokyo (Haneda)
- Afternoon: Sumo Tournament - The cheapest tickets should be around ¥3600 but it is often possible to move up. We should buy tickets at the gate to avoid a ¥1000 extra fee for booking online.
January 13
Return to Boston!
Potential things to do
- Kobe
- Ishikawa
- Kanazawa; Ryokan Shibaya at ~ 4100 yen for two people w/ onsen bath in basement
- Hakui; including the amazing lookingUFO museum and the ocean
- Takayama, Hida
- Nagano
- Jigokudani (snow monkey onsen); Yudanaka station (about 265min from Kanazawa; 357 from Takayama)
- Niigata
- Sado Island
- In Tokomachi, Niigata there are two cool art hotels. House of Light by James Turrel and Yume no Ie by Maria Abramovic (an art hotel where you get uniforms and sleep in boxes). Both seem reasonably priced. (Snowshowing is also available for a good price. We'd leave sometime in the early evening on the second day.) [1]
YamagataNotoya Ryokan (an awesome inn) in Obanazawa, Yamagata which is a town the highest snowfall in the entire world(looks like the cheapest places are too expensive and it's a 1 hour bus ride from the nearest JR station)
- Akita
- Nyuto Onsen (a secret onsen village); Housing: Magoroku Onsen Hotel
- Kakunodate (the site of some samurai training houses) in Akita; housing: ohmagari hostel or a couchsurfer in Daisen.
- Yurihonjo which is comprehensively covered on wikitravel and is an hour south of Akita (city)
- Odate; perhaps for a quite stop to eat some kiritampo on the way to somewhere else
- Aomori
- Hirosaki which is has a big float museum and a decent looking hostel
- Yagen Valley in Aomori which seems pretty rural
- Itayanagi A very apple themed village with apple street lights and more
- Hokkaido
- Sapporo
- Noboribetsu has a nice onsen and is 1 hour from sapporo and is on the way to the city (a possible stop off)
- Toya is another onsen stop along the way
Near Tokyo:
- Mizunuma Station (a train station with a hot spring) 11AM-8PM: http://www.mizunuma-sb.com/facilities.shtml
Resources
- Japan Youth Hostel webiste