Help with itinerary - Tokyo or Kyoto

Hi, my wife and I are going to Japan in late October for the first time for 10 days. We've drawn up a rough itinerary which goes as follows:

Day 1: Arrive in Tokyo early morning
Days 2-4: Tokyo (1 day in Nikko or Kamakura)
Days 5-7: Kyoto (1 day in Nara)
Day 8: Osaka
Day 9: Back to Tokyo
Day 10: Leave from Tokyo

My 2 questions are:

1) Would we be better off spending more time in Tokyo or Kyoto?
2) Are we trying to cram too much in?

Many thanks for your help!

That's a good distribution of time between the cities to get a good feel for them. If you like one city more over another and wish to see more, plan a future trip!

Question.... Is it possible to fly in to Kansai to start your trip and end in Tokyo? That way you don't have to rush back to Tokyo for airport. You can spend more time visiting places and less time traveling on long train ride (a little over 2 hrs in one direction).

Or perhaps fly to Tokyo and fly out of Kansai?

May save you money on shinkasen too.

Thanks for the responses. We didn't think about flying to Kansai and leaving from Tokyo (or vice versa), but unfortunately we've already booked the flights to and from Tokyo.

We're really looking for a taster as it's our first trip to Japan and would plan to do it again in more detail if we really enjoy it.

Osaka will be a day trip so that night we'll be returning back to Kyoto, we don't want to have to carry luggage around all the time.

We're in Kyoto for 4 days but 2 days will be taken up going to Nara and Osaka. I'm not sure if 2 days will be enough time in Kyoto, especially since the first day will include travelling from Tokyo in the morning.

Is it better to do 4 days in Tokyo and 2 in Kyoto or 3 days in each?

Thanks again for your help!

Your distribution looks good as is. A few points -

- if you are only visiting central Nara you can stop on the way at Fushimi Inari or Tofukuji or Uji.

- you can do something in Kyoto before heading out to Osaka.

- Since you only have about 2 days in Kyoto try not to run around to to far-flung sites. Transport can be a bit slow too. To save time combine subway with taxis. Higashiyama district has the most attractions by far - I would start there.

Well as your locked into your flights, i would get a 7 day Japan rail pass and activate it on day 3. Use it to visit nikko, then your shinkansen trips to kyoto & osaka, and your day trip to nara then back to tokyo and you travel to the airport.