Advice itinerary

Hello everybody,

First, we love your site, very useful to plan a trip to Japan.
I am planning a first trip to Japan for me and my wife in the summer, from 2 till 27 august this year. We would like to receive advice on our trip in Japan. Arrive on 2 august in Narita and go direct to Tokyo. We like to stay at one place and visit with the train different cities for a couple of days. Everything we want to visit by train.
The cities we have in mind are:

1 Tokyo
2 Tokyo
3 Tokyo spend a day in Nikko
4 Tokyo see Edogawa and Ichikawa Fireworks Tokyo
5 Tokyo go to flea market of Togo Shrine Tokyo
6 Tokyo » Takayama
7 Takayama visit Crow’s castle of Matsumoto
8 Takayama Exploring Kanazawa
9 Takayama » Osaka
10 Osaka visit Osaka Castle, see Takigi-noh (is this good and is it possible to get tickets in advance?)
11 Osaka visit Kobe
12 Osaka
13 Osaka » Nagasaki visit Nagasaki Shoro Nagashi Festival (is this nice to see??)
14 Nagasaki » Hiroshima
15 Hiroshima visit Miyajima
16 Hiroshima » Kyoto
17 Kyoto visit Himeji
18 Kyoto visit Mount Koya
19 Kyoto
20 Kyoto visit Nara
21 Kyoto
22 Kyoto » Tokyo
23 Tokyo visit Disney water park
24 Tokyo visit Kamakura
25 Tokyo
26 Tokyo back to Amsterdam

Keen to see a bit of everything, shrines, temples, gardens, fish market, night live and a bit of shopping. We have found a lot of things to do, in above mentioned cities and like to know if I miss a very important must been city or that we can skip one of the above. We also like festivals, maybe there are some we can see?
For, as far as the things mentioned above, what is there to add and which things are not as great as they look on paper? We are also looking into a rail pass but am still in doubt what the cheapest option would be. A 1/2/3-week pass or a pass per region (which I found on the JR-websites).
Thanks to all willing to contribute!!
DutchCouple

Days 6 - 9
Is there a reason why you selected Takayama as your base for this leg? It is not easy to get from Takayama to Matsumoto, and Takayama to Kanazawa. It would take about 5 hours return on each day. It would probably be better if stay 1 night at each place, and start from Matsumoto and work your way to Kanazawa. It is also faster to reach Osaka from Kanazawa directly.

Himeji
Himeji is located in between Hiroshima and Kobe. It would make sense to either visit it from Hiroshima, or together with Kobe, rather than going from Kyoto.

Nagasaki
There is a lot to see in Nagasaki. I recommend spending at least one full day there. You are spending a lot of time in Tokyo and Kyoto. It might be best to replace one of those days with Nagasaki instead.

JR pass
If you sacrifice one or two of the festivals, and possibly either Kanazawa or Matsumoto, you may potentially be able to use a 1-week JR National pass to cover Takayama-Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Osaka. However, I am not sure if any longer National pass will pay off, due to the length of time you are spending in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto in between.

Dear Taiakun,

Thank you for the answer this is very useful. It is indeed not so smart to stay in Takayama, we change the itinerary and also visit Nagasaki for one full day. We think a 3 week JR National pass will cover from day 4 till day 24. We only need a Tokyo Subway 3-Day Ticket + Keisei Skyliner Round Trip Ticket (Limited Express) for the other days. Is this the best way??
Can anyone tell us if Nagasaki Shoro Nagashi Festival and Takigi-noh in Osaka is worth to visit??

New itinerary:
1 Tokyo
2 Tokyo
3 Tokyo
4 Tokyo spend a day in Nikko and see Edogawa and Ichikawa Fireworks Tokyo
5 Tokyo go to flea market of Togo Shrine Tokyo then go to Matsumoto
6 Matsumoto visit Crows castle of Matsumoto - Takayama
7 Takayama Exploring Takayama
8 Takayama - Kanazawa Exploring Kanazawa
9 Kanazawa - Osaka
10 Osaka visit Osaka Castle, see Takigi-noh (is this good and is it possible to get tickets in advance?)
11 Osaka visit Mount Koya
12 Osaka
13 Osaka - Nagasaki visit Nagasaki Shoro Nagashi Festival (is this nice??)
14 Nagasaki
15 Nagasaki - Hiroshima
16 Hiroshima visit Miyajima
17 Hiroshima - Kobe
18 Kobe visit Himeji
19 Kobe - Kyoto
20 Kyoto visit Nara
21 Kyoto - Tokyo
22 Tokyo visit Disney water park
23 Tokyo visit Kamakura and Yokohama
24 Tokyo
25 Tokyo
26 Tokyo back to Amsterdam

Thanks!!

Glad to help :)

Not sure about festivals. Hopefully someone replies to you soon.

You might want to check on hyperdia if a 21 day pass would pay off. My gut feeling is that it would be just short. However, it does have the advantage that you can use it to book tickets, or to use local trains (not subways) in Tokyo and Osaka.
http://www.hyperdia.com/en/

You can decide on subway tickets in Tokyo when you are there. My experience is that you will need over 4 or 5 trips a day for it to pay off. If you plan to cover areas that are closer together (i.e. Harajuku/Yoyogi Park/Meiji Shrine/Shibuya/Shinjuku), you would probably get away with using less. Hyperdia can help with costing on the day itself.

If you're flying from Amsterdam, have you considered flying into Fukuoka and back home from Tokyo (or vice versa)?

All the places you want to go to are then in a straight line and you spend less time travelling and have no going back on yourself (other than the short trip to Nagasaki and back).

From the UK, I can only fly direct to Tokyo. You have a better choice, thanks to living in the lovely Netherlands.

Are there festivals and fireworks? This is August in Japan, and you should almost be able to hit a festival every day. Here is an outline of my rough draft for my festival hop at the beginning of August. some of these date may shift slightly from year to year.

This is my rough draft, which has not been updated since 2014.

Aug 1 - Osaka - PL Art Fireworks (Possibly the largest fireworks displays in the world)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL_Art_of_Fireworks
Aug 2 - Nagaoka - Festival and Fireworks
http://www.goldenjipangu.com/140801nagaoka.html
Aug 3 - Akita - Kando Matsuri
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3627.html
Aug 4 - Aomori - Nebuta Matsuri
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3755.html
Aug 5 - Sendai - Matstushima Bay tour boat, Sendai Fireworks
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5100.html
Aug 6 - Sendai - Tanabata Matsuri
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e5158.html
Aug 7 - Otsu (near Kyoto) - Tanabata in Kyoto
Aug 8 - Otsu - Lake Biwaka Fireworks
Aug 9 - Kochi (Shikoku Island) - Yokasoi dance festival
http://www.goldenjipangu.com/140809kochi.html
Aug 10 - Miyajima (near Hiroshima) - 48000 Kannon Festival
http://visit-miyajima-japan.com/en/culture-and-heritage/cultural-herit...
Aug 11 - Miyajima - Miyajima Fireworks
http://www.miyajima.or.jp/english/event/event_hanabi.html
Aug 12 - Tokushima (Shikoku Island) Awa Odori
http://www.goldenjipangu.com/140812awa.html
Aug 13 - Tokushima - more Awa Odori
Aug 14 - Takamatsu - Takamatsu Matsuri and Dondon Fireworks
http://www.city.takamatsu.kagawa.jp/english/sightseeing/event/
Or... Osaka - Danjiri Matsuri
http://www.goldenjipangu.com/140814danjiri.html

This should give you some ideas.

Hyperdia is very useful to plan my trip. Is it possible to reserve a seat, when we have a JR National pass, or do we have to do this on the train station?
We see that there are Prepaid IC cards for the subway, trams and buses, can we use this card in every city? Or do we have to buy in every city another card? It is a bit confusing.
Indeed flying into Fukuoka and back home from Tokyo could be smarter, but we already have the tickets.
Thanks for the info about the festivals and fireworks in August, looking forward.

Currently the only train company that lets you make bookings outside of Japan and in English is JR East (you can also use your Japan Rail Pass for this when you receive the exchange voucher). I would just make your bookings when you arrive in Japan; unless you're trying to book a train leaving that day or a very popular service (e.g. the Yufuin No Mori), you should be able to get seats while in Japan.

IC cards do differ by region, but several of the major ones work in most other cities. I think Hiroshima is the main exception; another poster could give more information here.