Northern or Central Japan for Autumn?

Hi,
I'll traveling from 21-Oct to 1-Nov with family of 4 adults and 1 children. I'm in mixed feeling which itinerary doable to go for and need some help on this:

1) Northern Japan (JR east Pass and Car rental)
21- Oct: Shinkansen from Tokyo to Aomori and stay 2 nights. I will rent a car to Lake Towada, Hakkoda Ropeway and Oirase Stream. Also sightseeing around Aomori.
23-Oct: Shinkansen to Morioka and stay 2 nights. Rent a car to visit Hachimantai and Tono Valley.
25-Oct: Nikko and stay 1 night. Rent car and drive to Kusatsu
26-Oct: Kusatsu and stay 1 night.
27-Oct: Drive to Kamikochi & Shin-Hotake Ropeway and overnight at Matsumoto
28-Oct: Drive to Kawaguchiko, plan to drive to Subaru 5th Station and surrounding places.
30-Oct: Drive to Tokyo and stay for 2 nights before flight home

2) Central Japan (Car rental @ tokyo)
21-Oct: Rent a car and drive to Hakone & Fuji 5 lakes area. Stay 2 nights
23-Oct: Drive to Matsumoto. Visit Kamikochi & Shin-Hotake ropeway.
24-Oct: Takayama & Shirakawa-Go. Overnight at Shirakawa-Go
25-Oct: Kanazawa and overnight.
26-Oct: Noto and stay night.
27-Oct: Nagano and overnight.
28-Oct: Kusatsu & Karuizawa and Overnight
29-Oct: Nikko and overnight
30-Oct & 31-Oct: Tokyo and flight home.

The way i see it is:
1. Has more nature &
requires more driving making it expensive.
2. Has more quaint old towns. There is some element of nature but to a less grand scale. Cheaper though as travel isnt as far nor would there be extensive use of car.

So it depends on what you want.
Focus on autumn colors or focus on traditions.

I would prefer nature, though some would prefer culture (Since Japanese culture is pretty much unique to Japan, whereas the four seasons exist is many other countries)

Re. cost; you can often get good deals on car hire if you book in advance and are flexible as to what car you have.
Speed limits in Japan are fairly slow so you don't really need a huge engine.

Would you consider a third option – devote the entire trip to the region of Tohoku!? Your time of visit is the autumn foliage season in that part of Japan and there are many beautiful koyo destinations there, enough to fill a self-drive road trip for a couple of weeks.

Thanks guy! ..

Hi William, devoted the entire trip on self drive, I felt the distance is too far for driving with type of speed limit in Japan. That's reason I did not considered self drive but mix of train and self drive, then this would increase the moving of luggage around compared to self drive.

I took the option 1 to drive around central japan, and can take self drive for entire trip without need of train. The cost of car rental is much cheaper for longer period.

I took the alpine route 5 years ago and for this round, I'm thinking to drive to murodo to see snow but seem not possible.

does anyone know that whether possible to drive there?

Private vehicles are not allowed on the Alpine Route.

There is information under the Transport section in the FAQ on the Alpine Route website about car delivery:

http://www.alpen-route.com/en/information/faq.html

I would go for #1, looks interesting and while it covers a lot of ground, there is some great scenery in that mix (and the trains for the long distance makes sense).