Going to Hokuei

I am planning a trip to Japan for this fall and want to visit Hokuei, Tottori (home of Detective Conan) while I'm there.

I've been thinking of taking a train from Kyoto to Tottori, staying the night, going to Hokuei in the morning (1-hour train ride), and then moving on to Osaka from there to continue my trip. An alternative would be to go to Osaka and do Hokuei as a day trip, but it's about 3.5 hours each way by train--no fun.

Does anyone know of a better way to approach this? My general itinerary (for about 2 weeks) is Tokyo - Kyoto/Nara - Hokuei - Osaka/Himeji - Tokyo.

Thanks!

Instead of travelling back and forth from Kyoto and Osaka, consider going there on your way from Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka. It would be a long rail journey (6 hrs at least) and indeed it is a good idea to break for an overnight stay somewhere in between. And of course you can do it the other way round and incorporate it on the way back to Tokyo from the Kansai region.

If you are not touring Tottori a closer base is Kurayoshi which is just about 10 min train on JR San-in Line to Yura and the old town district of Kurayoshi is also worth a short visit. For anime fans Yonago maybe a good choice for an overnight stay so that one can take in a side trip to Sakaiminato which is devoted to the popular Kitaro cartoon series. You can even ride the interesting Kitaro train between Yonago and Sakaiminato. We find the anime character of Kitaro more interesting that Conan.

I think your idea is fine. There is a lot up around Hokuei, so the overnight stay will be easy to fill the rest of your time.