november itinerary: off the beaten path

hi,

coming november I will be travelling to japan for the 3rd time. i'm coming with a first time visitor and I have a week (10->17) to spend in tokyo and explore new place.

I would like to visit something new, a place off the beaten path. In the past travels i have been in tokyo, kyoto, kamakura, nara, nikko sendai and yamadera.

i'm planning to spend 2~4 days in tokyo and for the remaining days i'm uncertain if i should pick

a) Kanazawa (2 days~), maybe too early for red leaves

b) 5 fuji lakes and hakone (2 days), i've never been in these places and should be very good for red leaves in early/mid november. (are 2 days good for 5 lakes and hakone or is it too much?)

c) *suggest me* i really love exploring japan off the beaten path, small typical town full of nature and shirenes. is there anything like that you can recommend?



thanks for your help :-)

I'd have a look at Bessho Onsen and maybe Karuizawa. Bessho Onsen is a nice little onsen town with good water and some good historical sites, the food is great there and accomodation pretty cheap. It isnt far from Tokyo by the shinkansen to Ueda.

Karuizawa is a lot more trendy but the food is awesome there and the shopping street nice, there is also a good hike (bushwalk) from the top of town to a lookout with a great temple https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6035.html

We have stayed a few times at Tsuruya Ryokan at Karuizawa, it is a great place and really caters well to first time ryokan guests. We also saw an old tanuki stumbing around the bush at the back of it, hopefully he is still going.

Hakone is not really off the beaten path, but worthwhile to visit. We did the roundtrip in one day but it was rushed a bit, so we did not have the time to see everything or visit an onsen. Two days would have been better.