Tokyo/Hakone/Osaka/Kyoto - which order?

Tokyo/Hakone/Osaka/Kyoto - which order?

It depends on where you start and end your trip.

Ideally, you enter through Tokyo and depart through Osaka (or the other way around), in which case the following will be ideal:
Tokyo - Hakone - Kyoto - Osaka (or the other way around)

If you enter and depart through Tokyo, then one of the following orders will be best:
Tokyo - Hakone - Kyoto/Osaka - Tokyo
Tokyo - Kyoto/Osaka - Hakone - Tokyo

Kyoto and Osaka are very close together. Some people use a single base to cover them both.

Osaka Kyoto Hakone Tokyo

Or reverse.

Hint... osaka and kyoto are 25 mins apart. Dont use two hotel unless you have a real reason to.

https://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+166939

This thread may be useful if you go in April and want to see cherry blossoms.

Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo
Hakone as a day trip from Tokyo.
Osaka as a day trip from Kyoto (if you have something specific you want to do there.)

Thanks, this is really helpful as now think I can get away with the 7 day JR pass. Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo with some day trips. Now just need to find an epic ryokan close to these two places for our honeymoon for one night

Hi, not to disagree but I think if you want a nice honeymoon ryokan you might be better off spending overnight at Hakone or another place rather than looking for one in town.

Hakone is pretty and has a lot of awesome ryokans but the water is sulphuric and while that makes your skin silky smooth it also makes you smell like a huge fart, so that might knock romance on the head. There are some onsens at Nikko which dont smell, or Karuizawa which I have to say I am quite fond of and which is handy to Tokyo by Shinkansen (Tsuruya Ryokan is great).

We also recently stayed at the Hikone Castle Spa Resort which I think would be great for a honeymoon night, it is more a hotel than a ryokan but it looks at Hikone Castle (note this is Hikone near Kyoto, not Hakone near Tokyo), the rooms are lovely, the onsen facilities are brilliant (views of the castle), and the kaiseke which they make in the restaurant there was up there with the best I've had, just spectacular. Hikone is a few minutes from Maibara, and that is the shinkansen stop one short of Kyoto, so it is handy to your route. As an aside, some bullet trains dont stop at Maibara station and just go thundering through - it nearly takes your eyebrows off your face and is worth filming.

A nice ryokan: Hiiragiya Ryokan in Kyoto might fit that bill, a bit expensive, but my quests that stayed there a couple of years back said it was very good and worth the money for one night.