14 day itinerary outside of Tokyo

Hey guys, trying to plan a 14 day itinerary from Tokyo and then returning back to Tokyo (I will also be spending a week in Tokyo) using the 14 day JR pass. Also I'll be going in the summer.

My rough idea is to do the following in this order:

Tokyo - 7 nights
Mt Fuji - Kawaguchiko (and/or Hakone???) - 2 nights?
Kyoto - 4 nights?
Osaka - 2 nights?
Hiroshima - 2 nights?
Miyajima - daytrip
Takayama - 2 nights?
Kanazawa - 2 nights?
Tokyo - 1 night

How does this look? Is the 14 day JR pass likely to pay off?

Are there any obvious places along this route that I'm missing?

Likewise are there any places on this list that are not too essential that I could skip?

I would prefer not to spend too long in each place as I'm travelling solo and don't want to get bored. But neither do I want to feel too rushed either

Gooday. How are you with high temps? Some places (I'm looking at you, Kyoto) can be like hell in summer, others (like Tokyo) are a bit milder but still very hot. If you dont tolerate heat all that well, there are still plenty of places to go, but you might avoid some places, or limit your time there.

Hi!

One thing to be aware of is some working is being done on the floating torii gate at Miyajima. I can't remember the exact dates, but it's starting soon. You might still want to go regardless, but it's definitely something to be aware of.

The trip from Hiroshima to Takayama is a really long trip. If you take the 9:54 from Hiroshima, you're not getting to Takayama until 15:07 otherwise you are looking at taking the 8:27 to get there at 14:18. If it were me, I would rather have an overnight on the way. Perhaps you want to move the 2 nights in Osaka until after you go to Hiroshima.

Good luck!

This is my updated itinerary. How does this look?

Tokyo - 7 nights - day trip to Hakone
Kyoto - 4 nights
Okayama - 2 nights - day trip to Kurasaiki
Hiroshima - 2 nights - day trip to Miyajima
Osaka - 1 night
Nara - 1 night
Kanazawa - 2 nights
Takayama - 2 nights - day trip to Matsumoto
Tokyo - 1 night

Personally, if you're not opposed to spending single nights places, I would overnight in Matsumoto before returning to Tokyo. You're talking about a more than 5 hour round trip between Takayama and Matsumoto and Takayama doesn't get you any closer to your ending destination in Tokyo.

If you want to do 2 nights someplace then I would do 2 nights in Matsumoto (going from Kanazawa to Matsumoto by way of Nagano) and day trip from Matsumoto to Takayama. It's close to 3 hours from Takayama just to Nagoya and then you have another 100+ minutes by shinkansen to get to Tokyo. From Matsumoto it's 155 minutes to Shinjuku.

If you're using JR the trip between Kanazawa and Matsumoto is not all that much longer than the trip directly to Takayama.

Good luck!

14-day rail pass is a good option - you will save a bit of money, but you will need to do a few extra transfers.
You could do your first long distance trip Tokyo to Hiroshima and then work your way back north (I do that a lot). Tokyo-Hiroshima- Okayama-Kyoto and then Kyoto-Kanazawa-Takayama-Matsumoto-Tokyo (or you could go Matsumoto-Nagano-Tokyo).
- I wouldn't bother doing one-night stays in Osaka or Nara - both can be done easily from Kyoto
- Hiroshima to Takayama does take a while (using the rail pass), but it is not actually too bad.
- Do Matsumoto on the way back to Tokyo - either as a stop-over or an overnight (different options with different pluses/minuses).