23 days in Japan

We are staying in Japan for 23 days in November and was hoping someone could help us out or comment on our itinery

Day 1 Arrive in Osaka Airport - stay in Kyoto
Day 2-5 - Kyoto
Day 6 - morning in Nara and then travel to Koya-san [arriving for 6] stay in temple.
Day 7 - Leave Koya-san, stop at Himeji castle and continue to Okayama
Day 8 Take ferry to Nao-shima [tado ando] spend day and night there.
Day 9 - Take ferry from Nao-shima to Shikoki Sanchi - Spend a few hours in Kotohira and then travel too and spend the night in Kochi
Day 10 - Morning in Kochi and then spend the day on the train to Matsuyama.
Day 11 Take Ferry to Hiroshima
Day 12-13 Train to Fukuoka stay for 2 days [try and get tickets for Sumo]
Day 14 - train to Okayama - stay there the night
Day 15 - travel to Nagoya spend the day there
Day 16 - Spend the day and next morning in Kanazawa
Day 17 - travel to tokyo
Day 18 - 22 in Tokyo - a couple of day trips outside tokyo?
day 23 Travel from tokyo to Osaka - afternoon in Osaka before we catch our flight.

many thanks for your help

Day 9-11 are packed. So are days 15 and 16.

A more efficient order would be:
Okayama - Kanazawa - Nagoya - Tokyo

Otherwise, it looks good to me.

I agree with Uji - looks good but you have a few really busy days clustered together.

Have you looked at travel times between each location? And do you have any thoughts on what you want to see?

We just came back from 23 day holiday in Japan and saw most things on our list. However, we found travel time from hotel to attraction eg. temple, garden etc also took time. So we had to skip some things that we didn't have time to travel to.

I'd suggest thinking about what you want to see in the cities where you are only staying one night and see if you have time. Otherwise you might be better to skip a town altogether.

For example, is there any reason why you are going back to Okayama when you are stopping there on the way down? Could you add extra night there before going to Naoshima (if you really need the extra time there) then skip it on the way back to reduce the busyness of those few days? Then you could go direct and use extra day in either Nagoya or Kanazawa?

based on my trips to France and Japan, both places with fast trains, I have found that staying in a few cities only then taking several day trips to here and there around each city was much more practical than changing hotels all the time. one should also be very realistic. Not all "must see" sights aren't that interesting for some people. On the other hand I did go from Hiroshima to Fukuoka and back in one day just to see 2 buildings in Fukuoka and thought it was worth it.