Tohoku schedule feasible?

Hello, I will be going to Japan for about 2.5 weeks in May/June, mostly in the Tohoku region, with 3 days in Tokyo. I will be primarily using the 14-day JR Pass, and am uncertain if my proposed itinerary is feasible or reasonable given the transportation limitations. I am open to renting a car, but it adds a level of potential complexity, since my understanding is that the cars will need to be returned in the prefecture they were rented from. I don't speak Japanese and plan to rely primarily on Google Maps/Translate.

I plan to do a combination of cultural (museums, historical sites), and nature (hiking), as well as some train and city activities. The last time I was in Japan was about 10 years ago, and I have done the Golden Route several times.

I would be extremely grateful if I could get feedback on 1) cities to stay in given below itinerary, 2) whether my itinerary is too full, 3) other recommendations that I've missed or should avoid.

My proposed itinerary:

Day 1: Arrive Narita in the afternoon, JR to Fukushima
Day 2: Tsuruga Castle, Aizu Bukeyashiki, Ouichi-juku
Day 3: Take the train to Sendai, then to Rissyakuji Temple, Yamadera
Day 4: Kokeshi in Shiroishi City Miyagi Prefecture, shopping in Sendai, train to Ginzan Onsen Town
Day 5: Ginzan Onsen Town
Day 6: Train to Yamagata, Somaro Maiko House, Kamo Aquarium, train to a shukubo
Day 7: Dewa Sanzan (climb Yudono, Haguro-san)
Day 8: Dewa Sanzan (climb Gas-san), Churenji Dainichibo
Day 9: Geibiki gorge, Pokemon Joyful Train
Day 10: Hanamaki Onsen, Wanko Soba at Hatsukoma, Kakunodate Bukeyashiki-dori
Day 11: Aomori City, Inakadate Tanbo, Nebuta Museum
Day 12: Takayama Inari shrine
Day 13: Matsumoto City Museum of Art or Tokyo
Day 14: Tokyo
Day 15 - 16: Tokyo
Day 17: PM flight from Haneda

I'd love to do Namahage Museum in Oga (Akita), strawberry picking in Yamamoto (prob late for the season, tbh), and Mt Azuma but honestly have no idea how to make that work given the time and transport limitations.

Thank you very much for any assistance in advance!

Hmm I am confused. How do you get from Aomori to Takayama? Airplane?

I have the impression you are a bit too unsteady in this trip rather than going in 1 direction.

Have you calculated if a Tohoku JR Pass might be better value plus maybe some individual tickets rather than the nationwide 14 days pass?

Hello LikeBike, thank you for your response. I am not committed to any of these destinations, so it is helpful to see your comment, which I presume means that getting to Takayama Inari without a car is quite difficult, so I am ok with replacing it with an alternate option.

That is what I am trying to determine for the rest of my itinerary. My initial method of planning so far has been tagging my desired destinations on Google maps and moving south to north.

Since I don't know whether my proposed itinerary is reasonable (e.g., going from Aomori to Takayama without a car sounds like it is not reasonable), I have not been able to do the calculations on JR East Tohoku + individual tickets vs JR national pass. As far as I can tell, JR Tohoku for 15 days (3x JR East = 90k yen) is about the same price as JR National Pass (1x JR 14 day pass = 80k yen).

Even just calculating the major cities comes out to approximately 70k+ yen for Shinkansen
* Tokyo to Fukushima: 9000
* Joyful Train (I can't find price estimates for the Pokemon train, but the Shirakami is approx 30k): 30,000
* Fukushima to Sendai: 4800
* Fukushima to Yamadera: 5500
* Morioka to Aomori: 8000
* Aomori to Tokyo: 20,000

If it's not possible to do any of the trip without a car, then I will look into a car-based itinerary (e.g., Tokyo JR to Fukushima, picking up a car in Fukushima, driving throughout Tohoku, and dropping the car back in Fukushima after my trip, Fukushima JR to Tokyo)

Thank you!

When you wrote Takayama you mean Takayama in Gifu prefecture, right? I assumed so because you’ll be in Matsumoto the next day which kind of makes sense. But Aomori - Takayama (Gifu) is about an 8 h train ride or an 11 h drive. So that’s where I am confused.

If you mean some other Takayama somewhere in Tohoku the question would be how do you make it from there to Matsumoto (Nagano prefecture)?

It must be this shrine, near Aomori city https://maps.app.goo.gl/rWPJUE5CSW5wnFt99
You can rent a car for one day if you want to visit it. I don't think there is any discount for renting a car for multiple days.

Although I haven't been to most of the places you listed, it seems to me that your day 9 is going to be technically impossible. I rearranged your trip to use 2x Tohoku area pass, which will be less expensive than a national JR pass. I also removed one night from Ginzan onsen (been there, one afternoon and morning was more than enough unless you are planning to visit outside the town).

(Tohoku pass #1)
Day 1: Arrive Narita in the afternoon, JR to Fukushima
Day 2: Tsuruga Castle, Aizu Bukeyashiki, Ouichi-juku
Day 3: Kokeshi in Shiroishi City Miyagi Prefecture (not sure this is doable), train to Sendai
Day 4: Geibiki gorge (check the cruise timings), Pokemon Joyful Train
Day 5: Yamadera (early morning), Ginzan Onsen Town

Day 6: Somaro Maiko House, Kamo Aquarium (not sure you'll have time), rent a car to a shukubo
Day 7: Dewa Sanzan (climb Yudono, Haguro-san)
Day 8: Dewa Sanzan (climb Gas-san), Churenji Dainichibo

(Tohoku pass #2)
Day 9: drop off the car, train from Tsuruoka to Kakunodate
Day 10: Hanamaki Onsen, Wanko Soba at Hatsukoma
Day 11: Aomori City, Inakadate Tanbo, Nebuta Museum
Day 12: Takayama Inari shrine (rent a car if needed), night in Aomori (?)
Day 13: Matsumoto City Museum of Art or Tokyo

Day 14: Tokyo
Day 15 - 16: Tokyo
Day 17: PM flight from Haneda

Probably the OP is talking about Takayama Inari in Aomori prefecture.

https://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+179451

I am not sure about Matsumoto City Museum of Art. If this is in Matsumoto city in Nagano, it will take 5.5 hrs from Shin Aomori station.

* Joyful Train (I can't find price estimates for the Pokemon train, but the Shirakami is approx 30k): 30,000

From https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/joyful/pokemon.html , "Reserve today", it seems there is no surcharge for that Joyful train. It costs ~2000 yen (the price of a limited express ticket with a seat reservation on that line).

There is no way the joyful Shirakami is 30k (off the top of my head it is around 5k and I've done it a few times). Simply with the pricing and law, no.
And Matsumoto or Takayama (Gifu) makes no sense for such a huge transfer. The national pass might make sense, and while many of the transfers/legs look of, it falls to bits part way through so I don't think it is a fully formed plan.

Takayama Inari Shrine is a famous and beautiful shrine in Tsugaru City in Aomori. I'm surprised so few people are aware of it. It's a very easy trip from Aomori, especially with a car. I'd recommend also visiting Tsurunomai Bridge while you're in that area. You can probably also visit Hirosaki Castle, especially with a car.

The Dewa Sanzan days make no sense. Visit Hagurosan, then Gassan. When you hike to Gassan, it continues to Yudonosan, so just do the Dewa Sanzan in the same day.

Churenji and Dainichibo are closer to Yudonosan anyway. It would probably be too much to visit these in the same day, but if you hike Hagurosan-Gassan-Yudonosan, you can stay overnight at Yudonosan and visit Churenji and Dainichibo in the morning. You could probably couple those with the Kamo Aquarium, which would give you time on your Somaro day to see more of Sakata or combine it with Yuza's stone arhats and Maruike Pond or the Mogami River.

Going directly from Tohoku to the Matsumoto Museum of Art is a lot of train time, but if you do the long-distance train travel in the evening/night, it's definitely possible to travel to Matsumoto to stay overnight or Tokyo and then to Matsumoto the next morning to visit the museum.

The number of works is small, but if you want to see Yayoi Kusama's works, you can see them not only in Matumoto but also in Towada City in Aomori.
https://towadaartcenter.com/en/collection/#permanent-collection-en
The best time to see tanbo art is from the middle of July to the middle of August.
https://aomori-tourism.com/spot/detail_739.html
If you like Kokeshi, I recommend Sendai's Shima-nuki for shopping.
https://www.shimanuki.co.jp/
I also liked the shop of Sendai Mediatech.
https://kaneirims.theshop.jp/
https://www.smt.jp/

Thank you everyone for your helpful responses! Sorry for the delay on my part.

To address some of the comments:

* @Mellye, @frog1954, and @Rabbityama are correct; I am referring to the Takayama Inari Shrine in Tsuguru (Aomori prefecture), and it's good to know that even if it wasn't the one in Gifu prefecture, it'd be difficult/impossible to do without a car. I'll keep that day flexible and look into renting a car. (Thanks also for the info about one-day vs multi-day pricing)

* @Rabbityama, as it turns out, Gas-san is not open until July, after I've already returned home. Since Yudono-san opens in May, I presume it's possible to get to Yudono-san without passing through Gas-san. I'm a relatively good hiker, so given Gas-san is closed, it's likely I'll try to do Haguro-san/Yudono-san, stay overnight and see Churenji and Dainichibo in the morning, as suggested. Thanks also for the tips about adding Kamo Aquarium to that day, and for the suggestion of Yuza's stone arhats (!!!)

* @Rabbityama, haro1210, thank you for the Matsumoto/Towada City suggestion! Part of my reason for Matsumoto was, as noted, the Kusama works, but also because I thought I had an extra day or two to fill in my itinerary and an expensive JR Pass to take the most advantage of.

@haro1210, thanks also for the Sendai kokeshi suggestion. There are a few kokeshi "museums" I saw that offer a decorate-your-own-kokeshi option, and it seemed like fun, as my parents collect kokeshi dolls. However, as far as I can tell, the kokeshi museums I've bookmarked seem a little far out of the way, so I'm glad there is a way to shop traditional and non-traditional kokeshi in Sendai.

@JapanCustomTours, agreed, the Shirakami seemed rather expensive (and it was hard to imagine the Pokemon Joyful Train would be that expensive given it's relatively short route), but I was assuming bc it was a "special" train that it might be subject to different pricing.

@Mellye, thank you so, so much for the suggested itinerary! It definitely seems much clearer to do it the way you've mapped it out!

--

Follow-up question: it seems that it might not be possible to do my Day 2 (Tsuruga, Aizu Wakamatsu, and Ouchi-juku) all in one day. Ouchi-juku seems to require a lot of transport/transfers, and I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on 1) is it even doable in one day on public transportation, and 2) is it "worth" it given the possibly heavy public-transport requirements (i.e., while it does seem interesting, I'm disinclined to spend 5 hrs to go somewhere I spend 45 min)

Thank you for your reply.
I went from Aizuwakamatsu to Ouchi-juku by car, and I think it took more than an hour. The number of trains is limited, but if the transfer to the bus from Yunokami-onsen station(湯野上温泉） goes well, I think I can get there in about an hour one way.
https://aizutetsudo.jp/timetables/
https://aizutetsudo.jp/ticket/%E7%8C%BF%E9%81%8A%E5%8F%B7/
Instead, you spend less time sightseeing in Aizuwakamatsu.
I went around Tsuruga-jo Castle and Nanukamachi (Noguchi Hideyo Seishun Street).
https://www.aizukanko.com/course/778
https://www.nanukamachi.com/
I liked this place, too.
https://www.fukunishi-honten.jp/en
Kokeshi spots in Sendai City have a small number of exhibits, but there is also a Kamei Museum.
https://kameimuseum.or.jp/
You can see the scene of making Kokeshi at Honmaru hall of Sendai Castle Site.
https://honmarukaikan.com/syoku/shop.htm
There is also a huge Kokeshi Tower in West Prak(Nishi Koen). I found it when I was walking.
https://sendai-tushin.jp/2020/02/17/post-82369/
Kokeshi dolls are made in many places, but personally I like the face of kokeshi dolls in Shiroishi City (Yajiro) the best.

For your reference, I will put a link to introduce the main production areas of Kokeshi.
https://www.nippon.com/ja/guide-to-japan/gu900137/#:~:text=%E7%94%A3%E...