The Autumn Leaves Tour of Northern Japan 2027

The journey begins weeks before you fly. Your Tour Directors meet you on a private video call to introduce themselves, take you through the twelve days and hear what you are most looking forward to. A digital welcome pack follows, with packing guidance for the season, your arrival instructions and reading for the flight. When you walk out of arrivals at New Chitose, you are already known and already expected.

A private chauffeur meets you at New Chitose and drives you up the Toyohira River into the wooded gorge of Jozankei, its hot springs opened in 1866. Mori no Uta stands in the forest above the river, with a hearth of cast iron in the shape of a tree in its Forest Lounge and an open-air onsen in the mountain air. The second day goes to the great arc of Hoheikyo Dam and Jozan Lake among the ridges, and to the red suspension bridge at Futami over the gorge. The third day is yours, for the onsen, the lounge and a walk by the river with your Tour Directors.

The road south pauses at Lake Onuma, where little bridges cross between wooded islands beneath the peak of Komagatake. At Bourou Noguchi Hakodate in Yunokawa Onsen, the rooms have their own onsen, and the onsen on the top floor looks across the port to the Tsugaru Strait as the lights of the city come on. The evening is free, for the seafood of Hakodate. In the morning you walk the hillside quarter of Motomachi, its Orthodox church and old consulate, and look down on the five-pointed star of Goryokaku.

You cross beneath the Tsugaru Strait to Honshu, and the road climbs into the beech forest of Towada-Hachimantai. At Tsuta Onsen the spring rises through the floorboards of a beechwood onsen, beneath a high timber ceiling, and dinner on both nights is kaiseki. The day between is given to the Oirase gorge and the shore of Lake Towada, and on the last morning a boardwalk leads through the beeches to the still water of Tsuta-numa.

The road runs around the Hachimantai massif into Akita. In Kakunodate you walk the samurai district, through Ishiguro House and the Aoyagi residence, and watch kabazaiku made in the workshops. The night is spent at Kakunodate Sanso Wabizakura, a ryokan of ten rooms, each with its own onsen bath.

On the way, Lake Tazawa, the deepest lake in Japan, its golden statue of Tatsuko on the shore. In Nyuto Onsen-kyo you visit Tsurunoyu and stay two nights at Taenoyu, an inn on the Sendatsu River where the gold and silver springs meet. The second day is a full day of relaxation among the springs of the valley, and both dinners are the mountain cooking of Akita, kiritanpo and the mushrooms of the season among them.

The road runs south through the rice country of Akita into Yamagata, to the end of the Ginzan valley. Two nights follow at Fujiya, its eight rooms behind the old frontage. The day between is given to the Mogami River, by private boat, with the afternoon left for Fujiya's private onsen, and the farewell kaiseki is served at Fujiya that evening. On the last morning you walk the river street once more before first class to Tokyo.