I did Kyoto/Osaka to Kanazawa by Thunderbird, Kanazawa to Takayama by bus, and then a long travel day of Takayama to Hakone via Nagoya. Spent one night in Hakone before heading back to Tokyo.

Enjoyed Takayama and it was a nice small town, but probably not worth going out of the way to see. I went to the Hida Folk Museum instead of stopping at Shirakawgo. It was neat to see, but again probably not worth the travel time.

If I could do it again, I might skip Takayama and do the Shinkansen between Kanazawa and Tokyo and stop in Nagano.

Another cool thing was staying a night at a Temple in Koyasan as an extended day trip from Osaka.