The festivals line up pretty well so that you can experience most of them on consecutive days:
Fukushima Waraji Matsuri - the first weekend of August (but unfortunately it doubled up with Nebuta this year so we missed it)
Morioka Sansa Odori Matsuri - August 1-4
Akita Kanto Matsuri - August 3-6
Aomori Nebuta Matsuri - August 2-7
Yamagata Hanagasa Matsuri - August 5-7 (it also doubled up with Nebuta so we missed this one too)
Sendai Tanabata Matsuri - August 6-8
It's a hectic, whirlwind trip of the north, and it seems like were not the only ones making the most of these festivals lining up as accommodation in these cities books out way in advance, sometimes over a year in advance! To combat this we had the perfect solution; hire a motor home!
We would drive from city to city, scoping out convenience stores that we could subtly park in (or not so subtly seeing as we were trying to sneak our massive motor home into one of their limited parking spaces) for free for the night. This allowed us easy access to snacks and the amenities; the perfect campsite! As the motor home also didn't have a shower, this left us no option but to indulge in the local onsen we would find along our travels from city to city, leading to some interesting encounters with shocked obaachans who were probably seeing the first ever foreigner that'd stepped foot into their local onsen!
We learned that only 1% of all foreign visitors to Japan venture north into the Tohoku region, so everywhere we went we were greeted with broad smiles, free drinks, and invites to take part in the best matsuri in Japan! So this is the story of how 7 of us crammed ourselves into a motor home, drove over 2300km and visited 6 prefectures in one week, and had some of the most fun in our lives!
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