Hello all!

I am new to the site, but have been watching the YouTube videos for awhile now. I have recently decided to take the leap and take a trip to Japan. However, I have never been outside of the country before. Heck, I have never even planned a trip before. So, I have come to this site to seek the wisdom of those who have much more experience in this matter than I do.

First, some background information:
This trip will be done sometime in the middle of July.
There will be two people on this trip.
The trip will be a total of 2 weeks long.
One of us (the other person) knows next-to-nothing in Japanese.
I know a little bit, but not near enough to hold an actual conversation, though I am still pushing myself to learn the language.
We want the freedom to explore the country as we wish, so homestay would be a no.
We would prefer the Japanese-styled rooms (ryokan?) so we can get a better feel of Japanese culture.
We would like to go to at least Tokyo and Kyoto, but want an equal balance of modern Japan vs traditional Japan.

I was originally looking for something in the Shizouka prefecture near Kakegawa, since it is between Kyoto and Tokyo and near the J-Rail. However, I have just recently been thinking instead of having a "home base" of sorts, we could just stay in different cities on different nights. But then again, I am not sure on any of this.

ANY help, advice, criticism, etc would be very much appreciated.