Well, first of all, I did the same thing back in 2022. My paternal ancestors also came from North Rhine-Westphalia, from a small town called Ostbevern, which is about an hour north of Münster. They left Germany through Bremen and then through Bremerhaven.
Like you, I did a lot of research ahead of time, and I'm sure you know that many of the old churches in the German villages have their records online now, so you can look up baptismal and wedding records and much more.
There's a lot to see and do in North Rhine-Westphalia up here. I love the countryside there and found it a charming place. It might be easier to base yourself in one of the cities around there, like Bielefeld and then take day trips to the different towns. Some of the villages you mention only have a few hundred people living there, so it might be hard to find accommodations. If you're looking for family, you might want to go on familysearch.org. That's how I found some distant cousins in Germany, and I actually was able to meet up with them when I went there in 2022. It was really interesting, and I had a great time meeting with them.
To find them in Family Search, you just need to go into your family tree on familysearch.org and look to see who is adding records in there. That's how I found my distant cousin. We started communicating before I left and then made arrangements to meet up while there. Family Search is free, if you haven't used it yet.
I would suggest that if you have time, you try and pick up some German. That area has a lot of older people, who do not speak much English.
I would also try and go to the town websites ahead of time and see what you can find there. Most villages and towns in Germany have websites, and they're easy to find just by adding .de to the village's German name. When I went there, I was lucky because there was a gentleman who had been volunteering his time to work on the town's history, especially the emigrants who left in the 1800s, which applied to my family. I actually met up with him and his wife and spent a lot of the weekend with them. They showed me the place where my great-great-grandfather lived before they emigrated, and they showed me the church where my great-great-great-grandfather was married and where all of his sons were baptized. I realized not every town will have that, and I got lucky there, but you never know.
Definitely pay a visit to Münster, as that is a beautiful city with a gorgeous cathedral and a lot of history there. Hamburg, of course, is a really interesting city. The area is quite beautiful and very peaceful and great for walking and biking if you do any of that.
