General Differences between へ and に


So this is a total re-write of my question.

Outside of uses that include travel, walking, riding, driving, going or
returning or any other form of travelling and moving;

What cases would it be appropriate to use へ vs に or に vs へ?




The only difference is that へ can be combined with の like 学校への道 (a way to the
school) while に can't.

Other than that, they don't have semantic difference. In contexts where it's
accompanied with motion verbs like your examples, they don't specify which
connotation it is as you assumed.

On the other hand, に has its inherent sense or feel, which makes us imagine
that something attaches **on** the object. へ derives from a noun which means
"side" and it focuses on direction rather than destination. So, if the verb in
a sentence is left out, people tend to assume different verbs according to
each particle. For example, 明日へ sounds like continuing to 向{む}かう while what I
first associate with 明日に is 延{の}ばす. However, once the predicate is determined,
that's another story.

