Choose your hotel by its train line before its room: in Tokyo, the station nearest your door sets how easily you get around.
View on globeNinety seconds on Tokyo
Three to four days. One goes to the west side (Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku), one to the east (Sensō-ji, Ueno, Yanaka), and the rest to museums, gardens or a day out to Mount Takao.
By train, paid with a Suica or PASMO card, which went back on sale as a physical card in March 2025 and also runs in Apple Wallet. JR, Tokyo Metro and Toei are separate operators, and the card settles the fare across all three. Since March 2026 a contactless bank card or phone can also be tapped at Metro and Toei gates, though not on JR lines such as the Yamanote. Last trains leave around midnight.
Late March to early April for the cherry blossom, which reaches full bloom around 31 March on average, and late November to early December for the autumn leaves. Golden Week, from late April to early May, is crowded and booked out, the rainy season runs from early June to mid July, and July and August are hot and humid.
Japanese. Stations, trains and airports carry English signage, so the main train and subway network can be used without it. English is patchier in small restaurants and shops, where a translation app and a picture menu cover most of it.
The Japanese yen. Cards are taken in hotels, department stores, chains and convenience stores, but small restaurants, shrines and market stalls often take cash only. ATMs at 7-Eleven and Japan Post accept foreign cards, and tipping is not customary.
Haneda HND is the closer of the two: the Keikyu line reaches Shinagawa in about 15 minutes and the monorail runs to Hamamatsuchō. Narita NRT is about 60 kilometres east, and the Skyliner reaches Ueno in about 40 minutes, the Narita Express Tokyo Station in about 55.
Shinjuku puts you on the most train lines and the latest nights, at the cost of noise and a long ride to either airport. Asakusa and Ueno are quiet after dark and a straight run from Narita. Ginza, or Marunouchi beside Tokyo Station, is the calm central choice for a first or last night.
Put Meiji Shrine, Harajuku and Shibuya on one day and Sensō-ji, Ueno Park and the lanes of Yanaka on another; criss-crossing the city costs an hour a day on trains. Sensō-ji is quietest after dark, when the halls are lit. Keep a morning for the Tsukiji outer market too, because its stalls wind down by early afternoon.
Book the things with timed tickets before you fly. The Ghibli Museum, teamLab and the sunset slots at Shibuya Sky all sell out, some within hours of release. Check the calendar as well: many museums close on Mondays, and the Imperial Palace East Gardens close on both Mondays and Fridays.
Keep suitcases off rush-hour trains. Hotels and convenience stores will forward luggage to your next hotel for the following day, which is the easy way to change base halfway through. Carry a bag for your rubbish, because public bins are rare.
Two cities meet at the station with the heaviest passenger traffic on earth: skyscrapers and the city government's twin towers on the west side, and on the east a grid of department stores, arcades, izakaya alleys and the neon of Kabukichō. Trains run from here to almost everywhere, Hakone and Mount Takao included. The station has more than two hundred exits, so agree on the exit when arranging to meet.
Youth fashion, record shops and the scramble crossing define this district south of Harajuku, rebuilt around its station over the last decade with a ring of glass towers. Dōgenzaka climbs west into a knot of clubs and small live-music venues, and Center Gai is the teenage shopping lane. It is loudest on Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings are nearly empty.
Two moods sit either side of the station: the forest of Meiji Shrine to the west, and to the east Takeshita Street, a narrow lane of crêpe stands, costume shops and teenage fashion that jams solid at weekends. Omotesandō, a boulevard of zelkova trees and architect-designed flagships, leads toward Aoyama, and the back lanes of Ura-Harajuku hold the smaller labels.
Flagship stores and department stores line Chūō-dōri, which closes to traffic on weekend afternoons and becomes a wide promenade. Under the big stores are the depachika, basement food halls selling wagashi, bento and gift fruit. Tsukiji's outer market and the Kabuki-za are within a short walk and Tokyo Station is one stop away, which makes this an easy, quiet base.
A rail hub on the northern side of the Yamanote loop, with the city's biggest cluster of museums in the park above the station and the Ameyoko market street under the tracks below it. The Skyliner from Narita terminates here. Hotels are plentiful and good value and the streets quieten early. Yanaka's old lanes begin about fifteen minutes north on foot.
Early, before the Nakamise stalls open at nine, you can walk Asakusa from the Thunder Gate to the Sumida River with the old quarter almost to yourself. On the way are Tokyo's oldest temple, a Shinto shrine and a riverside park of cherry trees.
Two gates, a long street of stalls and a main hall wreathed in incense smoke: a weekday walk is quieter than a weekend one.
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Stepping off Omotesandō, you reach a private collection of Japanese and East Asian art that holds seven National Treasures, with a hillside garden of stone paths and teahouses behind it.
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The fastest way into Japanese art is one morning here: a single floor that takes you through it in order, then a spotlit room of small gilt Buddhas from the Horyuji temple.
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Walking from the cherry trees of Yanaka Cemetery down to a street of fried snacks shows you the old downtown Tokyo of shopfronts, temple walls and quiet lanes.
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Ameyoko is a loud, packed open-air market under the railway, and you can eat your way down it, from sashimi on a stick to oysters shucked while you wait.
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Unmissable from the island teahouse, where you look across the pond to the glass towers of Shiodome, in a garden laid out for the shoguns on the mouth of the Sumida.
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Bring an empty bag. Nearly every shop here sells single pieces to anyone who walks in, not only to trade buyers, so the restaurant trade's equipment is yours to buy one item at a time.
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Cross with the crowd on one green signal, then go up a few floors and watch the next wave fill the junction below you.
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At many stalls here fish and shellfish are grilled to order in front of you, and a hot skewer of rolled omelette from the shop next door is the snack most visits start with.
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From Sunday lunchtime the cars are gone from Chuo-dori and you walk down the middle of Tokyo's anime and games district, between towers of figures and old consoles, with the parts stalls still trading under the railway.
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Hayao Miyazaki designed this small museum in Mitaka as a house to get lost in: spiral stairs, low doors, a rooftop robot and a cinema showing shorts made for this room alone. Photography is banned inside. Tickets are sold for a fixed date and entry time, in advance only and never at the door, and each month's batch goes within hours of release.
A long pond edged with cherry trees, rowing boats and swan pedal boats lies at the heart of this park in Kichijōji, west of the centre on the Chūō Line. Buskers and craft stalls line the paths at weekends. The Ghibli Museum stands in the park's western woods, and the shopping streets of Kichijōji run up from the pond toward the station.
Stepping stones cross the large pond of this landscape garden in Kōtō, where turtles and carp gather under the paths and herons stand on the rocks. Stones were shipped in from across Japan to build it. The coffee roasters of Kiyosumi-Shirakawa and the Museum of Contemporary Art are a short walk away, which makes a quiet east-side half day. Entry is ticketed.
A planted forest of around a hundred thousand trees, donated from every prefecture when the shrine was dedicated in 1920, now hides Harajuku station completely. Gravel paths pass under cypress torii to a courtyard where Shinto weddings cross in procession most weekend mornings. The shrine opens at sunrise and closes at sunset, so the hours move with the season.
Forest trails climb this 599-metre mountain at the western edge of Tokyo, about fifty minutes from Shinjuku on the Keiō Line. A cable car and a chairlift carry walkers halfway, and the paths continue past Yakuōin temple to a summit that looks toward Fuji on clear days. November weekends are crowded for the maples; a weekday in spring or autumn is calmer.
Vermilion torii gates form a short tunnel up the hillside at this shrine in Bunkyō, a smaller version of the celebrated run at Fushimi Inari. The lacquered main buildings date from 1706 and came through the wartime bombing intact. In April and early May several thousand azaleas flower on the slope below the gates, and a festival fills the grounds.
A pair of narrow alleys pressed against the tracks by Shinjuku's west exit, lined with yakitori counters of six or eight stools under strings of lanterns. Smoke from the grills fills the lanes by early evening. Most counters post a menu outside and many take cash only. A drink and a few skewers at one counter, then a move to the next, is the usual way through.
After the shrine's three great mikoshi (portable shrines) leave at seven on the Sunday morning, stand on Kaminarimon-dori, the wide avenue in front of the temple's main gate. You get a clear view of each one as it passes.
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An open-air rooftop on Shibuya Scramble Square, about 230 metres above the crossing, with glass walls, hammocks and nothing overhead. The view runs from the Shinjuku towers to Tokyo Tower and, on clear winter days, to Fuji. Entry is on timed tickets and the sunset slots sell out days ahead. Bags, hats and tripods go in lockers before the roof.
Vintage clothing is the draw in this low-rise neighbourhood a few minutes from Shibuya on the Keiō Inokashira Line, sold from dozens of secondhand shops in the lanes around the station. Small theatres and basement live houses keep it busy after dark. A park and a strip of shops called Reload run along the old Odakyū railway line, which went underground in 2013.
Fifty-eight hectares of former imperial garden, ten minutes on foot from the busiest station on earth. Three styles share the ground: a Japanese stroll garden with teahouses, a formal French avenue of plane trees and an open English lawn. Late-flowering cherries stretch the blossom season well into April. Entry is ticketed, alcohol and ball games are banned, and the gates shut in late afternoon.
Visitors walk barefoot through this immersive digital art museum in Toyosu, wading knee-deep through water lit with projected koi and passing through rooms of mirrored light and a garden of floating orchids. Shorts or rolled trousers help, and lockers wait at the entrance. Entry is by timed ticket, and popular slots sell out, so book ahead.
The emperor's residence occupies the site of Edo Castle, seat of the shoguns until 1868, and the moats and cut-stone walls are the castle's own. The East Gardens are free and contain the foundation of a keep that burned in 1657 and was never rebuilt. They close on Mondays and Fridays. The inner grounds are seen only on a guided walk, reserved online in advance.
Kenzo Tange's twin-towered city hall of 1991 carries a free observation room on the forty-fifth floor, about two hundred metres up. The view runs over the Shinjuku towers to the bay one way and toward Fuji the other, on the days the mountain shows. It stays open into the evening. Bags are checked at the ground floor lift, and the queue is shortest before ten.
The broadcasting tower across the Sumida stands 634 metres, a figure chosen because it can be read aloud as Musashi, the old name for this province. Two decks sit at 350 and 450 metres, the upper one a glass ramp that spirals a full turn. Fuji shows on clear winter mornings and almost never in summer haze. Timed tickets sell out at sunset; book that slot ahead.
Painted in white and international orange, the 333-metre broadcast tower is still the city's familiar landmark after dark, lit white in summer and warm orange from October. The main deck sits at 150 metres and a smaller top deck at 250 is visited on a timed ticket. On some days the six hundred outdoor steps to the main deck are open, a steep but steady climb.
The wholesale fish and produce market moved here from Tsukiji in 2018, and visitors watch the pre-dawn tuna auction through the glass of a gallery above the floor. A lower observation deck with a closer view is allocated by lottery. Sushi counters inside open at dawn for breakfast. It closes on Sundays, holidays and some Wednesdays, and the action is over by mid-morning.
A temple precinct until a battle in 1868 burned most of it, then one of the country's first public parks. Four major museums, a concert hall and the zoo now stand among the trees. In early April the central avenue of cherries draws picnic parties that stake out ground sheets from dawn. Lotus covers Shinobazu pond through August, flowering in the morning.
Open lawns and a ginkgo avenue fill the ground beside Meiji Shrine, and at weekends the park turns into the city's playground: drummers, dancers, buskers by the Harajuku gate, and picnics under the cherries in spring. Food fairs and festivals take over the event plaza on many summer and autumn weekends. Weekday mornings belong to joggers.
Buy a single-act ticket on the day for one play at Tokyo's home of kabuki, where actors walk the hanamichi runway through the audience, and skip the rest of the long programme.
View more →Two minutes' walk from the Tokyo National Museum, so pick one unless the whole morning is free.
Life-size reconstructions fill this museum in Ryōgoku, beginning with a full-scale half of the Nihonbashi bridge that visitors walk across into the old city: a kabuki theatre front, models of the castle and its palaces, a row house. It reopened in March 2026 after four years of renovation. The sumo arena stands next door, which makes one easy east-side morning.
Hundreds of white beckoning-cat figures, each with one paw raised, crowd the shelves beside a small hall at this Setagaya temple, left by visitors whose wishes came true. The temple claims the maneki-neko legend as its own. New figures are sold at the temple office, which shuts in late afternoon, and the grounds are about ten minutes on foot from Gōtokuji station.
Office workers and shop owners from Akihabara and Nihonbashi come to this shrine to pray for business, and it sells charms that protect electronics alongside the usual ones for luck. The vermilion gate and hall stand at the top of a short climb from Ochanomizu. The Kanda Matsuri, one of the city's three great festivals, fills the streets in mid-May of odd-numbered years.
Beside Tokyo Dome, this walled garden packs miniature Chinese and Japanese landscapes around a central pond: a full-moon bridge, a small rice paddy, a hill modelled on a famous mountain. Plum trees flower in February and the maples turn in late November. Entry is ticketed, the stadium's roar is sometimes audible over the wall, and weekday mornings are quiet.
Contemporary art exhibitions change several times a year at this museum on the fifty-third floor of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, and one ticket also covers the Tokyo City View deck below it. It stays open until ten at night on most days, so it pairs well with an evening in Roppongi. There is no permanent collection, so check what is showing.
The upper floors of a 1960s shopping and apartment complex above Nakano station, a few minutes from Shinjuku on the Chūō Line, have become a warren of small shops dealing in secondhand manga, vintage toys, figures, watches and collectable cards. Collectors who find Akihabara too picked over come here for rarer stock. Most shops open around noon, so a morning visit finds the shutters down.
Down a lane just off Omotesandō, this small museum is devoted entirely to ukiyo-e woodblock prints, drawn from a collection of about fourteen thousand. Exhibitions change monthly and the doors close for a few days between shows, so check the calendar first. The rooms are small and hushed, a sharp change from Takeshita Street a few minutes away. Closed on Mondays.
An Edo-period stroll garden in Komagome, laid out around a pond and a small hill as a sequence of scenes from classical poetry. A weeping cherry near the entrance draws evening crowds when it is lit in late March, and the maples are lit again in late November. Entry is ticketed, the paths are gentle, and a teahouse by the water serves matcha.
Three of the six annual Grand Sumo tournaments are held in this arena in Ryōgoku, in January, May and September, each lasting fifteen days. Lower divisions wrestle from the morning and the top division enters the ring in late afternoon. Tickets go on sale about a month ahead and sell out quickly. Outside tournament months the chanko restaurants nearby keep the sport visible.
Six alleys of two-storey wooden shacks, a block that survived the redevelopment which flattened everything around it, hold some two hundred bars. Most seat fewer than ten. A number welcome regulars only and say so on the door; others post an English menu and a seating charge outside. Things start late, around nine in the evening. Photographing the alleys is discouraged and signed as such.
A low, sharply faceted aluminium building by Kazuyo Sejima houses this museum in Sumida, the district where Katsushika Hokusai was born and spent most of his life. The permanent room uses high-resolution reproductions and touch screens, so the prints stay on view all year, while originals appear in rotating exhibitions. It closes on Mondays.
Projected artworks drift from room to room through this dark museum at Azabudai Hills, which has no map, and getting lost among them is part of the design. The lamp room and the tea house, where a digital flower blooms in the bowl, keep their own queues. It reopened here in 2024 after closing at its first site in Odaiba. Timed tickets sell out, so book ahead.
Tokyo Tower rises directly behind the main hall of this large Buddhist temple in Shiba Park, which makes the pairing a standard photograph. The Sangedatsumon gate at the entrance is one of the few wooden structures in the area to have come through the war. Rows of small stone jizō statues in red knitted caps, each with a pinwheel, line a garden for unborn children.
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