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Japan · destination guide

Tokyo

Thirty centres, one timetable

Tokyo is less a single city than thirty district centres stitched together by the busiest rail network on earth, which is why where you base yourself matters more here than any list of sights.

Build an itinerary for Tokyo Browse 9 experiences, from $34
  • AirportsHND — 30 min to the centre · NRT — 60–90 min
  • CurrencyJapanese yen (JPY) · cards widely taken, cash still useful
  • LanguageJapanese · English signage on every rail line
  • Time zoneJST (UTC+9) · no daylight saving
  • Best forFirst-time Japan, food, contemporary culture
  • Typical stay3–4 nights
Overview

Tokyo, in three paragraphs.

Tokyo has no old town and no single centre. The 1923 earthquake and the 1945 firebombing took most of what was Edo, so the city rebuilt outward around its railway stations, and each of those stations grew its own downtown. Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ueno and Tokyo Station are all “the centre” to somebody. Understanding that is the difference between an efficient three days and a week spent on trains.

What survived, survived in fragments: Senso-ji in Asakusa, the Imperial Palace moat and its stone walls, the wooden shopfronts of Yanaka. The rest is a working modern city that happens to hold more Michelin stars than Paris and New York combined, and where a 400-yen bowl of soba eaten standing at a station counter is often better than lunch at four times the price.

For a first visit, three full days covers the east side (Asakusa, Ueno, Ginza), the west side (Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya) and one day out — Hakone for Mt Fuji, Nikko for the shrines, or Kamakura for the coast. Anything shorter is a transit stop; anything longer starts to reward the neighbourhoods rather than the sights.

Where to stay

  • ShinjukuThe transport heart — 3.5 million passengers a day — with the biggest hotel stock, the Golden Gai drinking alleys and the Metropolitan Government observation decks. Best for first visits and late arrivals.
  • ShibuyaYounger, steeper and more crowded, with the Scramble Crossing, the department-store food halls and the best rooftop view in the city. Good for shopping and nightlife, noisier for sleeping.
  • Ginza and MarunouchiFlagship stores, serious restaurants and the Imperial Palace moat on the doorstep, with Tokyo Station for the Shinkansen. The business choice, and the quietest central district at night.
  • Asakusa and YanakaLow-rise old Tokyo — temples, artisan shops, riverside. Cheaper, calmer and further from the west-side nightlife, with excellent metro links east and a twenty-minute ride to the centre.
  • Toyosu and the bayReclaimed waterfront: the fish market, teamLab Planets, the Odaiba beaches and the Yurikamome monorail. Family-friendly, spacious, and a genuinely good skyline view back across the water.
Best time to visit

When to send your clients.

Late March to early April for cherry blossom and late October to early December for autumn colour are the two windows worth planning around, and both are booked out months ahead. Mid-June to mid-July is the rainy season and mid-July to early September is genuinely uncomfortable — hot, humid and typhoon-prone. January and February are cold, dry and remarkably clear, and are the cheapest weeks of the year.

Spring · March–May

Sakura moves through Tokyo in the last week of March and the first week of April, give or take a week; Ueno Park, the Meguro River and Chidorigafuchi moat are the set pieces. Book eleven months out for those two weeks. Late April and the Golden Week holiday (29 April – 5 May) fill domestic hotels; May itself is the most pleasant month of the year, warm, dry and green, and far easier to sell.

Summer · June–August

The rainy season runs roughly 7 June to 20 July — not constant rain, but heavy showers and permanent humidity. From late July the city sits at 32–35°C with 70% humidity and tropical nights that do not drop below 26°C. Plan indoors for the middle of the day. Compensations are real: river fireworks, rooftop beer gardens, the Sumida festivals, and the lowest visitor numbers of the warm half of the year.

Autumn · September–November

September is still hot and is peak typhoon month; a storm closes the Shinkansen for a day or so once or twice a season. From early October the humidity breaks and the weather turns superb — dry, mild, clear — and holds until early December. Ginkgo at Meiji Jingu Gaien and the maples at Rikugien peak in the last ten days of November, two to three weeks after Kyoto.

Winter · December–February

Tokyo winters are cold but dry and extraordinarily sunny — Mt Fuji is visible from the Tokyo skyscrapers more often in January than in any other month. Daytime is 9–12°C, mornings near freezing, and snow falls perhaps twice a winter. New Year (29 December – 3 January) closes a great many restaurants and shops for several days; the shrines, by contrast, are at their busiest and most interesting.

Typical seasonal conditions

What the weather usually does.

These are typical seasonal conditions, not a forecast. The figures below are long-run climate averages — the normal daily high and low for each month in Tokyo. No weather service is connected to this site, and no date-specific prediction is made or implied. Tokyo has a humid subtropical climate: dry, sunny winters and hot, wet summers, with a distinct rainy season in June and a typhoon peak in September.

  • Jan 10°2° Cold, dry, very sunny; clearest Fuji views
  • Feb 11°3° Cold and dry; plum blossom from mid-month
  • Mar 14°6° Warming fast; cherry blossom from about the 25th
  • Apr 19°11° Mild and pleasant; blossom to green in two weeks
  • May 23°15° The best month — warm, dry, comfortable
  • Jun 26°19° Rainy season from about the 7th; humid
  • Jul 30°23° Rains end mid-month, then hot and very humid
  • Aug 31°25° Hottest month; tropical nights above 26°C
  • Sep 28°22° Still hot; peak typhoon month
  • Oct 22°16° Humidity breaks; dry, clear and excellent
  • Nov 17°10° Crisp and sunny; autumn colour late in the month
  • Dec 12°5° Cold, dry and bright; shortest days

Average daily high and low in degrees Celsius. Source: long-term climate normals. Conditions in any given week can and do differ.

Things to do

Worth your clients’ time in Tokyo.

Everything we contract here →
1

Senso-ji at seven in the morning

Tokyo’s oldest temple is a coach-tour conveyor belt from ten o’clock and a working neighbourhood shrine before eight. The Nakamise shopping street is shuttered at that hour, which is when you can actually see the painted panels on the shutters themselves. Enter through Kaminarimon, walk to the main hall, then turn left into the back lanes of Asakusa for breakfast.

2

The view from a free floor, not a paid one

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku has two observation decks at 202 metres and charges nothing. Skytree and Tokyo Tower charge and queue. If you want the paid version, Shibuya Sky is the one to buy — open-air, on the roof, timed entry, and the only deck that looks down onto the Scramble Crossing.

3

Eat standing up at least once

Tokyo’s best value is at counters: a tachigui soba stand inside a JR station, a tonkatsu specialist with eight seats, a tsukemen shop with a ticket machine at the door. Order from the machine, hand the ticket over, eat in fifteen minutes, leave. Lunch sets at serious restaurants run about a third of the dinner price for much the same kitchen.

4

Tsukiji outer market, not Toyosu

The wholesale auction moved to Toyosu in 2018 and the tuna auction there is now a viewing gallery behind glass. The outer market at Tsukiji stayed put and is the better visit — four hundred stalls of knives, dried bonito, tamagoyaki, uni and oyster bars, at their best between eight and ten in the morning.

5

teamLab and the art of the timed ticket

Both teamLab venues sell by timed slot and sell out days ahead in holiday periods. Planets in Toyosu is the one where you walk barefoot through water; Borderless in Azabudai Hills is the larger and more disorienting. Wear shorts or trousers that roll above the knee for Planets, and expect to be wet to mid-calf.

6

A day out of the city

Hakone gives Mt Fuji, an open-air sculpture museum, a pirate ship on a caldera lake and an onsen, on one loop ticket. Nikko gives the most elaborately carved shrine complex in Japan, two hours north. Kamakura gives a Great Buddha, a beach and a hiking trail, one hour south. All three are comfortable day trips on public rail.

Experiences

9 bookable experiences in Tokyo.

See all 9 →

Prices shown are per-person selling rates in USD — the figure your client pays. Sign in to view agent rates, availability calendars and instant booking.

Tours

Guided tours and day trips in Tokyo.

All 3 tours →
Getting around

How Tokyo actually works.

Metro and JR, with an IC card

Buy a Suica or Pasmo card on arrival (500-yen deposit) and stop thinking about fares. Most journeys cost 180–320 yen. Two operators run the subway — Tokyo Metro and Toei — and transferring between them costs extra, which is the only fare subtlety worth knowing.

The Yamanote line

The green loop line connects Tokyo, Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Shinagawa in a 35-minute circuit, with a train every two to four minutes. If a destination is on the Yamanote, take the Yamanote — it removes almost all navigation from the day.

Airport transfers

From Haneda the Keikyu line reaches Shinagawa in 13 minutes for 330 yen; a private sedan runs 30–45 minutes. From Narita the Skyliner reaches Ueno in 41 minutes for 2,570 yen, the Narita Express reaches Shinjuku in about 80 minutes, and a private car takes 60–90 minutes depending on the expressway.

Taxis

Clean, metered, and expensive: 500 yen for the first kilometre and roughly 100 yen per 250 metres after. Rear doors open automatically — do not touch them. Between midnight and 05:00 there is a 20% surcharge, and after the last train at about 00:30 they are the only option.

On foot

Tokyo rewards walking between adjacent stations rather than riding one stop. Harajuku to Shibuya, Ginza to Tokyo Station and Ueno to Asakusa are all fifteen to twenty-five minutes on flat, safe, well-lit pavement, and the ground-level city is where the interesting things are.

Travel tips

Things worth knowing first.

Carry some cash. Cards are accepted almost everywhere now, but small restaurants, shrines, some taxis and every coin locker still want yen. Seven-Eleven ATMs take foreign cards around the clock.
Luggage forwarding (takkyubin) costs about 2,000–2,500 yen per case and delivers hotel-to-hotel overnight. It is the single best trick in Japan: send the big bag to Kyoto and travel to Hakone with an overnight bag.
Trains stop. The last service on most lines is between 00:00 and 00:45 and the first is around 05:00 — plan the end of an evening around that, because taxis across the city can run 6,000–10,000 yen.
Reserve the famous restaurants before you fly. Counter sushi, kaiseki and the better yakitori take bookings one to three months ahead, and many will only take them through a hotel concierge or an agent.
Eating and drinking while walking is mildly frowned upon, and there are almost no public bins — a legacy of 1995. Finish what you buy near where you bought it, or carry the wrapper.
Tattoos still bar entry to many public baths and gyms. Ask before booking an onsen, or choose a ryokan with private baths, which are widely available and worth the supplement.
Frequently asked

Tokyo, answered.

Ask us something else →
How many days do I need in Tokyo?

Three full days is the honest minimum for a first visit — one for the east side, one for the west side, one for a day trip. Four lets you slow down and see a neighbourhood properly. Two is possible if you accept that you are sampling rather than seeing, and base yourself on the Yamanote loop.

Is a Japan Rail Pass worth it for Tokyo alone?

No. The pass is for intercity travel and is only worth it if you are covering something like Tokyo–Kyoto–Hiroshima and back within seven days. Inside Tokyo it covers only the JR lines, not the metro, and a Suica card is both cheaper and more flexible.

Do I need to speak Japanese?

No. Rail signage, ticket machines and most restaurant menus in central districts have English, and translation apps handle the rest. Away from the centre it thins out quickly, which is an argument for a guide on the first day rather than a reason to stay in.

When is cherry blossom, exactly?

Tokyo’s peak is usually 25 March to 5 April, but the forecast moves by up to ten days depending on February temperatures and is only reliable about three weeks ahead. Full bloom lasts about a week, less if it rains. Plan the trip for the window, not for a specific day.

Is Tokyo expensive?

Less than its reputation. Transport, lunch and convenience-store food are cheap by European standards; hotels and taxis are not. A good business hotel runs 18,000–30,000 yen a night, an excellent lunch 1,200–2,500 yen, and a Michelin-starred dinner whatever you are prepared to pay.

Can I visit Mt Fuji in a day from Tokyo?

Yes. Hakone and the Fuji Five Lakes are both two to two and a half hours each way, and a full-day private vehicle covers Lake Kawaguchiko, the Chureito Pagoda and a viewpoint on the fifth station road in summer. The mountain is visible on roughly four days in five between November and February, and fewer than one in three in summer.

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