Tokyo in Four Days, by Neighbourhood

The mistake most first-time visitors make in Tokyo is treating it as a city with a list of attractions. It is not. It is roughly forty small cities that grew into each other, each with its own station, its own high street, its own crowd and its own hour of the day when it is at its best.

Plan Tokyo as a list of sights and you will spend four days on trains, ticking things off, and leave with the impression that Tokyo is enormous and grey. Plan it by district and you spend your days walking, eating and noticing. I live here and run our office here. This is how I would use four days.

The districts, and what each one is for

Shibuya and Shimokitazawa. Youth, noise, small bars, secondhand clothes, live music. Shibuya is the Tokyo of the photographs, and Shimokitazawa, four minutes away on the Keio line, is what Shibuya was before the developers arrived.

Shinjuku. The one that overwhelms people. The busiest station on earth, a skyscraper district, Kabukicho’s neon, and Golden Gai’s alleys of six-seat bars. Also Shinjuku Gyoen, which is the best large garden in central Tokyo.

Harajuku and Omotesando. Two things at once. Takeshita Street is teenage fashion and crowds. Omotesando, three minutes away, is a boulevard of architecture by Ando, SANAA and Herzog and de Meuron, with the best coffee in the city on the side streets.

Daikanyama, Nakameguro and Ebisu. The residential southwest. Low buildings, a canal lined with cherry trees, independent shops, bakeries, wine bars. This is where Tokyo goes when it is not working.

Asakusa and Yanaka. Old Tokyo, or what survived. Asakusa is the temple district and it is busy. Yanaka, twenty minutes north, is a low-rise neighbourhood of wooden houses, a cemetery full of cherry trees and cats, and almost no foreign visitors.

Ginza, Marunouchi and Nihonbashi. The grown-up centre. Department stores, galleries, the best sushi counters, the Imperial Palace gardens, and the depachika food halls in the basements.

Kuramae and Kiyosumi. East of the river. Craft workshops, coffee roasters, small design studios, a good garden. The quietest interesting part of central Tokyo.

Akihabara. Electronics, anime, games. Genuinely interesting if you care about any of those things and dull if you do not. There is no middle position.

The honest verdicts

We would rather tell you what to skip than pad the days.

Worth the time

Meiji Jingu, before 9am. A forest of 100,000 donated trees in the middle of the city, and at that hour it is nearly empty and completely silent.
Senso-ji in Asakusa, before 8am or after 8pm. In the middle of the day it is a queue. At either end of the day it is a temple.
The Shinjuku Gyoen and the Imperial Palace East Gardens. Both are large, both are calm, both are cheap or free.
teamLab, whichever installation is running. Book weeks ahead, go on a weekday, and go even if you think you are too old for it. You are not.
Tsukiji outer market, mid-morning. The inner wholesale market moved to Toyosu, but the outer market is still there, still working, and still the best casual eating in the city before noon.
Shibuya Sky at sunset, or the free observation decks of the Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku if you would rather not pay.
An evening in Golden Gai or Omoide Yokocho. Six seats, one owner, a cover charge of a few dollars. Go with the expectation of talking to strangers.
The Nezu Museum and its garden, which almost no visitor reaches and which is the most peaceful hour available in Aoyama.

We would skip

Tokyo Skytree. The tallest tower, the longest queue, and the view is of Tokyo without the Skytree in it. Shibuya Sky is better and Tokyo Tower is more photogenic from below than from above.
Toyosu tuna auction. A 4am start, a viewing gallery behind glass, and you watch it at a distance through a window. It made sense at old Tsukiji when you stood in the market. It does not now.
Odaiba. An artificial island of shopping malls, forty minutes each way, with nothing you cannot get better elsewhere.
Roppongi at night. The daytime version, the Mori Art Museum and the Suntory Museum, is much better.
Takeshita Street, more than once and more than fifteen minutes.
The themed restaurants and robot shows. Expensive, loud, and not what anybody remembers about their trip.

The one that divides opinion: Shibuya Crossing. It is genuinely worth seeing, for about five minutes, from the second floor window of the Starbucks or the walkway above. It is not worth an hour.

The four-day shape

Each day here is one part of the city plus a walk, which keeps train time low. Tokyo days work best with a firm morning and a loose afternoon.

Day one: the west side, Shibuya to Harajuku

Start at Meiji Jingu at opening, walking in through the big torii while the gravel path is still empty. Come out at the Harajuku end, cross Takeshita Street briskly, and turn onto Omotesando to walk the architecture, slowly, with a coffee stop on Cat Street.

Lunch in Aoyama. Afternoon at the Nezu Museum, then down the hill into Shibuya as it fills up. See the crossing, from above, for five minutes. Then get out of central Shibuya and eat in the small streets behind it, or take the four-minute train to Shimokitazawa and spend the evening there, which is what I would do.

Day two: the old east, Yanaka to Asakusa to Kuramae

Start in Yanaka, early, walking the cemetery and the low streets before the shops open. Yanaka Ginza for a mid-morning snack, then down through Ueno Park, which is worth a walk but not a whole morning, and whose museums are worth a whole morning if you like museums.

Afternoon in Asakusa, arriving after the tour groups have thinned. Then walk south along the river to Kuramae and Kiyosumi for coffee, craft shops and the garden. Dinner east of the river, where prices drop and the food does not.

Day three: a day out, or a day of depth

Two good options and they suit different people.

Out of the city. Kamakura is 55 minutes from Tokyo station, has the great bronze Buddha, a dozen temples in the hills, walking trails between them and a beach. It is the best day trip from Tokyo by a distance. Nikko is grander and further, two hours each way, and it is genuinely spectacular in autumn. Hakone we would rather you did as an overnight with a ryokan than as a day trip.

Into the city. Ginza and Marunouchi in the morning, the Imperial Palace East Gardens at midday, a depachika lunch assembled from the basement counters at Mitsukoshi or Isetan, and an afternoon of galleries. Then teamLab in the evening if you booked it.

Day four: your own Tokyo

By day four you know which version of the city you like, so this is the day to go back to it rather than to see something new.

If you liked the small streets: Nakameguro along the canal, Daikanyama for the bookshop, Ebisu for dinner. If you liked the noise: Akihabara in the afternoon, Shinjuku in the evening, Golden Gai after. If you liked the food: Tsukiji outer market in the morning, a serious sushi lunch, and a booked counter dinner. If you have children: a morning at the Ghibli Museum or Ghibli Park, both of which need tickets bought a month ahead, which is exactly the kind of thing we handle. See Japan with children in 12 days.

Practical notes from the office

Where to stay. Neighbourhood matters more than star rating in Tokyo, because the walk home is part of the trip. Shinjuku for transport and energy. Ginza or Marunouchi for calm and for being able to walk to dinner. Shibuya for youth and noise. Yanaka, Kuramae or Nakameguro for a residential stay, which is what I recommend to returning visitors. Avoid staying near Tokyo Station itself, which is convenient and dead in the evenings.

Getting around. The Yamanote loop line and the Metro cover almost everything. Buy a Suica or Pasmo card and stop thinking about tickets. A nationwide rail pass does very little for you inside Tokyo, which is one of several reasons the pass maths has changed. See is the Japan Rail Pass still worth it?

Timing. Tokyo’s great sites are entirely different places at 7.30am and at 1pm. The single highest-value habit on a Tokyo trip is getting up early and taking the middle of the day slowly.

Reservations. The counters worth eating at seat eight to ten people and take bookings by phone, in Japanese, often exactly thirty days ahead. This is the most concrete thing our office does for clients. Tell us what you want to eat and we will make the calls.

How many days. Three is the minimum for a first visit. Four is right. Five is comfortable if Tokyo is the point of the trip. More than five and we would move you to Kyoto and bring you back at the end, which is how classic Japan in 14 days is built.

Plan this trip

Tell us what kind of city person you are and a Japan specialist will build the Tokyo days around it, book the restaurants that need a Japanese phone number, and put the rest of the country around it. The first outline is free.

Start planning

Keep reading

Frequently asked questions

Is four days enough for Tokyo?

For a first visit, yes, if you plan it by district. It is not enough to see everything, but nothing is, and trying is the mistake.

Should we do Tokyo at the start or the end of a Japan trip?

Usually both, briefly. Two or three days on arrival while jet lag has you awake at 5am, which suits early mornings, and one at the end for shopping and a last dinner.

Do we need a guide in Tokyo?

For one day, often yes, because the layers of a district are hard to see alone. For four days, no.

How much should we budget per day in Tokyo?

Roughly the same as the national figures in our cost breakdown, with hotels at the higher end of each band and food at the lower. —

East Asia

Southeast Asia

South Asia

Central Asia and the Caucasus

Beyond Asia

Not sure where?

Tokyo in four days, by neighbourhood rather than by sight