For travellers
Tokyo · Japan
Thirteen million people, the world's best public transport, and the best eating on earth at every price point.
Tokyo is less overwhelming than it looks, because the system works. Trains are punctual to the minute, signage is bilingual, and every neighbourhood is a small city with its own character. The trick is to pick two areas a day and go deep — Asakusa's temples in the morning, Shinjuku's neon at night — and to eat wherever there is a queue of people on their lunch break.
6 things worth building a day around in Tokyo.
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Photo: Wikimedia1Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 645, at the end of a lantern-lined shopping street. At 7am it is almost empty; by 10am it is a crowd.
Local tip: The temple grounds are open around the clock even when the halls are not. Early morning and after dark are the two good times.
1–2 hours · free
Up to 3,000 people cross at once under enormous screens. It is the shot everyone comes for and it genuinely delivers.
Local tip: Watch from the Starbucks window above it, or from the free Shibuya Scramble observation deck at Mag's Park.
30 minutes · free
Photo: Wikimedia3Ramen from a ticket machine, standing sushi, a six-seat tempura bar. Solo eating is normal, quick and the best value in the city.
Local tip: Buy the ticket at the machine first, hand it over, sit down. Slurping is fine; tipping is not done.
¥900–2,000
Photo: Wikimedia4A vast shrine in a forest of 100,000 donated trees, a few minutes' walk from Harajuku's teenage chaos.
Local tip: Enter through the great torii gate at Harajuku and walk the gravel path slowly — the transition from the city is the point.
1–2 hours · free
The depachika in the basement of any big department store: two floors of immaculate prepared food, sweets and free samples.
Local tip: Go an hour before closing when the prepared food is discounted. Isetan Shinjuku and Mitsukoshi are the classics.
1 hour · ¥1,000–3,000
Hakone for hot springs and a view of Fuji, Kamakura for the Great Buddha and the coast, Nikko for shrines in the mountains.
Local tip: Hakone and Kamakura are both about an hour. Buy the relevant area pass at the departure station and use it all day.
Full day · ¥2,000–6,000
The dishes and places that make Tokyo taste like itself.
Regional styles everywhere: tonkotsu, shoyu, miso, tsukemen. Order at the vending machine by the door and hand the ticket over.
Conveyor-belt sushi is genuinely good and costs very little. A counter omakase is one of the great meals of a lifetime.
Small plates, cold beer, sitting under a railway arch. Yakitori in Yurakucho or Omoide Yokocho in Shinjuku.
Tip: Many charge a small seating fee and bring a snack you did not order. That is normal, not a mistake.
Which part of Tokyo suits the trip you are taking.
Neon, nightlife, the busiest station on earth
Best for: First-timers, nightlife, transit
The crossing, shopping, youth culture
Best for: Younger travellers, shopping
Old-Tokyo temples and traditional streets
Best for: Culture, first-timers
Low-rise, cafés, vintage, canal-side
Best for: Longer stays, local feel
1603
Tokugawa Ieyasu makes Edo his seat of government; within a century it is one of the largest cities in the world.
1868
The Meiji Restoration moves the emperor from Kyoto and Edo is renamed Tokyo — 'eastern capital'.
1923
The Great Kantō earthquake and the fires that follow destroy much of the city and kill over 100,000 people.
1945
Firebombing devastates Tokyo again; the postwar rebuilding produces the city's low-rise, dense street pattern.
1964
The Tokyo Olympics: the Shinkansen opens, the expressways are built, and Japan announces its recovery.
Now
The largest metropolitan area on earth, at around 37 million people, and one of the safest.
Shinjuku Station handles well over three million passengers a day and is the busiest railway station in the world.
Tokyo has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any other city, and has for most of the guide's time in Japan.
There are more than 12,000 vending machines per square mile in some districts — hot coffee, cold tea, soup, all working at 3am.
Trains are so punctual that operators issue delay certificates to passengers when a service runs late.
Almost none of the streets have names: addresses work by district, block and building number, which is why everyone navigates by landmark and app.
Not a schedule — a shape for the days, clustered so you are not crossing Tokyo twice.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Buy a Suica or PASMO IC card at any station — or add one to your phone — and tap in and out. Google Maps names the exact platform and exit, which matters at stations with forty of them. Trains stop around midnight and restart around 5am; know your last train.
Late March to April for cherry blossom and October to November for autumn colour are the two best and busiest windows. Summer is hot and humid; winter is cold, clear and much quieter. Golden Week in early May fills the whole country.
Cards are widely accepted but cash still matters at small restaurants and shrines. Do not tip — it is not done and can cause confusion. Take your rubbish with you; public bins are rare.
Get a Suica or PASMO IC card, tap in and out at the gates, and let a maps app route you — it names the platform and the exit. Trains are punctual and stop around midnight.
Signage in major areas is bilingual and station staff can usually help. Away from the centre, a translation app is genuinely useful — and a few words of Japanese are appreciated everywhere.
Less than you used to, but yes — small restaurants, shrines and older shops are still cash-only. Convenience store ATMs accept foreign cards reliably.
Five is a sensible minimum, and you will still leave a great deal undone. Add two or three more if you want Kyoto or a proper onsen trip.
Tours, tickets and day trips with real prices, durations and cancellation terms.
Japan's minpaku law caps private-home rentals at 180 nights a year — and individual Tokyo wards narrow that further.
Lisbon
Seven hills, tiled facades and a light that photographers travel for. Wear shoes you can climb in.
London
Two thousand years of city, most of the best museums free, and a park always within ten minutes' walk.
Los Angeles
Eighty neighbourhoods pretending to be a city, with mountains at one end and the Pacific at the other. Pick two a day, maximum.
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