Tokyo Travel Guide

Start with what Tokyo is famous for, because it is famous for good reason. Shinjuku at night is one of the greatest urban spectacles on earth. The east exit leads into Kabukicho, Tokyo’s entertainment district, an overwhelming wall of neon, noise, and movement. Izakayas spill onto the pavements. Yakitori smoke drifts from basement restaurants. The Golden Gai district, a network of tiny alleys packed with bars that hold no more than eight people each, has been here since the 1940s. Each one has its own personality, its own regulars, its own handwritten menu.

Akihabara, the electronics and anime district east of central Tokyo, is a different kind of spectacle. Multi-storey buildings are given entirely over to video games, manga, and components for things that do not yet exist. It is bizarre, fascinating, and entirely Tokyo – a place that commits completely to whatever it decides to be.

Every good Tokyo travel guide tells you about Senso-ji, the great Buddhist temple in Asakusa. It is magnificent and deservedly famous. But arrive at six in the morning, before the tourist coaches, and it is a different place entirely. Incense smoke rises through still air. Monks move through the grounds. A few elderly locals make their morning prayers. This is the Tokyo that exists in parallel with the neon version, every day, if you are willing to wake up early enough for it.

Yanaka is the district most Tokyoites will name when you ask where the old city survived. Much of Tokyo was destroyed, first by the 1923 earthquake, then by the 1945 firebombing. Yanaka was largely spared both. Its narrow lanes, wooden shopfronts, and labyrinthine cemetery have an atmosphere of continuity that is rare in this city. The cemetery itself is worth an hour,  it is shaded, quiet, and full of extraordinary old graves. There are cats everywhere.

Meiji Jingu, the great Shinto shrine in the heart of Harajuku, sits inside 70 hectares of forested park. The contrast with the streets outside, where Takeshita-dori delivers Harajuku’s famous youth fashion scene in concentrated form, is total. One minute you are in a forest of camphor trees on a gravel path leading to one of Japan’s most important shrines. Next, you are surrounded by rainbow candyfloss and gothic Lolita fashion. That whiplash is Tokyo in miniature.

Tokyo rewards at least three or four full days. But it is also the gateway to the rest of Japan, and the country beyond the capital is as extraordinary as the city itself. Kyoto, two and a half hours by Shinkansen, offers the temples, geisha districts, and ancient culture that form Japan’s other great travel identity. The Japanese Alps, accessible from Matsumoto in under two hours, provide mountain scenery and traditional village life that most Tokyo travel guides overlook.

And further north, Hokkaido – Japan’s wild, sparsely populated northern island, offers a completely different Japan again. Wilderness, wildlife, winter landscapes, and some of the country’s finest food. It is where the standard Tokyo travel guide usually ends. It is where the real adventure begins.

Ready to plan your trip? We design bespoke Japan itineraries that take you from Tokyo’s neon streets into the country’s wilder, quieter, less-visited places. Get in touch with the team to start planning.