Japan Rail Pass NowAustralia's No.1 Choice
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Japan Rail Pass NowAustralia's No.1 Choice
Tokyo is less a single city than a collection of small ones stitched together by rail. Roughly 37 million people live across its greater region, and yet the trains run to the second, the streets are quiet, and each district carries a completely different mood. Spend a morning among incense smoke and market stalls in Asakusa and an evening in the neon canyons of Shinjuku, and it is hard to believe the two sit twenty minutes apart.
This guide is written for travellers arriving with a few days to give Tokyo. It covers when to come, how to get in from the airport, how to move around once you are here, which neighbourhoods suit which kind of trip, what is genuinely worth your time, and the day trips that are easy to reach by train.
Tokyo works in any season, but the two windows most travellers aim for are late March to May and October to November. Both bring mild temperatures in the 15 to 25 degree range, low humidity and clear light. They are also the busiest and priciest months, which is the trade you are making.
Cherry blossom is the single biggest draw. The bloom usually lands in late March or early April and lasts little more than a week, and the exact timing shifts year to year with the weather. If your trip depends on it, build in flexibility rather than booking to a fixed date. Ueno Park, Shinjuku Gyoen, Chidorigafuchi along the Imperial Palace moat, and the Meguro River are the classic viewing spots, and all of them will be crowded.
| Season | What it is like | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Spring March to May |
Mild, bright, cherry blossom in late March and early April | Peak prices and peak crowds. Book accommodation months out |
| Summer June to August |
Hot and humid, often above 30 degrees. Rainy season through June and into July | Festival season. Late August can bring typhoons |
| Autumn September to November |
Comfortable temperatures, autumn colour peaking in November | Arguably the best all round month is November |
| Winter December to February |
Cold but dry, with plenty of clear days | Low season outside New Year. Best odds of seeing Mount Fuji from the observation decks |
Summer deserves a fairer hearing than it usually gets. Yes, the humidity is punishing by mid afternoon. It is also festival season, when neighbourhoods fill with food stalls, drumming and fireworks, and when the city feels at its most alive. Plan indoor stops for the middle of the day and save the walking for early morning and evening.
Winter is the quiet secret. Outside the New Year period the crowds thin, prices soften, and the air turns clear enough that Mount Fuji becomes visible from the Tokyo Skytree and the free observation decks at the Metropolitan Government Building. If your priority is city sights rather than blossom, it is the easiest time to travel.
Which airport you land at makes a real difference to your first few hours. Haneda sits close to the city and is the easier arrival. Narita is around 60 kilometres east, and the transfer is a genuine leg of the journey rather than an afterthought.
The Narita Express, usually written as N’EX, is the most comfortable option. It runs directly to Tokyo Station, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, taking roughly 90 minutes to Shinjuku, and costs about 3,070 yen. Seats are reserved and there is proper luggage space, which matters after a long haul flight.
The Keisei Skyliner is faster to the city’s north east, reaching Ueno in around 45 minutes for a similar fare. If your accommodation is near Ueno or Asakusa it is usually the smarter choice. Cheaper and slower again are the Keisei local trains and the airport limousine buses, the latter being worth considering if you are heading straight to a major hotel with heavy luggage.
The Tokyo Monorail runs to Hamamatsucho in about 20 minutes for around 500 yen. From Hamamatsucho you connect straight onto the Yamanote Line, which puts most of central Tokyo within easy reach. The Keikyu Line is the main alternative, running to Shinagawa in around 15 minutes for a similar price, and continuing through to Asakusa on the Toei Asakusa Line without a change.
Tokyo’s rail network looks intimidating on a map and turns out to be straightforward in practice. Signage is bilingual, platforms are numbered, and station staff are used to helping visitors.
The backbone for most travellers is the JR Yamanote Line, a loop of 30 stations running 34.5 kilometres around central Tokyo. A full circuit takes about an hour, and the loop connects Tokyo Station, Ginza’s edge at Yurakucho, Shimbashi, Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Ueno. All Yamanote services are local trains with no reserved seating, so you simply tap through the gate and board whatever arrives.
What the Yamanote does not do is reach the middle of the loop. That is the domain of the Tokyo Metro and Toei subway lines, which are run by separate companies on separate tickets. Roppongi, Ginza proper, Tsukiji and Akihabara’s back streets all sit on these lines, so most trips end up using a mix of the two networks.
Get an IC card on arrival. Suica and Pasmo are prepaid tap cards that work across JR, metro, private lines, buses, convenience stores and vending machines. Load one at any ticket machine in the airport arrivals hall, tap in and tap out, and stop thinking about fares entirely. They save you working out which company runs which line, which is the single most confusing part of Tokyo transport for newcomers.
If you expect to ride JR lines heavily on a single day, JR East sells a Tokyo Metropolitan Area Pass at around 760 yen for unlimited JR travel within the city for that day. Tokyo Metro also offers 24, 48 and 72 hour subway passes. Neither is essential, and for most itineraries a topped up IC card works out simpler and cheaper than trying to optimise around day passes.
Tokyo has no single centre, so the neighbourhood you sleep in shapes the trip more than it would in most cities. All of the areas below sit on the Yamanote Line or within a few minutes of it.
The busiest station in the world sits underneath a district that manages to be several things at once: government offices, department stores, an enormous restaurant and bar scene, the lantern lit alleyways of Omoide Yokocho, and the Golden Gai drinking warren. Shinjuku Gyoen, one of the city’s finest gardens, is a short walk away. Good for first timers who want everything within reach and do not mind noise.
Younger, louder and more fashion driven than Shinjuku, built around the famous scramble crossing outside the station. Harajuku and its Takeshita Street sit one stop north, Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine just beyond. Good if nightlife and shopping are high on your list.
The old low city, or shitamachi, where narrow lanes, one storey houses and traditional shops survive. Sensoji, Tokyo’s oldest temple at around 1,400 years, anchors the neighbourhood, and the approach along Nakamise shopping street is packed with snack and souvenir stalls. Accommodation runs cheaper here, and the trade off is a longer ride to the western districts.
Luxury retail, art galleries, department store food halls and some of the country’s best restaurants. Quieter in the evening than you might expect. Suits travellers who want polish and are not counting yen.
The most practical base if you are taking day trips or moving on to other cities, since the long distance trains leave from directly beneath you. Business oriented and calm after dark, with the Imperial Palace gardens on the doorstep.
Sensoji in Asakusa is the oldest temple in the city and the most visited. Arrive before eight in the morning if you want the approach to yourself. Meiji Shrine sits in a forest of 100,000 donated trees between Harajuku and Shibuya, and the walk in under the timber torii gates is the point as much as the shrine itself. Fukagawa Fudo-do, a short ride east of Tokyo Station, is far less visited and holds a dramatic fire ritual with drums several times a day.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku has two observation decks 200 metres up, and entry is free. On a clear day you can pick out Mount Fuji, Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Dome and the Skytree. It is a ten minute walk from Shinjuku Station’s west exit and remains the best value view in the city.
The Tokyo Skytree is the tall one at 634 metres, with paid decks at 350 and 450 metres. Shibuya Sky offers an open air rooftop directly above the scramble crossing and is the most photogenic at sunset, which is also when it books out first.
The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park is the country’s oldest and largest, and a serious half day if Japanese art and history interest you. The Edo Tokyo Museum covers the city’s transformation from shogunate capital to modern metropolis.
The two teamLab digital art venues are among the most booked attractions in Tokyo. Borderless moved to Azabudai Hills in 2024, and Planets sits in Toyosu. Both use timed entry and both regularly sell out, so buy tickets well before you fly rather than hoping on the day.
Shinjuku Gyoen blends Japanese, English and French garden styles across 58 hectares and is worth the small entry fee. Ueno Park combines cherry trees with a cluster of major museums and a zoo. Yoyogi Park is where Tokyo comes to picnic, busk and practise on a Sunday. The East Gardens of the Imperial Palace are free and built around the stone foundations of Edo Castle.
There is a common misunderstanding worth clearing up. When the famous fish market “moved to Toyosu” in 2018, only the inner wholesale operation went with it. The Tsukiji outer market, the part visitors actually came for, never left. Around 400 to 460 shops still trade there: sushi counters, tamagoyaki stalls, knife shops, dried goods and produce sellers packed into a dense grid of lanes.
Most stalls open between five and six in the morning and start shutting from about two in the afternoon, with roughly eight to ten being the sweet spot for atmosphere without the earliest wholesale rush. The market closes on Sundays and on selected Wednesdays, so check the calendar before making the trip. Go hungry and eat as you walk.
Toyosu Market is still worth a visit if the wholesale side interests you, with a viewing gallery above the tuna auction for those willing to arrive before dawn. It is a modern facility rather than a warren of lanes, so the two markets offer quite different mornings.
Elsewhere, Akihabara covers electronics, anime and gaming, Harajuku’s Takeshita Street is teenage fashion at full volume, Shimokitazawa is vintage clothing and small live music venues, and Ginza is where the flagship stores and department store basement food halls are.
Tokyo’s position on the rail network makes a lot of the surrounding region reachable in a morning. Three destinations stand out for first time visitors, and all three work comfortably as same day returns.
The easiest of the three. A former political capital packed with temples on one side and open ocean on the other, anchored by the Great Buddha at Kotoku-in, a bronze figure that has sat outdoors since a tsunami took its hall in 1498. The JR Yokosuka Line runs there directly from Tokyo Station, and the whole day works well on foot and by local train. Read our Kamakura travel guide for a full itinerary.
Hot springs, mountain scenery and, when the weather cooperates, Mount Fuji reflected in Lake Ashi. The appeal is partly the transport itself, a loop that strings together a mountain railway, a cable car, a ropeway over the sulphur vents at Owakudani and a boat across the lake. The Odakyu Romancecar from Shinjuku reaches Hakone-Yumoto in around 85 minutes. See the Hakone travel guide for how to ride the loop.
The most spectacular and the furthest. Toshogu Shrine, built as the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, is extravagantly carved in a way almost nothing else in Japan is, with more than 500 carvings on the Yomeimon Gate alone. Beyond the shrines lie Lake Chuzenji and Kegon Falls in a national park worth the trip on its own. The Tobu Nikko Line runs from Asakusa in around two hours for roughly 1,400 yen each way. Our Nikko travel guide has the detail.
Leave early and go on a weekday. Aim to be at the main sight by around nine in the morning. That half hour of quiet before the coach tours arrive is the difference between a memorable visit and a queue.
Three full days is the realistic minimum to see central Tokyo without sprinting. Five lets you add two day trips and still have an unplanned afternoon, which is when the city tends to surprise you.
A workable three day shape: start in Asakusa and Ueno for temples, markets and museums; give the second day to Shibuya, Harajuku, Meiji Shrine and Shinjuku; and use the third for whatever pulled you here in the first place, whether that is teamLab, the Imperial Palace gardens, Akihabara or a long slow wander through Yanaka’s back streets.
Three days covers the essentials at a reasonable pace. Five is more comfortable and lets you add day trips to Kamakura, Hakone or Nikko.
Usually late March into early April, though the exact dates shift each year with the weather and the bloom itself lasts only about a week. Book flexibly if it is the reason for your trip.
A Suica or Pasmo IC card. Both work across every operator, save you deciphering fare charts, and can be topped up at any station. You can also use them in convenience stores and vending machines.
No. Station signage, train announcements and most restaurant menus in tourist areas include English, and translation apps handle the rest. A few polite phrases are still appreciated.
Haneda is considerably closer to the city and quicker to clear. Narita has more international routes. If flight prices are similar, Haneda usually wins on convenience.
Less than its reputation suggests. Accommodation and attraction tickets are the main costs. Eating well is cheap by Australian standards, with excellent ramen, soba and set lunches available for under 1,500 yen.
Yes. The outer market, which is the part visitors come for, remains open with hundreds of food stalls and shops. Only the inner wholesale auction relocated to Toyosu in 2018. Tsukiji closes on Sundays and some Wednesdays.
Tokyo pairs naturally with the cities below, all of them within reach by train.
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