Explore Tokyo

A free interactive map of Tokyo's tourist attractions and neighbourhoods: 306 places, hand picked, from the big sights to six-seat bars.

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306 places

Harajuku Meiji Shrine is the calmest of Tokyo's big shrines, set in 170 acres of forest. The wide gravel path under the tall camphor trees feels nothing like the city outside.

Asakusa Senso-ji is Tokyo's oldest temple, founded, so tradition says, in 628 AD. You walk in through the Kaminarimon gate, along the Nakamise shopping lane and up to the main hall. Dusk is the best time, when the crowds thin out and the buildings are lit.

Yanaka Nezu Shrine gets called Tokyo's answer to Fushimi Inari. A long tunnel of red torii gates climbs a wooded hillside here, with a fraction of Kyoto's crowds, and it might be the more atmospheric of the two.

Shinjuku Hanazono Shrine sits right behind Shinjuku's neon, dedicated to the god of business and prosperity. It's a lantern-lit shrine with hostess bars and pachinko parlours on every side, which is about as Tokyo as it gets.

Shiba Zojo-ji is the main temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism, with Tokyo Tower standing right behind it. That pairing makes it one of the best known photo spots in the city.

Akasaka Hie Shrine sits on a hill in the middle of Tokyo's political and business district, and it's known for the tunnel of vermilion torii gates on its west stairs. There are escalators beside the main stairs, so you can get up there in heels.

Ueno Yushima Tenman-gu is said to go back to 458 AD. It's dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the god of learning, so the courtyard is covered in wooden ema plaques from students asking for exam luck. The plum blossoms in February are spectacular.

Ueno Toshogu Shrine is a gilded Edo-period shrine inside Ueno Park, a smaller cousin of the one at Nikko, with a gold-leafed Karamon gate. More than 200 stone and bronze lanterns line the approach under old camphor trees.

Shinjuku Shinjuku Gyoen is the best park in Tokyo: 58 hectares with a French formal garden, an English landscape garden and a Japanese strolling garden. It has about 900 cherry trees, which makes it the best hanami spot in the city.

Harajuku Yoyogi Park is where Tokyo goes to play. At weekends the lawns fill with musicians, unicyclists, dog walkers and picnickers, and the Meiji Shrine forest next door makes it the big green space of the west side.

Ueno Ueno Park opened in 1873 as one of Japan's first public parks. It has five major museums, a zoo, a lake with rowboats and the city's most famous cherry blossom avenue. In spring it's crowded and chaotic, and that's half the fun.

Shiodome Hamarikyu Gardens was a shogun's duck-hunting ground and is now open to everyone. A traditional teahouse sits on a tidal pond with skyscrapers all around it, which is Tokyo in one view.

Kichijoji Inokashira Park is a well-loved local park built around a big lake, with rowboats for hire, a small zoo and street musicians at weekends. Kichijoji has long ranked near the top of polls of where Tokyoites most want to live, and this park is a big reason why.

Bunkyo Koishikawa Korakuen is one of the oldest and finest Japanese gardens in Tokyo, laid out by the Mito Tokugawa clan in 1629. Everything a classical garden is supposed to have is here: hills, streams, a lake, a moon bridge, even rice paddies.

Yanaka Yanaka Cemetery is more park than cemetery, with wide tree-lined avenues, cats everywhere and the hush of old Tokyo. It's one of the best cherry blossom walks in the city, and there are almost no tourist crowds along the main avenue.

Asakusa Tokyo Skytree is the tallest broadcast tower in the world at 634m. On clear winter days you can see Mt Fuji to the southwest. The Tembo Deck at 350m and the Tembo Galleria at 450m give you two very different scales of view.

Shiba Tokyo Tower is still the landmark most people picture when they think of the city. The Skytree beats it on height, but not on charm or location. The orange and white lattice looks best at night, lit against the dark.

Shibuya Shibuya Sky is the open-air deck on top of Scramble Square, with 360-degree views. Look straight down and the scramble crossing moves like an ant colony. It's one of the more dramatic viewpoints in Tokyo.

Roppongi The Mori Art Museum on the 53rd floor of Mori Tower sits right above Tokyo City View on the 52nd, so one visit gets you major contemporary art shows and a wraparound view of the city.

Bunkyo Bunkyo Civic Center has a free observation lounge on its 25th floor, with clear views west to Shinjuku, east to the Skytree and, on cold winter days, Mt Fuji in the distance.

Ikebukuro Sunshine 60 is the old Ikebukuro landmark, built on the site of Sugamo Prison. Since a 2023 renovation the 60th-floor deck has been Tenbo-Park, an indoor sky park with artificial turf and seating next to the view. The views north and west are the best in this part of the city.

Tsukiji Tsukiji Outer Market outlived the fish auction. Dozens of vendors sell sushi, tamagoyaki, wagyu skewers and scallops grilled to order, and breakfast here is one of the great Tokyo rituals.

Omotesando Tonkatsu Maisen is the gold standard for tonkatsu in Tokyo, in a converted public bathhouse. The kurobuta (Berkshire pork) set is as good as this dish gets anywhere in Japan.

Shinjuku Omoide Yokocho, Memory Lane, is a narrow alley behind Shinjuku Station packed with tiny yakitori stalls. Smoke, charcoal, skewers and cold beer, and it's been like this since the 1940s.

Nakameguro The Meguro River path in Nakameguro is lined with some of Tokyo's most photogenic restaurants. You can eat almost anything here, but on a warm evening the grilled meat places with tables by the river are the ones to book.

Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa has turned into Tokyo's curry neighbourhood. There are dozens of independent curry shops within a few blocks, doing Japanese, keema and Sri Lankan styles.

Shinjuku Isetan Shinjuku's food hall is on B1, the basement floor of the main building at 3-14-1 Shinjuku, and it's one of the great food experiences in Tokyo. It's an underground world of prepared foods, French pastries, wagashi, sake and immaculately presented bento.

Yanaka Yanaka Ginza is a narrow old shopping street that survived the war and the developers. Dozens of small shops sell menchi-katsu, croquettes, tofu, pickles and rice crackers hot from the oven.

Ueno Ameyoko is the open-air market under the JR tracks at Ueno. Food vendors sell dried fish, seafood, takoyaki and cheap sushi next to the permanent shops, and it's one of the loudest, most chaotic streets in the city.

Tomigaya Fuglen Tokyo came over from Oslo in 2012 and set the template for Tokyo's third-wave coffee scene. Vintage furniture, serious espresso by day, natural wine and cocktails by night. The Tomigaya streets around it are good for a wander too.

Nakameguro Onibus Coffee is a roastery cafe in a converted house in Nakameguro, and it pours one of the best single-origin coffees in the city. The owner buys direct from farms he visits himself. Simple, and done well.

Shimokitazawa Bear Pond Espresso is a cult espresso bar in Shimokitazawa with an obsessive owner. Its Angel Stain espresso has a reputation as the smoothest, most precisely pulled shot in Tokyo.

Daikanyama Saturdays NYC Daikanyama was the New York surf brand's first shop outside the US, opened in 2012 between Daikanyama and Nakameguro. Good coffee at the espresso bar, surfboards on the walls and a wooden deck out the back.

Kuramae Dandelion Chocolate, San Francisco's bean-to-bar maker, set up in a renovated warehouse in Kuramae. Hot chocolate, single-origin bars and a handsome industrial room that anchors the neighbourhood's maker scene.

Yanaka Yanaka Coffee is a small roastery in old Tokyo that roasts its beans to order. The drip coffee and the slow pace of the neighbourhood make it one of the nicest cafe stops in the city.

Shinjuku Golden Gai is a few narrow alleys packed with tiny bars. Every bar has a theme, jazz, cinema, punk, sumo, horror, and the regulars are industry people, artists and visitors who found their way in.

Shinjuku After dark, Memory Lane becomes a smoky, lantern-lit alley. Tiny yakitori stalls fill up with salarymen sharing skewers and beer, and between the charcoal smoke and the paper lanterns it's as atmospheric as Tokyo gets.

Nakameguro At night the Meguro River path in Nakameguro turns into a social street, with bars and small restaurants opening their windows to the water. Low-lit and relaxed, the opposite of Shinjuku in every way, and best on a warm night.

Shibuya Nonbei Yokocho, Drunkard's Alley, is a cluster of standing bars and small izakayas in Shibuya's backstreets. It feels more like a neighbourhood than an attraction. Less famous than Golden Gai, just as small.

Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa is Tokyo's live music capital. Dozens of small venues put on original bands every night, rock, jazz, folk and experimental, and the neighbourhood's counter-culture energy has outlasted decades of development pressure.

Ueno The Tokyo National Museum is Japan's oldest and largest museum, with the biggest collection of Japanese art anywhere. The Honkan main building holds samurai armour, ukiyo-e prints, lacquerware and Buddhist sculpture across 24 rooms.

Toyosu teamLab Planets is a digital art installation you walk through barefoot, through rooms of water, flowers, mirrored light and floating spheres. The idea is that you stop being a viewer and become part of the work.

Roppongi The Mori Art Museum is a major contemporary art institution on the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills, with rotating international exhibitions of the highest level. The Tokyo City View observation deck a floor below takes its own ticket, or a combo ticket for some exhibitions.

Roppongi 21_21 Design Sight is Tadao Ando's gallery in Midtown Tokyo, half buried in a park and devoted to design in the widest sense. The building is a masterpiece in its own right, and the exhibitions tie everyday objects to bigger ideas.

Ryogoku The Edo-Tokyo Museum is a giant museum about the city's history from the Edo period to the 20th century. Life-size reconstructions of Edo streets and market stalls let you walk through 400 years of Tokyo.

Mitaka The Ghibli Museum is Hayao Miyazaki's own idea of what a museum should be: imaginative, handmade and anti-corporate. A short film screens here and nowhere else. The Cat Bus room for children is one of the most joyful rooms in any museum.

Harajuku Takeshita Street is the pedestrian street where Tokyo youth fashion has started for 50 years. Loud, maximalist and like nowhere else, with crepe shops, vintage stores and street fashion at full volume.

Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa is the best neighbourhood in Tokyo for vintage and second-hand clothes. Well over a hundred shops within walking distance sell American workwear, Japanese vintage and European deadstock at fair prices.

Akihabara Akihabara Electric Town is the densest concentration of electronics, anime and manga in the world. Eight-storey shops stuffed with gadgets, figures, retro games and obscure components. Overwhelming, in a good way.

Omotesando Omotesando Hills is Tadao Ando's spiralling concrete shopping centre, and the building impresses more than anything sold in it. High-end Japanese and international brands over six floors built into a hillside. The atrium is the thing to see.

Koenji Koenji is Shimokitazawa's scrappier, more committed sibling. Lower rents keep the subculture alive, and it's outstanding for vinyl, vintage military surplus and punk fashion.

Ginza Ginza Six is the anchor of new Ginza, with more than 250 shops and restaurants on 13 floors above ground and six below, and a free roof garden on top. Traditional Japanese crafts sit next to international luxury in a building by Yoshio Taniguchi.

Ueno Ameya-yokocho is the chaotic open-air market under the elevated JR tracks between Ueno and Okachimachi. Dried goods, seafood, nuts, spices, clothes, bags and street food. It's one of the last old-Tokyo market experiences left.

Shinagawa Togoshi Ginza is one of the longest shopping streets in the Tokyo area at about 1.3km, with more than 300 shops and food stalls. It's almost entirely local, and the croquettes and yakitori are some of the cheapest in the city.

Nishi-Ogikubo Nishi-Ogikubo is a calm residential neighbourhood west of Shinjuku with the best cluster of antique shops in Tokyo. Old ceramics, Meiji-era furniture, vintage kimono, tansu chests and curiosities.

Setagaya Gotokuji Temple is the birthplace of the maneki-neko, the beckoning cat. Thousands of white lucky cats of every size fill the grounds, left by visitors whose wishes came true. It's a calm residential spot twenty minutes from Shibuya by tram and train.

Takanawa Sengakuji Temple is where the 47 ronin are buried, the samurai whose story of loyalty and revenge is Japan's most famous. Incense smoke hangs over their graves all the time, kept burning by visitors for 300 years.

Setagaya Todoroki Valley is the only natural valley in Tokyo's 23 wards: a kilometre of thick green canopy, a stream and a path that feels like rural Japan, about half an hour from Shibuya. You feel the temperature drop as you go down the steps.

Marunouchi The Imperial Palace East Gardens are the old grounds of Edo Castle, free to enter and surprisingly empty. Huge stone walls, the base of the lost castle tower and immaculate gardens, right in the geographic centre of the city.

Komagome Rikugien is an Edo-period strolling garden that many people call Tokyo's most beautiful, built around a central pond with 88 scenes from classical poetry. The autumn lighting of the maples is one of the city's big seasonal events.

Shinjuku The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building has twin observation decks at 202m, completely free, in Kenzo Tange's cathedral-like towers. On a clear day Mt Fuji stands behind the endless sprawl of western Tokyo. It's the best free view in the city.

Shibuya Up to 3,000 people cross Shibuya Crossing at once, at the busiest intersection in the world. Yes, it's touristy. Standing in the middle of the scramble as the lights change is still one of those Tokyo moments.

Tokyo Station Tokyo Ramen Street puts ten of Japan's most celebrated ramen shops in one underground corridor under Tokyo Station. Rokurinsha's tsukemen, with its thick dipping broth, has the longest queue from opening to close.

Kichijoji Harmonica Yokocho is a warren of tiny bars and food stalls in the old black market alleys by Kichijoji Station, named because the cramped stalls look like harmonica reeds. Fish shops by day, izakayas and natural wine bars at night.

Tsukishima Tsukishima Monja Street has about 60 restaurants in its monja association, all doing monjayaki, Tokyo's runnier cousin of okonomiyaki, cooked on a hot plate at your table. Very local, a bit chaotic and a lot of fun with a group.

Shibuya Chatei Hatou is the definitive Tokyo kissaten: dark wood, antique porcelain and coffee poured by hand with ceremony. Three minutes from Shibuya Crossing, and it's still 1989 inside.

Jimbocho Sabouru is a decades-old coffee shop in the book district that looks like a mountain hut, vines outside and carved wood inside. Blue walls, red lamps and a menu that hasn't changed make it the most atmospheric old cafe in Tokyo.

Ebisu Ebisu Yokocho is a covered alley of about twenty small izakayas under one roof, loud and friendly and packed with locals by 8pm. Bar-hopping is easy here: oden at one counter, grilled offal at the next, sake at a third.

Asakusa Hoppy Street's open-air izakayas spill onto the pavement west of Senso-ji, serving beef tendon stew and hoppy, the beer substitute from Tokyo's post-war years. Drinking here starts early, and nobody judges.

Aoyama The Nezu Museum is Kengo Kuma's bamboo-lined museum of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art, with one of the city's most beautiful private gardens hidden behind it. The approach corridor alone justifies the ticket.

Ryogoku The Sumida Hokusai Museum is a mirrored aluminium building by Kazuyo Sejima devoted to Hokusai, who was born here and spent nearly all his life in this neighbourhood. The permanent collection shows how The Great Wave came to be.

Asakusa Kappabashi Kitchen Town is the street that supplies Tokyo's restaurants: 170 shops selling hand-forged knives, ceramics, lanterns and the plastic food models in every restaurant window. Almost all of it is sold to anyone who walks in.

Jimbocho Jimbocho is the largest second-hand book district in the world: 130 bookshops on a few blocks, from rare ukiyo-e prints and Edo maps to 100 yen paperback carts on the pavement. If you love books, this is your place.

Daikanyama Daikanyama T-Site is one of the most admired bookshop designs in the world: three pavilions linked by a magazine street, wrapped in a white lattice facade. The art, design and travel book selection is exceptional.

Nakano Nakano Broadway is a 1966 shopping arcade reborn as the deep end of otaku culture. Four floors of vintage manga, anime cels, retro toys and watches, anchored by the legendary Mandarake used manga empire.

Toyosu Toyosu Market is the largest fish market in the world, the successor to Tsukiji's inner market. Watch the tuna auction from the observation deck at dawn, then eat the freshest sushi breakfast of your life at the market restaurants.

Chofu Jindaiji is Tokyo's second oldest temple, founded in 733 AD, in a leafy pocket of Chofu that feels like a country village. The approach is lined with water wheels, old thatched shops and soba restaurants fed by natural spring water.

Kanda Kanda Myojin is a 1,300 year old shrine that guards Tokyo's old merchant district, and the Akihabara tech crowd has adopted it, coming to have gadgets and startups blessed. The vermilion halls glow against the office towers around them. Anime fans come too, since the shrine appears in Love Live! and Steins;Gate, and it has issued charms and ema with series like Sword Art Online.

Yoyogi Yoyogi Hachimangu is a small wooded shrine on a hill between Yoyogi-Hachiman Station and the Tomigaya backstreets. Locals stop in on the way to work, and visitors almost never find it. In the grounds there's a reconstructed Jomon-period pit dwelling, marking the prehistoric settlement dug up on the hill.

Tachikawa Showa Kinen Park is a huge national park of about 180 hectares in western Tokyo, with bikes for hire, lakes, seasonal flower fields and a 300-metre ginkgo avenue. In November the tunnels of gold trees justify the trip on their own.

Suginami Wadabori Park is a long green strip along the Zenpukuji River in Suginami where local life happens: baseball practice, barbecues, dog walks, morning runs. No tourists at all, and that's the point.

Asakusa Sumida Park runs along both banks of the Sumida River between Asakusa and the Skytree. It's been a cherry blossom spot since the shogun era, and now the tower rises behind the petals.

Koto Kiba Park is a big open park in eastern Tokyo built over the old lumber yards, with wide lawns, barbecue pits and the Museum of Contemporary Art on its northern edge. Deep local territory.

Kiyosumi Kiyosumi Gardens is a Meiji-era strolling garden built by the founder of Mitsubishi, known for its rare stones collected from all over Japan and the stepping-stone paths across the central pond.

Shinjuku Shinjuku Chuo Park is the green space right behind the Tokyo Metropolitan Government towers, where office workers eat lunch and the city gets on with its day. A useful pocket of calm on the skyscraper side of Shinjuku.

Hiroo Arisugawa-no-miya Memorial Park is a hilly, wooded park in the embassy district, with a pond, stone bridges and paths that drop steeply through the trees. The crowd from the embassies around it gives it a calm, international feel.

Chofu Jindai Botanical Gardens is the biggest botanical garden in Tokyo, spread over the hill above Jindaiji Temple, with 100,000 plants, a famous rose garden and a grand greenhouse. Spacious and unhurried, and far off the tourist circuit.

Ebisu The 38th and 39th floors of Yebisu Garden Place Tower are given over to restaurants, and the 38th has a free observation lounge, the SKY LOUNGE, looking out to Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge. One of the least known free views in the city.

Sasazuka Sushi Sumibi is a lively taishu sakaba near Sasazuka station serving market-fresh nigiri, plus skewers grilled over binchotan charcoal. It's part of a small Tokyo chain, with counter seats, tables and a terrace where dogs are welcome.

Sasazuka Mil Tacos is a small, brightly painted Mexican cantina at the end of the shopping street north of Sasazuka station. Roy, the Mexican owner-chef, imports his ingredients straight from Mexico. It's also where Daniel and his wife had their wedding dinner.

Hatagaya Koya is a loud, packed Shanghai-style Chinese izakaya midway between Hatagaya and Sasazuka. Locals love it for the thick handmade gyoza, the long dim sum list and big plates to share.

Sasazuka Pintology is a small craft beer and whisky bar three minutes from Sasazuka station, opened in 2022 by Kyle, who's American, and Yuki, who's Japanese. Twelve taps of Japanese and international craft beer, a world whisky shelf, and cans and bottles to drink in or take home, in a room that doubles as a neighbourhood arts space with live music, DJ and vinyl nights, and drink-and-draw evenings. It's Daniel's local, where most of his Sasazuka evenings end, and where he and his wife held their engagement celebration.

Shimokitazawa Naochan Ramen is a no-frills local ramen counter in the Shimokitazawa backstreets, the kind of place you walk past twice before you spot it. Rich broth, handmade noodles, no tourists.

Shimokitazawa Wine Laundry does yakitori grilled over charcoal with natural wine, in a tiny Shimokitazawa room. It shouldn't work as a pairing, and it does.

Yoyogi Little Nap Coffee Stand is a tiny coffee stand on the calm west edge of Yoyogi Park that locals treat as a destination. A handful of stools, serious espresso and the park's trees across the street.

Shimokitazawa Sidewalk Coffee Roasters is a minimalist Shimokitazawa roastery pulling clean espresso and careful pour-overs, a good pit stop between the vintage shops.

Kagurazaka Aux Merveilleux de Fred is the Tokyo branch of the meringue specialist from Lille, and it fits right in on Kagurazaka's French-flavoured slope. Chandeliers, theatrical cream work and merveilleux made the same way as at the original.

Shimokitazawa Coaster is a relaxed Shimokitazawa craft beer bar with rotating taps of beer from around the world and a kitchen doing full meals, not just snacks, the kind of place an evening disappears into.

Shimokitazawa Good Heavens is a British pub squeezed into Shimokitazawa, with imported ales, fish and chips and football on the screen. It's run with the warmth of a good pub and works as the expat living room of the neighbourhood.

Kagurazaka Hyogo Yokocho is the most atmospheric lane in Kagurazaka: black wooden fences, stone paving, lantern light and discreet ryotei restaurants where geisha culture carries on out of sight.

Shinjuku Kabukicho is Japan's most infamous entertainment district, a neon maze of izakayas, karaoke towers, host clubs and cinemas. Loud and gaudy, and safe enough to wander through wide-eyed.

Roppongi The National Art Center is one of Japan's largest exhibition spaces, behind a rippling glass facade by Kisho Kurokawa. There's no permanent collection, just a rolling programme of big exhibitions and one of the most photographed museum interiors in the country.

Harajuku Design Festa Gallery is a constantly changing warren of small galleries in the Harajuku backstreets where any artist can rent a wall. Covered in graffiti and a window straight into Tokyo's grassroots art scene.

Shibuya Miyashita Park is a rooftop park laid over a three-storey shopping complex on the edge of Shibuya, with a lawn, a skate park and a bouldering wall above the shops. The food alley underneath does old Tokyo drinking culture in a new shell.

Akihabara Yodobashi Camera Akihabara is floor after floor of every electronic object Japan makes, from camera lenses to rice cookers to gaming chairs. Less a shop than a museum of Japanese consumer technology where everything is for sale.

Shibuya MEGA Don Quijote Shibuya is the flagship of Japan's most chaotic discount store: several floors of snacks, cosmetics, costumes, electronics and things you didn't know existed, open 24 hours. It's overwhelming on purpose.

Hiroo Hiroo Walking Street is the village-like shopping street of Tokyo's embassy district, with international grocers, bakeries and cafes serving the diplomatic crowd. It feels more like a wealthy European quarter than central Tokyo.

Marunouchi Tokyo Station is the 1914 red brick station that anchors Marunouchi, beautifully restored and much more than a transit hub. Under it spreads an underground city of ramen streets, character shops and food halls.

Shinjuku The Godzilla Head is a life-size Godzilla looming over the Toho cinema building in Kabukicho, roaring and lighting up on schedule. Gloriously silly and completely Tokyo.

Sasazuka Sasazuka Station is the Keio Line station at the heart of Sasazuka, the unglamorous west-side neighbourhood that is Daniel's own corner of Tokyo. Use it as your way into everyday Tokyo: shotengai shopping streets, standing bars and local life.

Kagurazaka Kagurazaka is Tokyo's old geisha quarter on a sloping street of cobbled alleys, now layered with French bistros and patisseries thanks to the Institut français nearby and a long-settled French community. Ryotei Japan and a bit of Paris on the same slope, and nowhere else in the city does that.

Yanaka Yanaka is the Tokyo that survived: low wooden houses, temple after temple, cats on walls and craftsmen still at work. It escaped the 1923 earthquake fires and the war, and walking it is the closest the city gets to time travel.

Kichijoji Kichijoji has long ranked near the top of polls of where Tokyoites most want to live. Inokashira Park is at its heart, the Harmonica Yokocho alleys are by the station, and streets of independent shops run off in every direction.

Shinjuku Shinjuku is a city in itself: the busiest station in the world, ringed by skyscrapers, department stores, the neon of Kabukicho and the calm of Gyoen. Whatever you think Tokyo is, Shinjuku has a district that proves it.

Daikanyama Daikanyama is the most effortlessly stylish pocket of Tokyo, all low-rise boutiques, terrace cafes and leafy backstreets. The T-Site bookshop complex anchors it, and it suits a slow morning better than a checklist.

Nakameguro Nakameguro is the riverside neighbourhood that defines low-key fashionable Tokyo. Cherry trees arch over the Meguro River between boutiques, bars and some of the best coffee in the city.

Ebisu Ebisu is a grown-up neighbourhood with some of the best eating and drinking in Tokyo, from the izakaya alley of Ebisu Yokocho to serious restaurants on every backstreet. It's named after Yebisu beer, whose old brewery site is now Yebisu Garden Place.

Ichigaya Ichigaya is a calm stretch along the old Edo castle moat where people fish in the middle of the city. The fishing pond is the Ichigaya Fish Center, right outside Ichigaya Station (JR, Tokyo Metro and Toei lines). The cherry-lined walk along the water up to Kagurazaka is one of the nicest strolls in central Tokyo.

Hachioji Mt Takao is Tokyo's sacred mountain, under an hour from Shinjuku on the Keio Line. There's a network of hiking trails, a mountaintop temple where yamabushi mountain ascetics still train, a monkey park and, on a clear day, a straight view to Mt Fuji.

Hakone Hakone is the classic escape from Tokyo: a volcanic valley of hot springs, ryokan, mountain railways and a lake with Mt Fuji rising behind the torii gate of Hakone Shrine. You can do it in a day. It's better overnight.

Chofu A calm corner of the Jindaiji temple grounds, under old trees, with spring water running nearby. This is where Daniel proposed to his wife. Every map needs one pin that matters more than the others.

Shinjuku Fuunji is the tsukemen that ruins every other tsukemen for you. It's a tiny counter south of Shinjuku station where thick noodles get dipped into a very rich chicken and fish broth. The queue moves fast, because everyone inside is eating, not talking.

Ebisu Afuri Ebisu is the first Tokyo branch of the yuzu shio ramen that became a Tokyo signature. The clear, citrusy broth is light enough that you leave wanting another bowl, which isn't how ramen usually works.

Shibuya Ichiran is the famous solo-booth tonkotsu ramen chain. Touristy, yes, but the booths exist because the ramen deserves your full attention, and at 3am after a night out in Shibuya there's nothing better.

Kiyosumi Blue Bottle Coffee Kiyosumi was the company's first shop outside the United States, opened in 2015 in a converted warehouse in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa. The whole neighbourhood has since become Tokyo's coffee town, and this is still the anchor.

Sangenjaya Locals call Sangenjaya Sanja, and it's the more workaday cousin of Shimokitazawa: less curated, more lived-in, with one of the best izakaya alleys in the city. Two stops from Shibuya and a different planet.

Sangenjaya Sangenjaya's Sankaku Chitai, the triangle zone, is wedged between Setagaya-dori and Tamagawa-dori: a knot of lantern-lit alleys packed with tiny izakayas and bars that mostly seat under ten people. This is where young Tokyo drinks.

Kawagoe Kawagoe is Little Edo, 30 minutes from Ikebukuro: a whole main street of preserved clay-walled warehouse buildings, a candy alley that hasn't changed in a century and the photogenic Toki no Kane bell tower. It's the easiest old-Japan fix from Tokyo.

Kamakura Kamakura is the seaside former capital an hour south: the Great Buddha, hillside temples linked by hiking trails and a beach-town pace that resets your Tokyo brain. It's the default first day trip.

Nikko Nikko is two hours north and a world away: the riotously decorated Toshogu shrine complex in a cedar forest, waterfalls and a sacred bridge over a blue-green river. In autumn the foliage is the best in the region.

Yurakucho Yurakucho Gado-shita is izakayas and yakitori grills crammed under the brick arches of the elevated train tracks, with smoke drifting over salarymen on beer crates. As atmospheric as Tokyo drinking gets, and minutes from the polish of Ginza.

Chiyoda Chidorigafuchi is the Imperial Palace moat, lined with hundreds of cherry trees leaning out over the water. In sakura season you can row a boat under them, which is about as romantic as Tokyo gets in public.

Ikebukuro Zoshigaya Kishimojin is a 16th-century temple in a calm pocket ten minutes from the chaos of Ikebukuro, reached along a lane of ancient zelkova trees. There's a tiny old sweets shop in the grounds.

Shibamata Shibamata Taishakuten is old shitamachi Tokyo at the city's eastern edge: a temple covered in astonishing wood carvings, at the end of a retro shopping street selling rice crackers and dango. It's famous as the home of the Tora-san films, and it's still low-key next to Asakusa.

Akihabara 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan is a craft and design arcade built into the whitewashed arches under the Yamanote tracks between Akihabara and Okachimachi. Leatherworkers, woodturners and hat makers, each in their own little vault.

Shiba Kyu Shiba Rikyu Gardens is the smaller, calmer sibling of Hamarikyu, right next to Hamamatsucho station. A perfect Edo-period stroll garden ringed by glass towers, and somehow almost always empty.

Kagurazaka Akagi Shrine is a 700-year-old shrine rebuilt by the architect Kengo Kuma in glass and timber, with a cafe in the grounds. An ancient site in modern architecture is about the most Kagurazaka thing there is.

Tomigaya Camelback is a former sushi chef making the best egg sandwich in Tokyo, a sweet omelette folded into a crisp roll. Standing room only, which is fine, because you should take it to Yoyogi Park anyway.

Odaiba Odaiba Seaside Park is an artificial beach with the best view there is of Rainbow Bridge and the Tokyo skyline across the water, plus a scale Statue of Liberty for extra strangeness. Sunset here is one of the best free shows in the city.

Tokyo Station Tokyo Character Street is an underground arcade of more than 30 official character shops inside Tokyo Station: Ghibli, Pokémon, Sanrio, NHK mascots, all of it. With kids it's a destination. Without kids it's dangerously good gift shopping.

Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa Reload is the new low-rise development along the rail line that somehow got it right: a wine stand, a standing bar, design shops and Ogawa Coffee Laboratory, all in white boxes that don't fight the neighbourhood.

Shibuya Tower Records Shibuya is nine floors of physical music in defiance of the whole 21st century, and its 6th floor is one of the biggest vinyl floors in Japan. The J-pop and city pop floors are a culture lesson, and the listening stations still work.

Shin-Okubo Shin-Okubo is one Yamanote stop from Shinjuku and a whole district of Korean barbecue, street snacks, K-pop shops and cosmetics stores. The cheese hotteok queue tells you which stall to join.

Ryogoku Ryogoku Kokugikan is the national sumo stadium. If a tournament is on, drop everything: 15 days each January, May and September of the best live sport spectacle in Japan. Off-season, the neighbourhood still runs on sumo.

Ueno Ueno Zoo is Japan's oldest zoo, in a corner of Ueno Park. It's compact, cheap and exactly the right size for small legs, with a five-storey pagoda rising over the enclosures. Its famous giant pandas went back to China in January 2026, leaving Japan without pandas for the first time since 1972.

Marunouchi KITTE is the old central post office turned shopping hall, with a free rooftop garden that looks straight down on Tokyo Station's restored red-brick facade and the shinkansen sliding in and out. The best free view in central Tokyo.

Asakusa Asakusa Shrine is the Shinto shrine right beside Senso-ji's main hall, dedicated to the three men who founded the temple. Its 1649 buildings came through both the 1923 earthquake and the WWII air raids, so it's one of the few original Edo-period structures left in Asakusa.

Fukagawa Tomioka Hachiman Shrine, founded in 1627, is the largest Hachiman shrine in Tokyo and the birthplace of officially sanctioned sumo, which held shogunate-approved tournaments here from 1684. The grounds hold sumo monuments and Japan's biggest portable shrine, a 4.5-ton gold-covered mikoshi.

Toranomon Atago Shrine dates from 1603 and sits on the highest natural hill in central Tokyo. You reach it by a famously steep flight of 86 stone steps, the Stairs of Success, named after a samurai who rode his horse up them to deliver plum blossoms to the shogun.

Akasaka Akasaka Hikawa Shrine is a wooded shrine whose main sanctuary was built in 1730 by the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, and came through the Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1945 air raids intact. A giant ginkgo about 400 years old stands in the grounds, still leafing even though wartime fires hollowed it out.

Asakusa Imado Shrine is a small shrine north of Senso-ji that claims to be the birthplace of the maneki-neko beckoning cat, and it enshrines Japan's first divine couple, which makes it a popular matchmaking spot. The cat figures here come in pairs and the ema prayer plaques are round.

Yotsuya Suga Shrine is a modest neighbourhood shrine in Yotsuya whose crossed staircase next door became world famous as the final scene of the anime film Your Name, and fans come in a steady stream to recreate the shot. The shrine itself dates from the Edo period and guards the area's eighteen former towns.

Bunkyo Gokokuji is a Shingon Buddhist temple founded in 1681 by the fifth shogun for his mother, and its 1697 main hall came through the 1923 earthquake and the WWII bombing unchanged, which makes it one of the oldest wooden buildings in the city.

Mukojima Mukojima-Hyakkaen is the only Edo-period flower garden left in Tokyo, created around 1804 by an antiques dealer and his literary friends, who planted 360 plum trees and scattered poem stones through the grounds. It's known for plum blossom, autumn grasses and a 30-metre tunnel of hagi bush clover.

Komagome Kyu-Furukawa Gardens is an odd hybrid: a 1917 stone Western mansion and terraced rose garden by the British architect Josiah Conder, with a traditional Japanese pond garden below by the famous Kyoto gardener Ogawa Jihei. The roses bloom against the brick in spring and autumn.

Kokubunji Tonogayato Garden is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty two minutes from Kokubunji Station, built as a villa garden and later owned by Mitsubishi's founding family. It drops down a natural valley, past a spring and through bamboo to a pond, with a teahouse perched on the slope.

Shirokanedai Happo-en is a free Japanese strolling garden attached to a famous wedding venue, with roots going back 400 years. It's at 1-1-1 Shirokanedai in Minato, a minute's walk from Shirokanedai Station on the Namboku and Mita lines. The pond garden has a row of bonsai up to about 525 years old, a teahouse, koi and cherry and maple colour in season.

Komazawa Komazawa Olympic Park is a big Setagaya sports park built for the 1964 Olympics, with brutalist stadiums, a landmark control tower and jogging and cycling loops shaded by zelkova and cherry trees. Local families love it at weekends.

Hakusan Koishikawa Botanical Garden is Japan's oldest botanical garden, run by the University of Tokyo and descended from the shogunate's medicinal herb garden of 1684. Its 16 hectares mix research plantings with an old landscape garden, ginkgo avenues and one of Bunkyo's best low-key hanami lawns.

Meguro The Institute for Nature Study is a 20-hectare protected piece of wild Musashino forest near Meguro Station, run by the National Museum of Nature and Science as a living record of what Tokyo looked like before the city. More than 200 native plant species, dragonfly ponds, birds and even tanuki.

Ryogoku The Sumo Museum is a one-room museum inside the Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium that traces sumo history through rotating exhibits of woodblock prints, ceremonial kesho-mawashi aprons and portraits of every yokozuna. Free to enter outside tournament periods.

Ryogoku The Japanese Sword Museum belongs to the Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords and shows rotating exhibitions of national-treasure-grade blades, fittings and metalwork, in a sleek Fumihiko Maki building beside the Edo-period Kyu-Yasuda Garden.

Kyobashi The Artizon Museum is the reborn Bridgestone Museum of Art, reopened in 2020 in a new Kyobashi tower. It holds the Ishibashi collection of around 3,000 works, from Impressionism to Japanese Western-style painting and postwar abstraction, across three spacious floors.

Marunouchi Intermediatheque is a free cabinet-of-curiosities museum run by the University of Tokyo inside the old Tokyo Central Post Office. Skeletons, taxidermy, scientific instruments and specimens collected since 1877, displayed like a beautifully art-directed Victorian study.

Komaba The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, the Mingeikan, was founded in 1936 by the philosopher Yanagi Soetsu as the home of the mingei folk craft movement. It shows anonymous everyday ceramics, textiles, woodwork and Korean and Okinawan craft in a beautiful stone-and-wood building he designed himself.

Ueno The National Museum of Nature and Science is Japan's flagship science museum, in Ueno Park, with a life-size blue whale outside, dinosaur skeletons, a 360-degree dome theatre and the Japan Gallery on the islands' nature and people. Entry is only around 630 yen.

Ueno The National Museum of Western Art holds Japan's main collection of Western art, built around the Matsukata collection of Impressionists and Rodins, in a 1959 Le Corbusier building that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016. It's his only work in East Asia.

Harajuku The Ota Memorial Museum of Art is a small ukiyo-e museum behind Laforet in Harajuku. Its monthly exhibitions draw on a 14,000-print collection that includes Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro, and it's one of the best places in Tokyo to see woodblock prints up close.

Azabudai teamLab Borderless is the relocated digital art museum that reopened in 2024 at Azabudai Hills: a maze of borderless projection works that drift from room to room, including the mirrored Infinite Crystal World and a tea house where flowers bloom in your cup.

Sangenjaya Carrot Tower's free 26th-floor observation lounge sits above Sangenjaya Station, looking back over Shibuya and Tokyo Tower one way and out towards Mount Fuji the other. Locals come up just to read or nap in the window seats.

Asakusa The Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center is Kengo Kuma's stacked-house building right across from Kaminarimon, with a free 8th-floor terrace that lines up the gate, Nakamise and Senso-ji on one side and Tokyo Skytree with the Asahi flame on the other.

Yurakucho The Oedo Antique Market is Japan's biggest outdoor antique market. Roughly the first and third Sunday of each month it fills the plaza of the Tokyo International Forum with up to 250 dealers selling old kimono, ceramics, tea utensils, woodblock prints and Showa-era oddities.

Asakusa Nakamise is one of the oldest shopping streets in Japan, a 250-metre approach of around 90 stalls running from Kaminarimon to Senso-ji's Hozomon gate. It has sold ningyo-yaki cakes, senbei, folding fans and souvenirs since the Edo period.

Oshiage Tokyo Solamachi is the 300-plus-shop complex at the base of Tokyo Skytree, with character stores and a big food hall alongside the Sumida Aquarium and a planetarium, plus restaurants on the 30th and 31st floors with free tower views.

Shibuya The Hachiko Statue outside Shibuya Station honours the Akita who kept coming back to meet his dead owner's train for nearly ten years in the 1920s and 30s. It went up in 1934 with Hachiko himself present, and it's now the default meeting spot in Tokyo.

Nihonbashi Nihonbashi Bridge is the 1911 double-arched stone bridge that marks kilometre zero of Japan's national highway network, the successor to the wooden Edo-period bridge from which all roads were measured from 1603. Bronze kirin and lion statues guard it under the elevated expressway, which is slowly being moved underground.

Ginza Kabukiza has been the main home of kabuki since 1889. Kengo Kuma rebuilt it in 2013, restoring the grand Momoyama-style facade beneath a modern tower. Performances run most of the year, and cheap single-act tickets let you try the spectacle without sitting through a four-hour programme.

Azabudai Azabudai Hills is Mori's 2023 mega-development around the 325-metre Mori JP Tower, Japan's tallest skyscraper, with Heatherwick Studio's rippling low-rise buildings, gardens, galleries, a food market and teamLab Borderless at its base.

Yushima Kyu Iwasaki-tei is the opulent 1896 residence of the Iwasaki family, who founded Mitsubishi. It's centred on a Jacobean-style Western mansion by Josiah Conder, with a Swiss-chalet billiard house and an attached traditional Japanese wing, all open to walk through for 400 yen.

Otsuka Nakiryu is a tiny counter shop in a backstreet of Minami-Otsuka, and in 2017 it became the second ramen shop in the world to earn a Michelin star. Its signature tantanmen layers sesame and chilli over a refined shoyu base.

Shinjuku Sobahouse Konjiki Hototogisu is a Michelin-starred ramen shop opposite Shinjuku Gyoen, known for shio and shoyu soba built on hamaguri clam dashi with porcini oil and truffle. It moved here from its original shop in Hatagaya.

Shin-Koiwa Menya Itto gets ranked the best tsukemen in Tokyo more often than anywhere else. It's an 11-seat counter in residential Shin-Koiwa serving a rich seafood-and-chicken dipping broth with noodles made in-house.

Kanda Karashibi Miso Ramen Kikanbo is a demon-themed Kanda shop known for karashibi ramen, a thick miso broth that combines kara chilli heat with shibi, the mouth-numbing tingle of sansho pepper, topped with big chunks of chashu. The name means an ogre's spiked club.

Ogikubo Harukiya has been going since 1949 and is credited as the originator of Ogikubo-style Tokyo shoyu ramen, with a niboshi broth and noodles made by hand every day to suit the weather. An institution with only a handful of seats.

Ikebukuro Higashi-Ikebukuro Taishoken is the birthplace of tsukemen as a Tokyo staple. Kazuo Yamagishi, the God of Ramen, created morisoba, the dipping-noodle dish that became tsukemen, in the 1950s and made it famous at this shop, which he opened in 1961. After redevelopment the shop reopened a short walk from the original site.

Meguro Tonki is one of the most celebrated tonkatsu restaurants in Tokyo, frying pork cutlets since 1939 behind a U-shaped counter where the all-white-clad team works in full view. The open-kitchen choreography is half the experience.

Ginza Tempura Kondo is a two-Michelin-star tempura counter on the 9th floor of a Ginza building, where chef Fumio Kondo is famous for what he does with vegetables, including his signature inch-thick sweet potato. Counter seating only, since 1991.

Minami-Senju Obana is a Meiji-era unagi restaurant in Minami-Senju that often gets called the eastern yokozuna of Tokyo eel. Each order is killed, grilled and steamed after you sit down, the old Edo way.

Kanda Kanda Yabu Soba is the head shop of the Yabu soba lineage and one of Japan's three great yabusoba houses, serving hand-cut seiro soba since 1880. The wooden building burned in 2013 and was rebuilt in matching style in 2014.

Ningyocho Tamahide was founded in 1760 as a shamo chicken specialist, and it's credited with inventing oyakodon in the Meiji era. The shop is a few steps from Ningyocho Station.

Koenji Tensuke is a 12-seat tempura counter in Koenji with a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The reason to go is the egg: chef Kurihara cracks one into the hot oil, drizzles batter over it and finishes with a kabuki pose. It's cheap and it's very good.

Jimbocho Curry Bondy is the shop that started Tokyo's European-style curry in 1973, on the second floor above a second-hand bookshop in Jimbocho's book district. Its deep brown roux mixes French sauce technique with fruit and dairy.

Nakameguro Seirinkan is Susumu Kakinuma's steampunk-decorated pizzeria in Nakameguro, credited with bringing Naples-style pizza to Japan. The menu has exactly two pizzas, margherita and marinara, fired in a custom wood oven.

Toyosu Sushi Dai is the most famous sushi breakfast in Tokyo, moved from Tsukiji to the 3rd floor of Block 6 at Toyosu Market in 2018. The chef's omakase of market-fresh Edo-style nigiri draws queues that start before dawn.

Harajuku Harajuku Gyoza Lou is a no-frills gyoza joint near Cat Street that has fed Harajuku for more than two decades with exactly two styles, fried or steamed, at around 300 yen for six. The open kitchen and rock-bottom prices keep the queue going.

Azabu-Juban Naniwaya Sohonten is the birthplace of taiyaki, and it has baked the fish-shaped bean-paste cakes in Azabu-Juban since 1909. Each one is still cooked on its own in a heavy iron mould, the slow itcho-yaki way.

Yanaka Himitsudo is Tokyo's most famous kakigori shop, just off the Yuyake Dandan steps by Yanaka Ginza. Natural ice from Nikko is shaved on a hand-cranked machine and drowned in homemade fruit syrups.

Ginza Cafe de l'Ambre is the legendary Ginza kissaten that has poured coffee and nothing else since 1948, with 30-plus single origins including beans aged for a decade or more. Much of the original interior survives.

Omotesando Koffee Mameya is Eiichi Kunitomo's minimalist bean shop on the site of the famous Omotesando Koffee, stocking 20 to 30 coffees from top roasters around the world. The baristas talk to you one on one, then brew or sell you beans to match your taste.

Yanaka Kayaba Coffee is a Yanaka kissaten that opened in 1938 inside a 1915 machiya townhouse, closed in 2006 and was lovingly revived in 2009. It's known for its egg sandwiches and Russian coffee, with tatami seating upstairs.

Shibuya Meikyoku Kissa Lion is a classical-music listening cafe on Dogenzaka, founded in 1926 and rebuilt to the same design in 1950, with seats arranged like a theatre facing 3-metre wooden speakers. Talking is kept to whispers and photography is banned.

Kuramae Leaves Coffee Roasters is an acclaimed roastery founded in 2019 by the former professional boxer Yasuo Ishii, across the Sumida River from Kuramae. It has been named among the world's top roasters and still feels like a neighbourhood stand.

Sangenjaya Obscura Laboratory is the roastery storefront of Obscura Coffee Roasters, the outfit that put Sangenjaya on Tokyo's specialty coffee map from 2009. Beans are roasted on site and hand brews are poured to order on Chazawa-dori.

Shinjuku Bar Benfiddich is Hiroyasu Kayama's 17-seat apothecary-style cocktail bar on a 9th floor in Nishi-Shinjuku, a fixture of the World's 50 Best Bars. He muddles herbs and spices he grows on his family farm, often with a mortar and pestle.

Ginza Bar High Five is Hidetsugu Ueno's Ginza cocktail bar and a long-time fixture of the World's 50 Best Bars. Classical Japanese bartending: no menu, a few questions, and a drink built to your taste.

Ryogoku Beer Club Popeye has been open since 1985 near the sumo stadium, and it's the pub credited with popularising the term craft beer in Japan. Around 70 carefully kept Japanese taps, and a pilgrimage for beer lovers.

Asakusa Kamiya Bar is the oldest Western-style bar in Japan, founded in 1880 by the Azumabashi crossing in Asakusa, and the home of Denki Bran, the herbal brandy cocktail invented in 1882. The ground floor is a noisy beer hall full of locals at shared tables.

Shimokitazawa Shirubee is a much-loved izakaya down a Shimokitazawa backstreet, with a big counter wrapped around an open kitchen. It does izakaya classics with playful twists, like nikujaga with garlic bread and tofu cheese with honey.

Monzen-Nakacho Orihara Shoten is a standing sake bar run by a liquor shop founded in 1924, on the approach to Fukagawa Fudoson temple in Monzen-Nakacho. More than 100 sakes are poured by the glass at counters made from bottle crates.

Tsukiji Sushizanmai Honten is the flagship of the sushi chain whose founder became famous for paying record prices for the first tuna of the year at auction, including 333.6 million yen in 2019. It's in the heart of the Tsukiji outer market and serves solid, fairly priced sushi around the clock.

Shibuya Gyukatsu Motomura is the restaurant that made gyukatsu, deep-fried breaded beef cutlet served rare, a Tokyo phenomenon. Each diner gets a small hot stone grill to sear the pink slices as they like, with barley rice, tororo and miso soup on the side.

Asakusa Sometaro is an okonomiyaki house in a creaky wooden building that has been going since 1937. You sit on tatami and cook your own pancake on a hot plate set into the low table. The menu covers Tokyo-style okonomiyaki and old shitamachi snacks like anzu-yaki.

Jimbocho Glitch Coffee & Roasters is one of the most respected specialty roasters in Japan, known for very light roasts of rare single-origin lots brewed as precise pour-overs. Its baristas regularly place in national brewing competitions, and the bean list changes all the time.

Nakameguro Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo is a four-storey Kengo Kuma building on the Meguro River with a copper cask rising through the whole thing, a Princi bakery, a teahouse floor and a cocktail bar on top. It's one of only a handful of Reserve Roasteries in the world, and people treat it as a destination in itself.

Ginza Kissa You is a classic showa-era kissaten right behind the Kabukiza theatre, famous for one dish: omurice with an almost liquid, custard-soft omelette draped over ketchup rice. Kabuki actors and stagehands have been regulars for decades.

Shibuya Womb is Tokyo's best-known techno and house club, four floors deep in the Maruyamacho love-hotel hills since 2000. The main floor's giant mirror ball and serious sound system have hosted most of the big names in international electronic music.

Ebisu Bar Trench is a tiny cocktail bar down an alley in Ebisu, at street level in the DIS Building, 1-5-8 Ebisu-Nishi. It spent years on the World's 50 Best Bars list and did a lot to get Tokyo noticed as a bar city. The drinks are herbal and bittersweet, and the back bar is absinthes and European liqueurs you won't recognise.

Aoyama Every Saturday and Sunday the plaza in front of the United Nations University on Aoyama-dori fills with farmers selling vegetables, fruit, honey and flowers straight from their fields, with coffee and food trucks along the edge. This is where Tokyo's chefs and food-obsessed locals shop at the weekend.

Sugamo Sugamo Jizo-dori is the shopping street people call the Harajuku of grandmas. It runs past Koganji temple and its Togenuki Jizo statue, which visitors wash to cure their ailments, and the shops sell shio-daifuku, senbei and the famous lucky red underwear from Maruji.

Ginza Itoya Ginza is a twelve-floor flagship devoted entirely to stationery, run by a company founded in 1904 and marked by the red paperclip sign on Chuo-dori. Each floor is one obsession: letter paper, fountain pens, travel gear, craft paper, even a cafe on top.

Harajuku Kiddy Land is the character-goods institution on Omotesando, with floor after floor of Snoopy, Sanrio, Rilakkuma, Ghibli and whatever character Japan is obsessed with this month. It's been a Harajuku fixture for decades, and adults enjoy it as much as children do.

Kameido Kameido Tenjin is east Tokyo's great wisteria shrine, dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane, the deity of scholarship. Hiroshige printed its arched drum bridges and purple trellises in the 1850s, and the scene still looks remarkably like the woodblock.

Chiyoda Yasukuni Shrine is a vast 1869 shrine at the top of Kudan hill, entered through one of the biggest torii gates in Japan. The Japan Meteorological Agency's benchmark cherry tree grows here, and when it opens five blossoms, Tokyo's sakura season is officially declared.

Chiyoda Kitanomaru Park is the former northern citadel of Edo Castle, now a wooded public park that holds the Nippon Budokan concert hall. You enter through the original Tayasumon gate, one of the oldest surviving gates of the castle.

Kasai Kasai Rinkai Park is a huge waterfront park on Tokyo Bay, opened in 1989, with a bird sanctuary, an artificial beach and the Tokyo Sea Life Park aquarium. Its 117-metre Ferris wheel is one of the tallest in Japan.

Meguro The Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum is a 1933 Art Deco mansion built as the residence of Prince Asaka, with interiors by the French designer Henri Rapin and glass by Rene Lalique. The building is the main exhibit, and exhibitions rotate through its original rooms.

Odaiba Miraikan is Japan's national museum of emerging science, built around the Geo-Cosmos, a giant suspended globe that shows the Earth in near real time. The exhibits cover robotics, space and life science, and most of them are hands-on.

Roppongi The Suntory Museum of Art is a Kengo Kuma museum inside Tokyo Midtown devoted to art in everyday life, which means lacquerware, ceramics, textiles and glass rather than paintings. The exhibitions rotate, so the collection always feels freshly edited.

Aoyama Meiji Jingu Gaien Ginkgo Avenue is four rows of ginkgo trees forming a 300-metre golden corridor towards the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery. The trees are pruned into sharp cones, which is why the perspective looks drawn rather than grown.

Yurakucho The Tokyo International Forum is Rafael Vinoly's 1997 convention centre, known for its glass hall shaped like the hull of a ship and held up by a spine of white steel ribs. It's one of the few pieces of grand modern architecture in Tokyo you can wander through freely.

Odaiba Rainbow Bridge is the 798-metre suspension bridge linking central Tokyo to Odaiba, opened in 1993, and it has a free pedestrian walkway on both sides. Walking it takes about half an hour, with harbour views no observation deck can match.

Enoshima Enoshima is a small sacred island off the Shonan coast, reached by a 600-metre bridge and stacked with shrines to the goddess Benzaiten, a botanical garden and the Sea Candle observation lighthouse. On clear winter days Mount Fuji floats above the bay to the west.

Yokohama Yokohama's Minato Mirai packs the Landmark Tower, the Red Brick Warehouse shops and the Cup Noodles Museum into a walkable waterfront loop. Japan's largest Chinatown is three stops further down the same line.

Ikebukuro Ikebukuro is the north side's answer to Shinjuku: a giant station with Tobu and Seibu department stores bolted to either side, Sunshine City and the anime shops of Otome Road to the east, and a deep bench of business hotels.

Ryogoku Kyu-Yasuda Garden is a compact stroll garden laid out in the Genroku era, around 1690, for a feudal lord's riverside residence. Yasuda Zenjiro, founder of the Yasuda financial group, owned it later and gave it to the city in 1922. Its heart-shaped pond was built to rise and fall with the tides of the Sumida River, and pumps now recreate the effect.

Ryogoku Yokoamicho Park is the memorial ground for the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, on the open lot where tens of thousands of people who had fled the fires died in a single firestorm. The 1930 memorial hall holds the ashes of victims of the earthquake and of the 1945 air raids, and the free museum beside it shows objects recovered from the ruins.

Ryogoku Ryogoku Edo Noren is the 1929 Ryogoku station building, reopened in 2016 as a food hall arranged around a full-size raised sumo ring. About a dozen counters serve old Tokyo dishes under one roof, from chanko nabe and monjayaki to fukagawa-meshi clam rice.

Ikebukuro Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan is a long, low school building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and finished in 1921 for the newly founded Jiyu Gakuen girls' school, now an Important Cultural Property open to visitors. Geometric wooden window frames fill the double-height hall, and the whole complex sits on a lawn in the calm streets south of Ikebukuro's west side.

Ikebukuro Sunshine Aquarium is a rooftop aquarium on top of Sunshine City, where the penguin tank is built so the birds seem to swim above the Ikebukuro skyline and sea lions glide through a ring-shaped tank over your head. The indoor floors below hold the jellyfish and tropical tanks.

Ikebukuro Mutekiya is the Ikebukuro ramen shop with the permanent queue, serving rich tonkotsu broth, thin noodles and thick-cut chashu from late morning until the small hours. It's on Meiji-dori, two minutes south of the east exit.

Ikebukuro Rikkyo University's Ikebukuro campus is a red-brick campus founded by American Episcopal missionaries, centred on the ivy-covered Morris Hall of 1919, with a chapel and the Mather Library Memorial Hall, all listed as historic buildings by the Tokyo government. Ten minutes from the west exit, and it feels nothing like the station around it.

Jimbocho Isseido Booksellers is Jimbocho's landmark antiquarian bookshop, trading since 1903 from a stone-faced building finished in 1931 that came through the war intact. The ground floor holds Japanese scholarship and rare books. Upstairs is one of the best stocks of antiquarian English-language books in Tokyo.

Jimbocho Ladrio is a 1949 kissaten in a narrow lane off Yasukuni-dori, dim, brick-walled and wood-panelled, and widely credited with bringing Vienna coffee, strong coffee under a cap of whipped cream, to Japan. The spaghetti napolitan is the other reason regulars come.

Jimbocho Sumatra Curry Kyoeido is a basement curry house open since 1924, the oldest still going in Jimbocho's curry district. Its near-black Sumatra-style curry is built from more than twenty spices and thickened without flour, and it's deeper than it looks.

Akihabara Akihabara Radio Kaikan is the building that has anchored Akihabara since 1962, rebuilt in 2014 as ten floors of hobby shops opposite the station: new and used figures, plastic model kits, trading cards, dolls and a few of the old electronics dealers.

Akihabara Mandarake Complex is eight floors of second-hand manga, anime goods, retro games, figures and collectibles in a black building on the backstreets west of Chuo-dori. Each floor has its own theme, and it's the place in Akihabara to look for older and out-of-print items.

Akihabara mAAch ecute Kanda Manseibashi is shops and cafes built into the red-brick arches of the old Manseibashi Station, a 1912 terminus designed by Tatsuno Kingo and closed in 1943. The original staircases lead up to the former platform, now a glass-walled deck with Chuo Line trains passing a few metres away on both sides.

Sangenjaya The Tokyu Setagaya Line is one of Tokyo's two surviving tram lines: two-car trains running five kilometres and ten stations from Sangenjaya to Shimo-Takaido through low-rise residential Setagaya, at one flat fare. The Sangenjaya terminus is at the foot of Carrot Tower.

Koenji Koenji Hikawa Shrine is a small neighbourhood shrine a short walk from Koenji station, and it holds Kisho Jinja, the only shrine in Japan dedicated to the weather. It began in 1944 as the shrine of the army's weather forecasting unit and moved here in 1948.

Koenji Koenji Junjo Shotengai is the shopping street running north from Koenji station, more than two hundred shops of greengrocers, tofu makers, bakeries and second-hand stores. It was called Koenji Ginza until the neighbourhood renamed it after Nejime Shoichi's novel Koenji Junjo Shotengai, which won the Naoki Prize in 1989.

Koenji Koenji Pal Shotengai is a covered arcade running about 220 metres south from Koenji station, lined with clothing, general stores and cheap places to eat, and it carries straight on into Look Street's run of vintage shops. The Koenji Awa Odori, now one of the biggest summer dance festivals in Tokyo, grew out of this street in the late 1950s.

Kiyosumi The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is the city's big public museum of contemporary art, opened in 1995 at the north end of Kiba Park, with a collection of around 5,700 works from postwar Japan and abroad. The temporary shows draw the crowds. The MOT Collection galleries show the permanent holdings for a lower fee.

Kiyosumi The Fukagawa Edo Museum is a full-size reconstruction of a Fukagawa riverside neighbourhood around 1840, built inside a hall: row houses, shops, a boathouse, a tavern and a fire lookout, all made with traditional techniques. You can walk the lanes and step into the houses.

Kiyosumi Arise Coffee Roasters is a tiny roastery opened in 2013 by Taiju Hayashi and hung with skateboard decks, where around ten single origins are roasted in the shop and poured to order. It's one of the small independents that made Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Tokyo's coffee district.

Kiyosumi Allpress Espresso Tokyo Roastery & Cafe is the Tokyo roastery of New Zealand's Allpress, in a converted warehouse where the roasting floor takes up the back of the building and a small cafe at the front serves flat whites and baked goods.

Kiyosumi Fukagawa Kamasho is a small restaurant on the street leading to the Fukagawa Edo Museum, devoted to fukagawa-meshi: asari clams simmered with miso and poured over rice, once the quick meal of the fishermen on this waterfront.

Kuramae Kuramae Shrine is a neighbourhood shrine founded in 1693, when the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi brought the deity of Iwashimizu Hachimangu here to guard Edo Castle. In the 18th century its grounds hosted sumo tournaments, and in 1782 the great ozeki Tanikaze lost here to Onogawa, ending a 63-bout winning run.

Kuramae Kakimori is the stationery shop that made Kuramae a destination: you pick covers, paper, rings and closures from the shelves and the staff bind a custom notebook on the spot. Fountain pens and inks fill the rest of the room.

Kuramae Kuramae Bridge is a 1927 steel arch bridge over the Sumida River, built in the rebuilding after the Great Kanto Earthquake and painted yellow for the rice husks of the shogunate granaries that gave Kuramae its name.

Kuramae Torigoe Shrine is an old shrine said to date from 651, on the south-west edge of Kuramae, and the home of the Torigoe Matsuri in early June, when its Sengan Mikoshi, at around four tonnes the heaviest portable shrine in Tokyo, is carried through the streets and brought back by lantern light.

Shibamata Yamamoto-tei is a 1920s house built for a local businessman, mixing tatami rooms with a Western-style reception room, set around a garden that has placed near the top of the Journal of Japanese Gardening's ranking of gardens in Japan. Tea and a sweet are served on the tatami facing the garden.

Shibamata The Katsushika Shibamata Tora-san Museum is set into the Edo River embankment and devoted to Otoko wa Tsurai yo, the 48-film series about the wandering salesman Tora-san of Shibamata, with sets, props, costumes and dioramas from the films. The Yoji Yamada Museum next door covers the director.

Shibamata Yagiri no Watashi is a rowed ferry across the Edo River between Shibamata and Matsudo in Chiba, the only river crossing of its kind still running in Tokyo and the subject of a hit 1980s enka song. There's no timetable. The boat goes when enough passengers are waiting.

Shibamata Taishakuten Sando is the 200-metre approach from Shibamata station to the temple gate, lined with low wooden shops selling kusa dango, hand-grilled rice crackers and hajiki-zaru monkey toys, and old restaurants serving eel and river fish. The Tora-san films set the family's dango shop on this street.

Shinjuku Thermae-yu is a big modern onsen complex in Kabukicho, open 24 hours. The outdoor bath uses real hot spring water trucked in from Naka-Izu, and there are saunas, a bedrock sauna room, restaurants and lounges where people nap between soaks. It's a spa, not a neighbourhood sento, and it's priced like one.

Bunkyo Spa LaQua is the onsen complex inside Tokyo Dome City, fed by an amber, very salty hot spring pumped from 1,700 metres down. There's an outdoor bath at two temperatures, a row of saunas with scheduled aufguss sessions, and floors of lounges and restaurants. It's a modern leisure spa, so expect crowds on weekends.

Chofu Yumori no Sato is a day-trip onsen a few minutes' walk from Jindaiji, and its water is the real thing: dark brown kuro-yu pumped from 1,500 metres. There are nine different baths and a restaurant serving Jindaiji soba. Pair it with the temple and the botanical gardens for a slow day on Tokyo's west side.

Komagome Tokyo Somei Onsen Sakura is a hot spring complex near Komagome with amber, iodine-rich salt water pumped from its own well at 46.6°C. There's a lukewarm cypress bath indoors and an open-air bath under the sky, and Rikugien Gardens is a short walk away.

Toyosu Tokyo Toyosu Manyo Club is the onsen complex next to Toyosu Market, open 24 hours. The water is trucked in by tanker from the hot springs of Hakone and Yugawara, the outdoor bath looks out over Tokyo Bay, and there's a rooftop footbath garden with a view right round the waterfront. Come after the morning tuna at the market.

Hachioji Keio Takaosan Onsen Gokurakuyu sits right beside Takaosanguchi station, built for hikers coming down off Mt Takao. The natural hot spring comes from about 1,000 metres down and fills outdoor rock baths at two temperatures. Soak, then take the Keio Line straight back to Shinjuku.

Koenji Kosugiyu has been running in Koenji since 1933, in the original wooden temple-style building with a curved karahafu gable over the entrance. It's known for its milk bath, a daily changing bath, and four tubs at different temperatures for going hot and cold.

Harajuku Kosugiyu Harajuku is the Koenji bathhouse's second branch, in the basement of the Harakado building at the Jingumae crossing. Expect white tiles, round mirrors, the house milk bath every day and a 44°C hot tub next to a soft-water cold bath. It's a real ¥600 sento in the middle of Harajuku's shopping streets.

Shibuya Kairyoyu is a designer sento between Shibuya and Ebisu, rebuilt in 2018 by the architect Kentaro Imai. You'll spot it by the huge whale painted on the outside wall. Inside there's a big carbonated bath, a medium bath and a cold bath, all in soft water, plus a far-infrared sauna.

Nakameguro Komyosen is a family-run sento 3 minutes from Nakameguro station, in its 45th year and run by three generations. A 2014 renovation gave it a white-and-wood entrance, a carbonated bath, a sauna and an open-air bath on the roof, where you look straight up at the sky.

Kagurazaka Atamiyu is a classic temple-style sento in a back lane off Kagurazaka, often used as a film location. The bath water is heated over a wood fire and runs hot, there's a Mt Fuji painting on the bathroom wall, and the attendant still sits at a raised bandai counter between the two changing rooms.

Ginza Konparuyu is a small sento in Ginza 8-chome, with a bandai counter, a coffered ceiling and a large kamidana shrine shelf that's been there since the Taisho era. The tile pictures are Kutani ware by the Suzueido workshop.

Ueno Tsubameyu near Okachimachi opens at 6am every day it's open. The 1950 building and the rock mountain in the bath, built from real Mt Fuji lava, are registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, the only sento in Tokyo with that status.

Ueno Kotobukiyu is a temple-style sento near Inaricho with a karahafu roof, a huge painting on the bathroom wall and an outdoor rock bath. Inside there are hot and lukewarm tubs, a daily herbal bath, a sauna and a cold plunge, and it stays open until 1:30am.

Ueno Haginoyu by Uguisudani station is one of Tokyo's biggest sento, rebuilt in 2017 with the men's bath on the third floor and the women's on the fourth. There's an outdoor rock bath, a carbonated bath, saunas and a restaurant on the second floor. It also opens for a morning bath from 6am.

Yanaka Saitoyu is a renovated sento 3 minutes from Nippori station, the gateway to Yanaka. Everything runs on soft water, from a carbonated bath and an open-air rock bath to a very cold plunge, and there's draft beer in the big lobby afterwards.

Asakusa Yakushiyu is a minute from Tokyo Skytree station and was redone in April 2025 with a Greek theme. Mizuki Tanaka painted Mykonos on the men's side and Santorini on the women's. It runs more than 100 different daily baths a year, has a children's bath and a well-water cold plunge.

Asakusa Oshiage Onsen Daikokuyu is a temple-style sento with natural hot spring water, a big outdoor bath and a bath with a view of the Skytree. It's open all night, from 3pm until 10am the next morning, which makes it the place for a dawn soak in this part of town.

Ryogoku Koganeyu is a design-led sento near Kinshicho, one stop from Ryogoku, reopened in 2020. The bathroom wall is a picture-scroll mural by Yoriko Hoshi, the creator of Kyou no Nekomura-san, and the front counter doubles as a bar with craft beer and a DJ booth. It also opens 6am to 9am for a morning bath.

Ryogoku Mikokuyu is a sento with natural black hot spring water, kuro-yu, in three tubs at high, medium and low temperature, plus an open-air bath with a view of the Skytree. It was rebuilt in 2015 and has eight baths in all.

Kiyosumi Fukagawa Onsen Tokiwayu is an 80-year-old temple-style sento near Kiyosumi-shirakawa, renovated in 2023 with a newly drilled natural spring. The temple-style building stayed and the inside went modern, with a carbonated bath, a silky bath, an open-air area on the men's side and a Mt Fuji painting by Mizuki Tanaka.

Kuramae Tsurunoyu is an old temple-style sento between Asakusabashi and Kuramae, with a coffered ceiling, a small garden and mosaic tile pictures. The water is well water, heated hot, and the whole place feels unchanged.

Asakusa Hinodeyu in Moto-Asakusa is a sento with natural hot spring water and a tub made from cypress more than 1,000 years old, which makes the water feel soft. There's also an outdoor bath and a carbonated cold shower to finish.

Sasazuka Sakaeyu is Sasazuka's onsen sento, a few minutes from the station, with water that's certified natural hot spring. It was renovated in 2014 and has a strong jet bath, a daily herbal bath, an open-air bath and a sauna.

Shibamata Kanamachiyu is a temple-style sento from 1943, one stop from Shibamata on the Keisei Kanamachi Line, renovated in 2021 under a 'new retro' idea. The old bandai counter is kept as a display piece, and there's a small garden, a coffered ceiling, a pendulum clock and a Mt Fuji painting.

Shinagawa Togoshi Ginza Onsen is a sento near the Togoshi Ginza shopping street that turned into an onsen sento in 2007, with natural black-water hot spring. Its two bathrooms are designed differently and swap between men and women every week.

Shinagawa Shimizuyu in Musashi-Koyama has two natural hot springs, a black kuro-yu and a golden one, plus an open-air bath. On Sundays it opens at 8am for a morning bath.

Nakano Tenjinyu is a temple-style sento 7 minutes from Nakano station, renovated in 2023 by Kentaro Imai and certified as a hot spring in 2025. The Showa details stayed, from the Mt Fuji painting and tropical fish mosaic to a garden with koi.

Azabu-Juban Takenoyu is a small sento in Minami-Azabu with natural black hot spring water, split into a hot tub and a lukewarm one. Even the cold bath is filled with spring water.

Kanda Inariyu is a neighbourhood sento in Uchi-Kanda, between Kanda and Otemachi, where Mizuki Tanaka repaints the wall mural once a year. Runners circling the Imperial Palace leave their bags here.

Shinjuku Koganeyu Shinjuku opened in July 2026 in the old Kanazawa Yokujo bathhouse, keeping its mosaic tiles and adding a carbonated bath and cave-like sauna areas. The front counter is a bar with craft beer and a DJ booth, a sister bath of Oshiage's Daikokuyu. From August it stays open overnight.

Suginami Omiya Hachimangu is Suginami's big local shrine, set in a wooded precinct right beside Wadabori Park. It calls itself the navel of Tokyo, and families come to pray for a safe birth and for their children's health. Daniel and his wife had their Shinto wedding here.

Ogikubo The Suginami Animation Museum is a free museum on the third floor of Suginami Kaikan, run by Tokyo Polytechnic University. A timeline walks you through the history of Japanese anime, there's a dubbing corner where you can try voicing a scene yourself, and the theatre shows anime on a 200-inch screen. Special exhibitions on one studio or series change three or four times a year.

Oizumi The Toei Animation Museum is run by Toei Animation itself, the oldest anime studio still in business, in Higashi-Oizumi in Nerima. It's small and free, and it covers about seventy years of the studio's work, from its earliest films to the series on TV now. A permanent Digimon display opened in June 2026.

Minami-Nagasaki The Tokiwa-so Manga Museum is a rebuilt Tokiwa-so, the two-storey apartment house in Toshima where Osamu Tezuka moved in 1953. Young manga artists followed him there, Fujiko F. Fujio, Shotaro Ishinomori and Fujio Akatsuka among them. The original came down in 1982, and the rebuilt version in Minami-Nagasaki Hanasaki Park runs exhibitions on the artists who lived there.

Ikebukuro Anime Tokyo Station is a free anime centre set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and run by the Association of Japanese Animations, four minutes from Ikebukuro's east exit. The basement takes you through how an anime gets made, with real production material. The upper floor holds special exhibitions on one series at a time, and they're free too.

Ikebukuro Animate Ikebukuro is the flagship of the Animate anime shop chain, five minutes from Ikebukuro's east exit. Since a 2023 rebuild it fills a building of nine floors and two basements with character goods, manga, music and games, and it has its own theatre downstairs for stage readings and talk shows.

Ikebukuro The Gashapon Department Store in Sunshine City is Bandai Namco's capsule toy hall, with 3,775 machines on the third floor of the World Import Mart building. Weeks after it opened in 2021 it set the Guinness World Record for the most capsule toy machines in one place, and it's added more since.

Shibuya Shibuya PARCO is a fashion mall, but anime and game fans go straight to the 6th floor, where Nintendo TOKYO, Pokémon Center Shibuya, the JUMP SHOP and the CAPCOM STORE TOKYO sit side by side. THE GUNDAM BASE SHIBUYA is due to open in the building in November 2026.

Kawasaki The Fujiko F. Fujio Museum in Kawasaki is given over to the creator of Doraemon, who lived for years in the city's Tama ward. His original colour artwork fills the first floor, a small theatre screens films you can't see anywhere else, and his characters wait for you on the rooftop playground. There's a manga reading room and a cafe too.

Odaiba The Gundam Base Tokyo is the official Gunpla centre on the 7th floor of DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, where you can buy, build and look at Gundam model kits, with finished models on display. The life-size Unicorn Gundam statue outside the mall ended its run on 31 August 2026.

Sakura-shinmachi The Hasegawa Machiko Art Museum is two buildings in Sakura-shinmachi for the creator of Sazae-san. The Memorial Museum covers her life and her best-known manga, Sazae-san, Ijiwaru Baasan and Apron Obasan, with original drawings and photos. The Art Museum, open since 1985, shows the paintings and crafts she and her sister Mariko collected.

Neighbourhood guide Vintage shops, live music, and the best curry in Tokyo

Neighbourhood guide Old Tokyo's front door, best before the tour buses arrive

Neighbourhood guide Museums, market chaos, and Tokyo's great public park

Neighbourhood guide The crossing is just the cover page

Neighbourhood guide Teen fashion theatre next door to Tokyo's grandest shrine

Neighbourhood guide Art triangle by day, skyline views by night

Neighbourhood guide Daniel's stop on the Keio Line

Neighbourhood guide One stop over, where the locals drink

Neighbourhood guide Jindaiji's temple, soba, and a personal landmark

Neighbourhood guide Tokyo's grand shopping street, best at its counters and old coffee houses

Neighbourhood guide Sumo town on the Sumida, with Hokusai and a tidal garden next door

Neighbourhood guide Tokyo's book town, fuelled by curry and old coffee houses

Neighbourhood guide Electric Town, eight floors at a time

Neighbourhood guide Punk, vintage and Awa Odori, one stop west of Nakano

Neighbourhood guide Tokyo's coffee district, around a Meiji garden and old Fukagawa

Neighbourhood guide Makers, roasters and old granaries on the Sumida, a short walk from Asakusa

Neighbourhood guide Tora-san's hometown, a carved temple and the last rowed ferry in Tokyo

About this Tokyo travel map

This is a free interactive map of Tokyo's tourist attractions and neighbourhoods, with 306 places picked by hand. Senso-ji, Meiji Shrine, Shibuya Crossing and Tokyo Skytree are on it, and so are the standing bars and six-seat counters most visitors walk straight past. Filter by category or tag, search by name or neighbourhood, save favourites, and export them to Google Maps as a walking route. Every place links to a full page with the nearest station, cost, and the best time to go.

Top Tokyo attractions on the map

The best-known sights, area by area, each with the best time to go. Each name opens the place's own page, and the map shows everything else around it.

Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree

Senso-ji Temple · Dawn or dusk
Nakamise Shopping Street · Before 9am or after dark
Tokyo Skytree · Clear winter mornings
Kappabashi Kitchen Town · Daytime, closed Sundays

Ueno

Ueno Park · Early morning
Tokyo National Museum · Weekday mornings
Ameya-yokocho · Weekend buzz
Ueno Zoo · Weekday mornings

Shinjuku

Shinjuku Gyoen · Weekday mornings
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building · An hour before sunset
Golden Gai · After 9pm
Omoide Yokocho · Evening

Shibuya

Shibuya Crossing · After dark
Shibuya Sky · Sunset, book ahead
Hachiko Statue · Early morning before the crowds
Shibuya Nonbei Yokocho · Evening

Harajuku

Meiji Shrine · Before 9am
Yoyogi Park · Sunday afternoons
Takeshita Street · Weekday mornings

Ginza, Tsukiji and the Imperial Palace

Kabukiza Theatre · Afternoon single-act performances
Tsukiji Outer Market · 7 to 10am
Hamarikyu Gardens · Mornings
Imperial Palace East Gardens · Mornings, closed Mon and Fri

Roppongi and Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Tower · After dark
Roppongi Hills Mori Tower · Clear winter days
Mori Art Museum · Evenings, except Tuesdays
teamLab Borderless · First slot of the day for thinner crowds

Odaiba and Toyosu

teamLab Planets · Weekday slots, book ahead
Toyosu Market · From 5am, breakfast after
Odaiba Seaside Park · Golden hour
Miraikan · Weekday afternoons

Akihabara and Kanda

Akihabara Electric Town · Afternoons
Kanda Myojin Shrine · Mornings
Mandarake Complex · Weekday afternoons
Akihabara Radio Kaikan · Afternoons

West Tokyo

Ghibli Museum · Book on the 10th for next month
Inokashira Park · Weekday afternoons
Shimokitazawa vintage · Afternoons
Nakano Broadway · After noon

Day trips from Tokyo

Kamakura · Spring and autumn weekdays
Nikko · October to November
Hakone · Overnight if you can
Mt Takao · Clear weekdays
Kawagoe · Weekday mornings
Yokohama Minato Mirai · Weekdays

Plan an itinerary with the map

Tap the heart on any place to save it. Open Saved and press Plan my days, and your saved places, events and gigs are sorted into days by area and the best time of day, with walking or train times between stops. Open saved places in Google Maps turns up to ten of them into walking directions. Set your trip dates and the Events view shows what's on while you're here. Saved places stay in your browser, and there's no account.

For days already planned out, the guides have a 3-day itinerary, a 5-day itinerary and 40 things to do in Tokyo.

Is this Tokyo travel map free to use?

Yes. The map is free, with no account or app download. Saved places and events are stored in your browser, so your shortlist is waiting next time you open it.

How were the places on the map chosen?

All 306 places were hand-picked by Daniel, who splits his time between Tokyo and Montreal. Nothing was added by an algorithm, and the collection is edited constantly.

Can I plan a Tokyo itinerary with the map?

Yes. Every place shows what is nearby with walking times, and any shortlist of saved places can be exported to Google Maps as walking directions, up to ten stops at a time.

Does the map cover day trips outside Tokyo?

Yes. The day trips category covers Kamakura, Nikko, Hakone, Kawagoe, and Mt Takao, each with train access, cost, and how long to allow.

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Saved gigs

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About this Tokyo travel map

Top Tokyo attractions on the map

Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree

Ueno

Shinjuku

Shibuya

Harajuku

Ginza, Tsukiji and the Imperial Palace

Roppongi and Tokyo Tower

Odaiba and Toyosu

Akihabara and Kanda

West Tokyo

Day trips from Tokyo

Plan an itinerary with the map

Live music here

From the blog

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