A vending machine on every corner. These are the buttons worth pressing.
Which Fuji bus actually gets you to the Fifth Station. What a sumo dinner show costs next to a morning at a stable. Whether the Tsukiji walk beats a sushi class when you have one free morning. Reviews of every Tokyo tour you can book.
Senso-ji at opening, dinner in the Shinjuku lanes, a ropeway over Hakone.
Four bookings a first week in Tokyo is built around, with what each costs and what the people who went thought of it.
01The first morningAsakusa Walking Tour with Sensoji Temple VisitKaminarimon, the Nakamise stalls and the temple itself, before the tour buses pull in around nine.
02The first evening outShinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)Four small counters and thirteen dishes, from yakitori under the tracks to a last stop for something sweet.
03The rainy-day fallbackteamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketBarefoot through water and mirrored flower rooms in Toyosu. It does not care what the sky is doing.
04The day outMt. Fuji Tour, Hakone Ropeway, Owakudani, Lake AshiLake Ashi by pirate ship, the ropeway over the Owakudani vents, and Fuji if the clouds allow it.
Tokyo is twenty cities sharing one subway map.
Temple lanes in Asakusa, the scramble at Shibuya, Golden Gai after midnight, the tuna stalls at Tsukiji, arcades in Akihabara, moats around the palace. Six places to start, and the cheapest way into each.
Counters for eight, a fish market at breakfast, sushi you roll yourself.
Tokyo has more great restaurants than any city could need, most of them up a staircase with no English sign. A guide gets you through the door; a class sends you home able to make it.
Fuji, Hakone, Nikko or Kamakura: which day out of Tokyo is yours.
Every one of these leaves before eight and gets back after dark. Four kinds of day, what it costs to get on board, and the one most people book first.
Tokyo after the last train: lanterns, karts and car meets.
The office towers empty at seven and the yokocho alleys fill. Bar crawls through Shinjuku, go-karts past Tokyo Tower, and the JDM crowd gathering at Daikoku parking area.
The Tokyo bookings everyone else made first.
Every Tokyo tour we have reviewed →More travellers book these than anything else in and around the city. Here is what earns each one its place.
1
Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet Train
Leave Tokyo by coach for Mount Fuji’s 5th Station, a buffet lunch near the mountain, Hakone’s ropeway and a Lake Ashi cruise. An English-speaking guide leads the day, with audio guidance in several languages. You return to Tokyo from Odawara by bullet train. Clear weather makes a big difference, and the 5th Station and Hakone rides can be affected by road and weather conditions.
From · $163
Read our review →
2
1-Day Tokyo Bus Tour
from $129
3
TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticket
from $13
4
teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry Ticket
from $25
5
Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyo
from $149
6
Shinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)
from $86
7
Tokyo Mt Fuji 5th St & Hakone Cruise Bus Tour w/Bullet Train
from $154
8
Flagship 2-Hours Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Tokyo Bay Shop
from $64
What a day out in Tokyo really costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. Plenty of the best Tokyo mornings cost less than a bowl of ramen and a subway pass.
Observation decks, temple walks, chopstick and matcha workshops, the palace gardens.
Fuji and Hakone coach days, food crawls, sumo shows, sushi classes and street karts.
Private guides, chauffeured Fuji days and the car-club nights that cost what they look like.
Three things you will only see in Tokyo.
Every big city has a food scene and a skyline. Wrestlers eating hotpot, sword schools that never closed and an hour spent over one bowl of tea are harder to find.
Sumo
Three of the six grand tournaments each year are fought at the Ryogoku Kokugikan, in January, May and September. Outside those weeks you see sumo two ways: an early morning at a stable, watching practice in silence from the edge of the ring, or a dinner show where retired wrestlers explain the rules over a pot of chanko nabe.
- 1Sumo Show and Dining Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,742 reviews
- 2the SUMO show★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,960 reviews
- 3Tokyo Shinjuku Sumo Show & Experience with Photo★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,750 reviews
The Sword
The samurai class was abolished in the 1870s, but the sword schools never closed. A class is mostly etiquette and form: how to bow, draw and return the blade without looking at it. Some finish with a cut through a rolled straw mat. Armour try-ons and the museum near Asakusa fill in the history.
- 1Samurai Restaurant Show Ticket with 2 Drinks★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,307 reviews
- 2Samurai Ninja Museum Guided tour and Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,010 reviews
- 3Samurai Sword & Archery Class from Samurai Descendant★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 603 reviews
Matcha, the Slow Way
A tea ceremony is about an hour of quiet choreography for a single bowl of whisked matcha. You kneel on tatami, eat a seasonal sweet first to soften the bitterness, then turn the bowl before you drink. The better classes hand you the bamboo whisk and let you make your own.
- 1Matcha Making Class in Tokyo with Authentic Japanese Sweets Set★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 744 reviews
- 2Traditional Tea Ceremony with a Tea Master★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 528 reviews
- 3Matcha Making Experience with Mochi Sweets in Asakusa★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 388 reviews
When the rainy season hides Fuji and soaks Tokyo.
From early June to mid July the tsuyu rains settle over the city, and humid cloud wraps the mountain for days at a time. Keep a Fuji day flexible and fill the wet ones indoors: a cooking counter, a tea room, a sumo dinner, a gallery of light.
Four Tokyo bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of this city can be decided over breakfast. These four run on release dates, timed slots and a tournament calendar that ignores your flight.
- 01Tokyo Studio Ghibli Museum and Ghibli Film Appreciation TourEntry is by advance ticket only, released a month at a time. Nobody is let in at the door.
- 02teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketEntry runs on timed slots, and the weekend and holiday ones go first.
- 03Sumo Tournament Tour with Chair Seat TicketsTokyo hosts three grand tournaments a year, in January, May and September. Outside those weeks there are no bouts to watch.
- 04DisneySea 1-Day PassportPark tickets are sold for one fixed date, and busy dates sell out online.
Asakusa, Tsukiji, the palace, Shibuya, Shinjuku, then Fuji.
Asakusa
Tsukiji
Imperial Palace
Shibuya
ShinjukuBy place, from Asakusa to the mountains
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