Plan a Trip to Tokyo

How long. Tokyo is not a city you finish. Two days gets you the temple, the crossing and one view; three days adds a museum, a market morning and an evening that is not spent on a train; five days lets you take a whole day out to the mountains without feeling you have stolen it from the city. Decide this before you look at a single hotel, because the length decides the area, and the area decides how much of each day disappears into transfers.

When. October and November are the driest, mildest stretch of the Tokyo year on the thirty-year record, with average highs of 21.1°C and 16.0°C and only 9.9 rainy days in November. Late March and early April carry the cherry blossom and the crowds that come with it. August averages a 30.0°C daily high and September is the wettest month of the year at 178 mm, which is a real constraint on a walking city. The month-by-month page has the whole series, and the events calendar has the dates that fill the hotels.

What has to be booked. This is the short list, and it is genuinely short: four things. Everything else in Tokyo, including two of the three famous observatories, is a walk-up if you are willing to be flexible about the hour. The section below sets out each window and what happens if you miss it.

Where to sleep. Not the hotel, the area. In a city where a single ride can be forty minutes, the district you wake up in is the biggest single lever on how much of the trip you actually spend seeing things. The seven areas are compared side by side, with what a room in each was going for and what you give up by choosing it.

The four that genuinely have to be booked

The pattern worth internalising is that Tokyo's advance-only venues are advance-only because of capacity, not popularity. The Ghibli Museum sells a fixed number of timed slots through one channel and none at the door. teamLab sells nothing on site at Planets and only leftover stock, at a higher price, at Borderless. Everything else on this list is a preference, not a requirement.

What simply walks up

What does not need booking is a longer list and a more useful one. Senso-ji charges nothing and keeps no closed days. Meiji Jingu opens at dawn and charges nothing. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government observatory is free and takes walk-ins at 202 metres, which is a fact worth sitting with before paying for a view. Shinjuku Gyoen sells its $3.24 (¥500) admission at the gate. The Tokyo National Museum wants $6.48 (¥1,000) for the permanent collection and states no advance-booking requirement. Tsukiji's outer market is a street.

One consequence of all this: the fear that Tokyo must be locked down months ahead is mostly imported from cities where it is true. Book the four, keep the rest loose, and you will use the flexibility, because Tokyo weather and Tokyo fatigue both rearrange plans.

The Tokyo National Museum closes Mondays, taking the next weekday instead when the Monday is a public holiday, and shuts entirely from 26 to 31 December. Ueno Zoo, inside the same park, closes Mondays on the same rule and from 29 December to 1 January. Shinjuku Gyoen closes Mondays and from 29 December to 3 January.

So far, so predictable.

Then it stops being predictable. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's two free observatories keep separate closed days that are not the same day and are not Monday for both: the South Observatory closes on the first and third Tuesday of each month, the North on the second and fourth Monday, moving to the next business day when that falls on a national holiday. The Imperial Palace guided tour does not run on Sundays or Mondays, does not run on national holidays unless they fall on a Saturday, runs afternoons only from 1 July to 30 September, and stops entirely from 28 December to 4 January. Senso-ji publishes no closed days anywhere on its site. Tokyo Skytree's own opening calendar shows no closure on any date. Toyosu Market's closed days are set annually and separately for seafood, produce, meat and flowers by the governor, on the advice of the market's trading council, and are published only as per-commodity files, which is why no page on this site prints a weekly pattern for it.

The practical rule that falls out: put the museums on a day that is not Monday, and put the temples, shrines, towers and markets on the Monday. The Monday openings page does that arithmetic date by date, and the three-day itinerary carries the swap already built in.

The daily ladder, in one line

On our own ladder, built from published chain and venue prices, a middling day of food, transport and one paid sight comes to about $38.90 (¥6,000) a head, a frugal one to about $16.20 (¥2,500) and a generous one with two paid tickets and a pass to about $77.80 (¥12,000). The room sits on top of all three and is the only line that moves by a factor of five. The full ladder shows every line and names the ones nobody publishes, of which sit-down dinner is the big one.

The two taxes that change on a known date

The accommodation tax changes shape on 1 April 2027. Today it is a flat charge per person per night, collected at the desk: nothing under $64.80 (¥10,000), ¥100 from there to ¥14,999, ¥200 at $97.20 (¥15,000) and above. From that date it becomes 3 per cent of the accommodation charge, the exemption threshold rises to ¥13,000 a person a night, and the tax extends to simple lodgings such as hostels and guesthouses and to registered private rentals, which the current rules do not clearly cover. The Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications approved the revision on 30 June 2026. If your trip falls after that date, price it in: on a $150 room for two it is roughly nine dollars a night rather than a few hundred yen.

Tax-free shopping flips to a refund method on 1 November 2026. Until then you present a passport and the consumption tax simply comes off at the till. After it, you pay the full price including tax, obtain customs confirmation at departure within 90 days that the goods are leaving Japan, and the shop then refunds the tax. The ¥5,000 minimum purchase stays; the old split between consumables and general goods, the ¥500,000 consumables cap and the sealed-packaging rule are all abolished. The standard consumption tax rate is 10 per cent, with 8 per cent on food and non-alcoholic drink bought to take away.

Cash, cards and tipping

Cash, meanwhile, is less necessary than the guidebooks of five years ago suggest, but still not optional: shrine offerings, small shops and older restaurants often take nothing else. Seven Bank ATMs, which sit in every 7-Eleven and most stations and airports, accept Visa, Plus, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club and China UnionPay, operate in twelve languages and cap a single withdrawal at ¥100,000, or ¥30,000 for a magnetic-stripe card. Tipping is not customary anywhere: the national tourism organisation states plainly that it is not done in bars, cafes, restaurants, taxis or hotels.

From Narita, the Keisei Skyliner runs to Nippori in as little as 36 minutes and Keisei-Ueno in 41, at $16.01 (¥2,470). The cheaper Access Express reaches the same stations at $8.04 (¥1,240) and Asakusa at $8.36 (¥1,290). The Narita Express carries a reserved-seat limited-express charge of $11.21 (¥1,730), or $10.56 (¥1,630) booked ticketless in advance, on top of a base fare that JR East does not publish as a static page, which is why this site does not print the combined total that other sites quote so confidently. The low-cost TYO-NRT bus runs Tokyo Station to Narita in as little as 65 minutes at $9.72 (¥1,500).

From Haneda, the monorail costs $3.37 (¥520) from any terminal to Hamamatsucho, and the combined monorail plus Yamanote discount ticket is $3.82 (¥590) to anywhere on the loop, sold at machines on weekends and holidays only. Keikyu reaches Shinagawa in 11 to 14 minutes, though its own fare page is an interactive search tool and publishes no static figure. Both airports have their full comparison on the Narita and Haneda pages.

On passes, the arithmetic is unromantic. A short Tokyo Metro ride is $1.15 (¥178) on an IC card and the longest band is $2.10 (¥324). The Tokyo Subway Ticket, sold to overseas visitors, costs $6.48 (¥1,000) for 24 hours, $9.72 (¥1,500) for 48 and $12.96 (¥2,000) for 72, so it breaks even at roughly five or six rides in a day, which is more moving about than a well-planned day involves.

The JR-only Tokunai Pass is $5.64 (¥870) for a day inside the 23 wards, and the everything-in-Tokyo Combination Ticket is $11.15 (¥1,720). The transfer between Metro and Toei knocks ¥70 off an adult fare automatically at the gate, which is the single most useful fact about Tokyo fares and the one nobody mentions. Getting around Tokyo sets out every band and the break-even for each pass.

• Booking a hotel before choosing an area. A room forty minutes from where you want to be costs you eighty minutes a day, which over four days is an entire sightseeing day spent underground. Choose the district first: the seven areas are compared here.
• Putting the museums on a Monday. It is the one closure that is genuinely systematic, and it is easy to plan around once you know. The towers, temples, shrines and markets are the Monday list.
• Assuming the observatory has to be booked, and the Ghibli Museum does not. It is exactly the other way round. Two of the three big views take walk-ins and one of them is free; the museum in Mitaka sells out its monthly release in minutes.
• Treating Mount Fuji as a guaranteed sight. The City of Fuji's own 35-year observation series puts full visibility at 36.6 per cent at the 8am check, and the odds fall as the day goes on. Go early, go in the colder months and treat the mountain as a bonus: the day trip page has the whole series.
• Underestimating how long a day trip takes. Hakone, Nikko and Kawaguchiko are each a full day out, not an afternoon, and stacking two of them back to back is what wrecks the sleep pattern in the middle of a trip. One out day per three city days is the ratio that works.

A sixth, quieter one: arriving with no cash at all and no route to any. The withdrawal network is excellent, but it is worth having a card you know works in a Seven Bank machine before the first shrine offering box.