Exploring Tokyo: Travel Tips & A 7 Day Itinerary

Tokyo is probably the most eccentric city we’ve visited.  Depending on the area you visit, Tokyo can appear cold and bleak in one section and vibrant and full of life in the next.

If you’re like us and love all things quirky, Tokyo is definitely the spot for you!  You’ll find themed cafes, robot restaurants, eccentric fashions, and vending machines for pretty much anything you could want…even beer!  If you’re short on vacation time, you can fit in the highlights in 7 days.  But I promise you’ll be wishing you could have stayed longer!

Now for a few tips to help you prepare for and enjoy your trip…

Getting From the Airport to Your Hotel

Let’s start with getting from the airport.  International flights arrive at Narita International Airport which is about an hour outside of Tokyo.  If you’re anything like us after a long flight, you’re ready to make it to your hotel asap to get rid of your luggage.

While there are more budget options, we pre-booked private transportation from the airport to our hotel so that we didn’t have to think about anything when we landed.  After researching the possibilities, we went with Green Tomato.  We were very pleased with their service and the price.

Where to Stay

You can read a variety of hotel reviews on several websites, so we mostly wanted to include this section to give one big tip: Book a hotel that is close to a metro station!  You don’t want to waste all of your money on taxis when Tokyo’s public transportation is affordable and efficient.

We went with ANA Intercontinental which is located in the business district.  This was a quiet area, but it was plush with friendly staff.  And it was located very close to a metro station which allowed us to move throughout the city easily.

How to Get Around the City

Navigating the metro station was pretty simple after the first few trips.  We shortened our learning curve of the metro by booking a tour guide through Viator.com who helped us understand how to use the metro system.  You can also find a wonderfully written explanation of the metro system here: https://www.tripzilla.com/tokyo-train-japan-rail-metro-subway/16514.

The best thing about the metro station is how orderly everyone was!  When getting on an escalator, everyone moved to one side to leave room for people who needed to quickly pass by.  And everyone waited for people to exit the train before attempting to get on the train!  Very unlike getting on the subway in New York City!

But be ready…These trains can get very packed.  And everyone is eerily quiet.  From our research prior to our trip, we learned that it is considered rude to talk loudly or to talk on your cell phone while riding the train.

To Hire a Guide or Not?

Getting lost in a place can lead to exciting discoveries, but I’m still a big fan of hiring a local tour guide for at least the first day of our trip to a new city.  It helps us to become acquainted with the place.  The perks of a tour guide include learning how to navigate to the areas we want to go to, having a local to ask questions about the best spots to eat, and learning more about the culture and mindset of the people that live there.

Our biggest hurdle in Japan was communicating with locals.  Again, a tour guide came in really handy here.  We were told by one of our guides that, while they may speak English, they worry that they won’t speak it well enough to converse with native English speakers.  So they opt to not use English at all.  Even with the language barrier, they were the nicest people ever!  Incredibly polite and always smiling when providing customer service.

And you’d be surprised…hiring a tour guide isn’t always super expensive.  When we planned for Tokyo, I was worried everything was going to cost an arm and a leg, but we booked licensed tour guides through Viator.com for very reasonable prices.

Ultimately, we found that hiring private tour guides was very helpful in figuring out the lay of the land and communicating when we wanted to make a purchase.  We booked private tour guides through Viator.com.

Our 7 Day Tokyo Itinerary

Now for the fun part…what to do?  Here’s a rundown of how we organized our itinerary to fit in as much as possible without exhausting ourselves:

Day 1:

We arrived at Narita International Airport where we met with our driver from Green Tomato.  We were driven to our hotel, ANA Intercontinental, where we grabbed dinner before heading to bed for some shut eye.

Day 2:

We were up early to meet our tour guide in our hotel’s lobby.  We started our day at the Tsukiji fish market where we quickly found ourselves looking at various sea creatures in every direction.  This is where you would want to go to get fresh seafood!

While I enjoy crab legs and shrimp, that’s about the extent of interest in seafood, and Kevin doesn’t like seafood at all.  So that meant we didn’t need a lot of time here.  A seafood or sushi lover would definitely want to spend more time here.  Many of the stalls had a few stools to perch on to try out various foods.  Sadly, since our visit, we’ve read news articles that the Tsukiji fish market will soon close due to the area being too dilapidated.  However, they seem to be moving the fish market to another area, so a visit may still be in your future.

Following our visit to the Tsukiji fish market, we headed to the Meiji Shrine which is located in Shibuya.  We then headed to the Harajuku neighborhood which is known for its eccentric fashion scene.  While in Harajuku, we hit up Takeshita Street which was completely packed with young locals and quirky shops. We ended the day in the Ginza neighborhood where high end shopping and restaurants are located.  (In case you haven’t picked up on a trend yet, there’s lots of shopping available in Tokyo!)

Day 3:

After meeting up with our tour guide in the morning, we jetted off to the Asakusa district to visit the Senso-ji Temple.  We also hit up Nakamise Street which is near the Senso-ji Temple.  Our next stop was Ueno Station where we headed off to Ameyoko Street for…take a guess…more shopping.  We ended the evening in the Akihabara area where we browsed video games, anime, and manga.  If you want to try out one of the funky cafes, this is where you’ll find them!

Day 4:

This was our first adventure outside of Tokyo.  Along with our tour guide, we hopped on the JR Yokosuka Line from Tokyo to Kamakura.  When we arrived, we made the Great Buddha of Kamakura our first stop.  Then we headed off to the Hasedera Temple before grabbing a late lunch.  It was a rainy day, so we headed back into Tokyo.

Since we arrived back in Tokyo earlier than expected, we took the opportunity to squeeze in a visit to Tokyo Disneyland.  It was rainy and dark when we arrived, but we donned a poncho and set about to see what made Tokyo Disneyland different from the Disneyland we knew so well in Anaheim, California.  If you’re a Disney fan at all, then Tokyo Disneyland should be on your list of places to visit.  If you’re a fan of seeing how a different culture appreciates Disney, then you have yet another reason to visit Tokyo Disneyland.  Spending a few hours in Tokyo Disneyland, even in the rain, just made us more excited for the next day.

Day 5:

We spent the day at Tokyo Disney Sea.  This is a park unlike anything we have in the U.S., so we knew we wanted to explore it for a day.  We only stood in line for rides that we don’t have access to back home because the queues were insane.  Wait times were pretty consistently over 200 minutes for every ride.  Thankfully, the best part of Tokyo Disney Sea isn’t the rides.  It’s the people watching.

Day 6:

Today’s adventure was another trip outside of Tokyo.  We boarded the bullet train to Kyoto where we visited the Golden Pavilion, explored Nijo Castle, and watched a kimono show.  This is also where we saw our first geisha!  If only we had more time, we would have added a day in Kyoto.  This city had a more traditional and relaxed vibe than Tokyo.  We would have loved the opportunity to slow down and explore this area more.

After our tour guide dropped us off at our hotel, we ventured out on our own to find the famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.  Shibuya Crossing is supposedly the busiest intersection in the world.  While we cannot confirm the truth of that statement, we can confirm that it was indeed a bustling intersection.

Day 7:

We started the day exploring the Zojoji Temple before heading to Hamarikyu Garden and Tokyo Imperial Palace.  Since our trip was coming to an end at this point, we wanted something fun and entertaining for our last evening in Tokyo.  Robot Restaurant was the perfect way to end our trip!  From the waiting area to the actual dinner-show combo, you will experience sensory overload and silly fun.  It was a great way to end our trip.

 

If you’re in the middle of making your itinerary, we’d suggest stretching it to 10 days at a minimum since it’s always great to have room to slow down and experience the place rather than just running through checking off “must-see” spots.  Personally, we can’t wait to get back to explore other areas in Japan.  There are a ton of places in Japan that inspire travel lust!