TOKYO · JAPAN
Old temples, new neon, Fuji on the horizon.
Street go-karts through Shibuya, ramen counters and Tsukiji dawns, sumo and the temple lanes of Asakusa. Mt Fuji and Hakone by bullet train, and every neighbourhood in between.
Only in Tokyo
Tokyo keeps a few things to itself.
Food tours and temple visits exist in every big city. Driving the public roads in costume, watching sumo train at dawn, and the after-midnight car scene do not.
Licence required
Street Go-Karts in Costume
Real karts, real traffic. You dress as your favourite character and drive Tokyo’s public roads in convoy, past the Shibuya Scramble and over the Rainbow Bridge with the city at eye level. Bring an International Driving Permit - it is the one ride here you cannot do from the passenger seat.
- 1 Flagship 2-Hours Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Tokyo Bay Shop
- 2 Official Street Go-Kart in Shibuya
- 3 Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Akihabara
The national sport
Sumo, Up Close
The sport is run from Tokyo: the grand tournaments fill Ryogoku three times a year and the stables drill at dawn nearby. Watch a morning practice, share the chanko hotpot the wrestlers live on, or take in a show with a retired rikishi calling the bouts. Nowhere does it like its home city.
- 1 Tokyo: Sumo Show and Dining Experience
- 2 the SUMO show
- 3 Tokyo Shinjuku Sumo Show & Experience with Photo
After midnight
Tokyo Car Culture
The world learned the word from a film; Tokyo has lived it for decades. Ride out to the Daikoku parking area where the tuned GT-Rs gather, lap the bayside Wangan expressway, or take the passenger seat through Shibuya in something with a big rear wing. The after-dark car scene, with the people inside it.
- 1 GT-R35 800hp Club Membership – secret underground car meet
- 2 Tokyo: Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift 3 Experience (Kaila Yu SP)
- 3 Tokyo: Daikoku JDM Car Meet & Night Car Culture Tour
Start with the standout
The single most popular experience in Tokyo.
More visitors build a day around this one than anything else the city offers.
The classics
Tokyo's Most Popular Experiences
Mt Fuji day trips, the costumed go-karts, sumo, teamLab and the Shinjuku food tours. What most travellers come to Tokyo to do.
Where to begin
The experiences a Tokyo trip is built around.
Mt Fuji, the food tours, the nightlife, the go-karts, sumo and the walking routes through the old districts. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to do Mt Fuji.
The mountain sits about 100km west of the city, so the how matters as much as the if. Three ways to reach it from Tokyo, by the time you have and the budget you bring.
Eat the city
More Michelin stars than any city on earth.
Tokyo has carried more Michelin stars than any city in the world for years - but the real story is the everyday. Tuna sold before dawn at Toyosu, ramen counters with a single row of stools, sushi straight off the belt, and the izakaya smoke under the railway arches. A food tour is the fastest way in.
Read the guide: the best food tours in Tokyo →The old city
Tokyo before the neon.
East of the towers, the old "low city" still runs on its own clock: the temple lanes and five-storey pagoda of Asakusa, the craft shops and kissaten of Yanaka, incense drifting across the Senso-ji forecourt. Rickshaws, kimono rentals, and streets laid out long before the grid arrived.
Explore old Tokyo →After dark
Three thousand people, every green light.
When the sun drops, the city turns the lights on. The Shibuya Scramble moves in waves under the screens, the lanes of Golden Gai fill, Shinjuku glows like a control panel, and the trains run until they don’t. Tokyo’s second shift is the one a lot of people came for.
Tokyo after dark →By tempo
From tea house to neon.
Tokyo does serene and Tokyo does sensory overload, sometimes on the same block. Pick the gear you want to be in.
Slow Tokyo
Tea rooms and temple mornings.Matcha whisked in a tatami room, a Zen garden before the crowds, the old town walked at its own pace.
Classic Tokyo
Markets, ramen and the famous crossings.Tsukiji at first light, a stool at a ramen counter, the districts everyone flies in to see.
Electric Tokyo
Neon, go-karts and the last train.Costumed karts through the lights, a crawl around Golden Gai, the arcades of Akihabara until they close.
By neighbourhood
Start with a neighbourhood.
Shibuya for the crossing and the noise. Shinjuku for the food alleys and the towers. Asakusa for the temples. Yanaka for the old backstreets. Then Mt Fuji and Hakone, once the city is under your belt.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
Go-karts if you want the city at street level. A food tour if you want to eat like a local. Sumo for the spectacle, a tea ceremony for the quiet. Cruises, cycling, markets and the rest.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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