Welcome to Tokyo

You have arrived at NRT, Tokyo’s famously not-in-Tokyo airport, so your first attraction is a brisk lesson in metropolitan geography. Once the train delivers you into the neon organism, start with our guides to exploring the wonders of Tokyo and Tokyo Tower’s ridiculous city views. The city is orderly, overwhelming, ancient, futuristic, and somehow still capable of making a convenience-store snack feel professionally engineered.

Closest Weird Shit

Before racing west, Naritasan Shinsho-ji offers a sprawling temple complex dating to 940, a three-story pagoda, carved halls, wooded parkland, and a daily fire ritual devoted to burning away visitors’ problems. It is one train stop from the airport area, which is considerably more spiritual than spending the layover comparing duty-free moisturizers.

In Tokyo proper, let the central districts weaponize sensory overload: tiny shrines wedged beside towers, alleys under railway tracks, silent gardens behind commercial chaos, and crowds that flow with unnerving competence. Use our Tokyo city guide as the starting point, then deliberately take one wrong turn; the mistake will probably be more interesting than your itinerary.

Best Photo Spots

Tokyo Tower is the reliable hero shot: photograph its orange-and-white frame from Shiba Park and the nearby temple grounds, then go up for the dense city grid and, on an unusually cooperative day, Mount Fuji. Our linked Tokyo Tower guide covers the landmark and its panoramic payoff.

For a quieter opening chapter, Naritasan’s carved gates, pagodas, pond, and forested paths photograph beautifully in soft morning light. In central Tokyo, elevated crossings, reflective towers, lantern-lit lanes, and river bridges provide endless geometry; pause before shooting people closely, because basic manners remain fashionable here.