Japan runs on reservations. These are the ones to make first.
Which Fuji day trip actually sees the mountain. What an hour in a Kiyomizu tea house costs. Whether the sumo tournament seats are worth the early start. Reviews of every tour you can book in Japan.
- 01The shrine day
PERFECT KYOTO 1-Day Bus TourFushimi Inari, Kinkakuji and the bamboo in one run, so Kyoto fits a single day off the bullet train. - 02The mountain
Mount Fuji Full-Day Sightseeing TripKawaguchiko and the Fifth Station. Take an early departure: the cloud usually wins by mid-afternoon. - 03The tea hour
Tea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in KiyomizuA working tea house below Kiyomizu, matcha whisked in front of you, done in the hour before the temple fills. - 04Dinner, walking
Shinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)Thirteen dishes across four Shinjuku counters you would never pick from the street.
Tokyo and Kyoto carry a first trip. Four more cities earn a night each.
Every review, priced and dated →Neon and shrines in the capital, the old imperial city on the other end of the Tokaido line, Osaka for dinner, Hiroshima for the crossing to Miyajima, Nagano for the monkeys and the Alps, Kanazawa for gardens the tour buses skip. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
Japan eats in shifts. Pick which one you are booking.
A market before eight, a counter at noon, a standing bar at eleven at night. The four ways travellers actually eat their way through Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, and what each one costs to join.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Japan.
Every Japanese tour reviewed →The bus runs, the tickets and the food walks that carry the most travellers, and what earns each one its place.
1
Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet Train
See Mt Fuji, Hakone Ropeway, Lake Ashi, lunch, and return to Tokyo by bullet train on this packed 11-hour day tour.
From · $163
Read our review →
2
1-Day Tokyo Bus Tour
from $129
3
PERFECT KYOTO 1-Day Bus Tour
from $129
4
TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticket
from $13
5
teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry Ticket
from $25
6
Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyo
from $150
7
Shinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)
from $86
8
Peaceful Hiroshima & Miyajima UNESCO 1 Day Bus Tour
from $129
Tokyo: shrine first, tower later, dinner standing up.
Everything in Tokyo →
Thirteen million people and a subway map that solves them. Start at Sensoji before the coach parties, spend the middle of the day above the city, and let somebody else pick the counters after dark. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the capital.
- 1Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet Trainfrom $163
- 21-Day Tokyo Bus Tourfrom $129
- 3TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticketfrom $13
Timed entry, or turn up and queue
teamLab, the Skytree and Tokyo Tower all sell dated slots, and the evening ones go first. Buy ahead for the view you actually want; the observation decks rarely sell out on a wet Tuesday.
Sumo, without a tournament ticket
Six tournaments a year means most trips miss one. A stable morning or a show with dinner puts you a metre from the ring in the other eleven months.
Shinjuku, four counters deep
Yakitori under the tracks, then a standing bar where the order is shouted rather than read. Worth doing on the first night, so the rest of the week you order for yourself.
Kyoto rewards the first hour of daylight and the last of dusk.
Fushimi Inari is a different mountain at seven than at eleven. The bamboo at Arashiyama empties by five. Between the two, tea houses take six at a time, and the Gion lanes only make sense with someone who knows which door is which.
Every Kyoto day out →
What a day out in Japan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Some of the best hours in Kyoto cost less than the train fare to reach them.
Temple entries, tea lessons, walking tours of Gion and the standing-bar crawls.
The full-day standards: Fuji and Hakone by coach, Hiroshima and Miyajima, the long food walks.
- 11-Day Tokyo Bus Tourfrom $129
- 2PERFECT KYOTO 1-Day Bus Tourfrom $129
- 3Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyofrom $150
Licensed private guides, chartered cars and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things you cannot do outside Japan.
Temples and good food exist all over Asia. Wrestlers who eat a stew named after them, macaques with their own hot spring, and go-karts legally sharing a lane with Tokyo traffic do not.
Sumo
The sport runs on a fixed calendar: fifteen days in Tokyo in January, May and September, and one tournament each in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Miss all six and the stables still hold morning practice, where the bouts are unpaid, unhurried and close enough to hear. Some sessions end with a bowl of chanko, the wrestlers own stew.
- 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 bathing macaques
Japanese macaques worked out the hot springs at Jigokudani decades ago and have never given them up. The park sits up a wooded valley an hour and a half beyond Nagano, and the monkeys are there year round, though the photograph everyone wants needs snow on their heads. The walk in from the car park takes half an hour on a frozen path.
- 11-Day Snow Monkeys, Zenko-ji Temple & Sake in Nagano★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,020 reviews
- 2Snow Monkeys, Zenkoji Temple & Sake Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 833 reviews
- 3Snow Monkey 1 Day Tour with Beef Sukiyaki Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 295 reviews
Street karting
These are road-legal karts on public streets, which is why an International Driving Permit is not optional and why the costumes are no longer branded. The Tokyo Bay circuits run past Rainbow Bridge, the Shibuya ones cross the scramble itself. Nothing about it is a theme park, and that is the whole point.
- 1Flagship 2-Hours Official Street Go-Kart Tour – Tokyo Bay Shop★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,974 reviews
- 2Official Street Go-Kart in Shibuya★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,435 reviews
- 3Osaka Go Karting Tour with Funny Costume★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,658 reviews
Four Japanese bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged from a konbini at midnight. These four run on ticket lotteries, tournament calendars and a road that shuts for the winter, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketEntry is a dated, timed slot with a cap on each one, and the evening slots clear first. There is no queue to join on the day.
- 02Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a PhotoSix tournaments a year, fifteen days each. Outside them the stables run morning practice, and those rooms hold a couple of dozen people.
- 03Tokyo Studio Ghibli Museum and Ghibli Film Appreciation TourMuseum tickets are dated and sold in advance rather than at the gate, and demand routinely outruns the release.
- 04Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet TrainThe Fifth Station road closes over winter and the climbing season only runs from July to early September. Outside it, the day trip is the lake shore instead.
June rain, September typhoons, and the indoor half of Japan.
The rainy season sits over most of the country through June, and the typhoon weeks land in late summer. Neither ruins a trip here, because the good indoor day is not a fallback: a knife workshop, a tea room, a cooking class that ends as lunch, or an afternoon in an onsen while it comes down outside.
By place - the cities and what is an hour beyond them
By kind of day - shrine, counter, workshop or road
Tokyo, Hakone, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima: the line almost everybody rides first.
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Tokyo’s Authentic and Finest Taiko Drumming Workshop
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Osaka Sushi Miso soup Adventure: A Journey of Exotic Flavors
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Private Tokyo Local Food and Drink Tour with a Bar Hopping Master
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Nikko Toshogu, Kegon waterfall, Lake Chuzenji One Day Pvt. Tour
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Hiroshima Country Cycling: Explore Rural Life 1 HR from City
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Mino Forest Walk and Giant Waterfall with Local Lunch
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Ramen-Making Experience in the Osaka Castle Area with Souvenir
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Yokohama Half Day Walking Tour with an Expert Local Guide
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