3 days in Tokyo: itinerary

Tokyo rewards depth over coverage. Three days is a real Tokyo trip if you treat each day as one district and walk it, rather than racing between five famous names. The three-day shape below is the one most first-timers end up happy with: west, east, central.

Day 1 — west: Shibuya Crossing and Miyashita Park in the morning, Harajuku's Takeshita Street and Omotesandō in the afternoon, Shinjuku's Omoide Yokochō alleys and the Metropolitan Government Building observatory at night (free; closed on some dates, so check the day before).

Day 2 — east: Sensō-ji and Nakamise in Asakusa early, then Ueno Park and its museums, then Akihabara for electronics and arcades. This is the day to start before 8am: Asakusa is calm then and unbearable by 11am.

Day 3 — central: Tsukiji Outer Market for breakfast, the Imperial Palace East Gardens (free; closed Mondays and Fridays, so check before going), Ginza for department stores, and Tokyo Station's character street if you have an evening train.

If you have a fourth day, spend it on a day trip rather than squeezing more Tokyo in: Nikko, Kamakura or Hakone are all reachable in about 1–2 hours.

Tokyo's big costs are the hotel and the airport transfer, not the sightseeing. Many of the best-known stops are free: Sensō-ji, Shibuya Crossing, the Imperial Palace East Gardens, the Shinjuku observatory. Paid museums cluster in Ueno and Roppongi.

Trains and metro run roughly 5am to midnight; the last trains are around 00:30 and missing one means a taxi, which is expensive. Plan your evening around the last train or accept the fare.

Cash still matters at small counters. Convenience stores, chain cafés and station machines take cards and IC cards; a few ramen shops and shrines are coin-only.

Most visitors land at Narita (NRT) or Haneda (HND). Haneda is much closer: the monorail or Keikyū line reaches central stations in 30–45 minutes for a few hundred yen. Narita is 60–90 minutes out; the Narita Express and Keisei Skyliner both run frequently and cost around ¥3,000.

Within the city, the metro and JR lines cover everything on this itinerary. An IC card (Suica or Pasmo) works on trains, buses and convenience stores; a 24-hour Metro ticket pays off only on days with four or more rides.

Flight timing from your home country matters more than you think: arrivals from North America and Europe usually land in the late afternoon, which kills day 1. Treat arrival day as a half day and start the itinerary the next morning.

Book hotels near a station on a line you will actually use. Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ueno and Tokyo Station are the usual first-trip bases; each changes your daily commute by 20–30 minutes.

Avoid the two peak windows if you can: cherry blossom in late March to mid April, and Golden Week from 29 April to 5 May. Both push hotel prices up and fill trains. January after 3 January and February are the cheapest city months, and October and November are the best all-round weather.

New Year (29 December–3 January) shuts many shops, museums and restaurants, and shrines are packed on 1–3 January. Typhoon season peaks in September and can cancel a day of plans.