The journey to Japan almost every time starts in Tokyo — the gate to Japan. Find my top 5 tips when planning your first trip to the world’s largest city.
In which district to stay?
We stayed in the Minato district which is very centrally located and only 35 minutes by metro with the Asakusa line from the Haneda airport. Minato is very close to the Tokyo Tower, so you can go their in the evening and enjoy Tokyo by night before you return to the hotel on foot. The Shimbashi area in Minato is nice to go out at night with lots of neon lights and traditional Izakayas — Japanese bars which also serve foods. All the sights in Tokyo can be reached in a decent amount of time. The Imperial Palace, Asakusa and Akihabara are up north, and the Shibuya and Shinjuku areas are just to the east. In the southern direction you are very close to the coast and Odaiba island can be visited in about half an hour which offers great sights a little offside the main touristic trail.
The first of my Tokyo tips is – stay in Minato. We stayed at the Hotel Wing International Shimbashi mainly because of the location. There are more luxurious hotels, but it has decent prices for Tokyo and a nice manga library (in case you know Japanese😊).
Which airport to choose?
Entering Japan for the first time is a lot. You go through the admission, are exhausted from the flight, you have to check that your eSim is working probably, and then you have to find the right metro. This is much easier in Haneda airpot and you are so much quicker at in the city than from the Narita airport. Half an hour versus 1 and a half hour and that only if you get a SkyAccess train. With the metro it takes even longer and to Minato you might have to transfer between stations. This might be the most important of my Tokyo tips – definitely book a flight to Haneda airport if you can.
Tokyo tips when you are at the airport: eSim and Suica card
At the metro in the airport I recommend to directly buy the Suica card at a vending machine. You can use it for trains, metro and buses all over Japan, so you never have to worry about buying tickets. In addition to that it allows you to pay in some convenience stores, at vending machines and other places. Before you fly to Japan you should definitely get an eSim, so that you directly have mobile data available when you arrive. Then you can easily check for the train connections with google maps. We used eSim Japan – it worked perfectly fine, but be aware that by default the mobile data is not active, so you have to activate it in your eSim settings. So, these are my Tokyo tips number 3 and 4: Suica card & eSim Japan.
How long to stay in Tokyo?
I recommend to at least stay 3 full days in Tokyo. When we arrived in Tokyo it was already very late, so we went straight to bed and only had 2 full days which was definitely not enough. For what to do in the first three days, see my blog post about our 3-weeks itinerary to Japan in 2025.
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