Tokyo Japan

Tokyo in 2026: What’s Changed and What Still Makes It Worth It

Japan welcomed 42.7 million international visitors in 2025, and Tokyo absorbed a disproportionate share of them. The effects are visible: Shibuya Crossing is now ringed with barriers at peak hours to manage pedestrian flow, a street-drinking ban runs year-round from 6 pm to 5 am around Shibuya Station, and from June 2025, Shibuya began issuing on-the-spot fines of ¥2,000 for littering. Japan’s departure tax increased from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000 per departing traveller from July 2025 onwards. The country is actively trying to spread visitors beyond the handful of overcrowded hotspots while still funding the infrastructure that tourism requires.

None of this makes Tokyo less worth visiting. It remains one of the most efficiently organised, cheapest-for-quality, and genuinely stimulating cities on the planet. The overtourism problem is real but it is concentrated in predictable locations at predictable times. Understanding where the crowds are, and routing around them, is more achievable in Tokyo than almost anywhere of comparable scale.

Where the Crowds Are (and How to Avoid Them)

Shibuya Crossing is genuinely impressive the first time you cross it, particularly at night. But the experience of standing in the middle of it has been packaged into group tours and social media content to the point where the magic can feel performative. The crossing itself is still worth seeing. The queue for the rooftop viewing platform at Shibuya Sky is long but moves. Going mid-week before 10 am or after 8 pm on a weekday evening reduces both crowds and entry waits.

Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa is Tokyo’s oldest and most visited temple. The Nakamise shopping street leading to it is busy most hours. The temple precinct itself is genuinely atmospheric before 7 am, when it is nearly empty and the vendors’ stalls are still closed. Arriving at dawn costs nothing and produces a qualitatively different experience from the midday version.

Tsukiji Outer Market (not the wholesale inner market, which relocated to Toyosu in 2018) is still a working food market with sushi breakfast, tamagoyaki stalls, and fresh produce vendors. It opens early and is busiest from 8 to 10 am. The Toyosu Market offers tuna auctions, but tourist quota is very limited and requires advance registration through the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market website.

Neighbourhoods Worth Exploring

Yanaka is the single neighbourhood I’d direct first-time visitors to for understanding the older Tokyo that survived the 1923 earthquake, the 1945 air raids, and the post-war redevelopment. The Yanaka Ginza shopping street, the cemetery (which functions as a community park), and the small temples and tofu shops in the surrounding streets give a picture of pre-war Tokyo that Asakusa’s tourist overlay partially obscures.

Shimokitazawa is a residential neighbourhood in southwestern Tokyo with a music scene, a concentration of secondhand clothes shops, and cafes that operate on their own schedule without reference to tourist hours. It is unremarkable in the way that genuinely local places are, and that is the point.

Koenji is the neighbourhood most associated with Tokyo’s alternative subcultures: vintage clothing, underground live music venues, and izakayas that don’t have English menus. It is 15 minutes by Chuo Line from Shinjuku.

Sights Worth the Time

Ghibli Museum in Mitaka is one of the harder tickets to get in Japan. Tickets release on the 10th of each month at 10 am Japan Standard Time for dates in the following month, through the Lawson Ticket system. They sell out within minutes. International visitors can book through specific authorised overseas agents, but the window is narrow. If this is a priority, build your Japan itinerary around the ticket release date rather than trying to fit the museum in around other plans.

Tokyo National Museum in Ueno holds the world’s largest collection of Japanese art and is consistently less crowded than the Ghibli Museum or most Kyoto temples despite being objectively more significant. It is open Tuesday through Sunday; Monday is the regular closing day.

Tokyo Skytree at 634 metres is the tallest structure in Japan. The observation decks on floors 350 and 450 are open daily. Book online in advance; same-day tickets are available but the queue for them can reach 90 minutes on weekends. The view on a clear winter day (December through February) with Mount Fuji visible to the southwest is the best condition for the visit.

Meiji Jingu is a Shinto shrine in a forested 70-hectare enclosure in the middle of Harajuku. It is free to enter, significantly calmer than Senso-ji despite similar prestige, and the forested walk from the gate to the shrine takes about 10 minutes in each direction. It is one of those Tokyo experiences that costs nothing and is almost always good.

Eating in Tokyo

Tokyo has more Michelin stars than any other city in the world, which says something about the seriousness applied to food at all price levels. The practical information for visitors is that eating exceptionally well does not require spending exceptional amounts.

A bowl of ramen at a good dedicated shop costs ¥800 to ¥1,200. Conveyor-belt sushi starts at around ¥100 per plate at budget chains like Hamazushi; mid-range counter sushi runs ¥3,000 to ¥8,000 for a full set. Standing lunch at a department store basement food hall (depachika) is one of the most underused options: prepared bento, onigiri, quality takeaway sushi, and pastries at reasonable prices in a covered, air-conditioned setting.

For ramen specifically, the Ogikubo neighbourhood has a long association with shoyu-based styles and several shops with decades of history. Shinjuku’s network of small alleys under the train tracks (Omoide Yokocho and the parallel alleys behind it) has yakitori, izakayas, and standing bars that are cheap, atmospheric, and open late.

Ichiran ramen, the solo-booth chain where you eat facing a partition and customise your broth on a form, is a tourist cliche at this point, but the cliche exists because it is genuinely good and cheap. The novelty of the booths has worn off through repetition in travel media, but the ramen itself still competes well with most alternatives at the price.

Transport and Practical Notes

Tokyo’s rail and subway network is the most efficient way to move around the city. The IC card system (Suica or Pasmo) works across virtually all rail, subway, and bus networks in Tokyo and across most of Japan. Load credit at any station machine on arrival; it replaces the need to buy individual tickets for nearly every journey.

The Japan Rail Pass (external to IC card pricing) is worth buying if you plan trips to Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, or other cities by shinkansen. Calculate the break-even point for your itinerary before buying; for pure Tokyo stays it adds no value.

City-wide Japan SIM cards and pocket wifi devices are available at Narita and Haneda airports on arrival. Google Maps covers Tokyo’s transit system accurately in English.

Language: Google Translate’s camera function handles most restaurant menus and signage effectively. English-only speakers navigate Tokyo without major difficulty in tourist areas; in residential neighbourhoods, patience and phone translation cover most situations.

Money: Japan remains heavily cash-based in many contexts. Convenience stores (Lawson, 7-Eleven, Family Mart) are ubiquitous, have ATMs that accept international cards, sell quality food, and are open 24 hours. Carrying ¥5,000 to ¥10,000 in cash at all times is sensible practice.

Tokyo’s best attribute is also its most daunting one: it is essentially limitless. A two-week stay does not exhaust it. The practical decision for first-time visitors is to accept this, pick three to four neighbourhoods to understand properly, and leave the rest for next time. Trying to cover the whole city in a week produces a list of places visited rather than an understanding of any of them. Start with Yanaka and work outward.