Japan runs to the second. Book to fit the timetable.
Which Fuji bus tour actually reaches the Fifth Station. What an evening in Gion costs. Whether a morning at a sumo stable beats a tournament seat. Reviews of every tour you can book in Japan.
Fuji at dawn, a tea room under Kiyomizu, Shinjuku at eleven at night.
Five bookings a first Japanese itinerary hangs off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The mountain dayMt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet TrainBus out past Lake Kawaguchi for the Fifth Station, bullet train back into Tokyo before dinner. The long day nobody regrets paying for.
02Thirteen dishesShinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)Shinjuku from the back lanes: yakitori, sashimi, a standing bar, and somebody ordering for you in Japanese.
03Ringside, then stewSumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a PhotoRetired wrestlers fight a full bout an arm’s length away in Ryogoku, then the same chanko hot pot the stables live on.
04The Kyoto hourTea Ceremony in a Traditional Tea House in KiyomizuMatcha whisked in a wooden tea house below Kiyomizu, with every movement explained as it happens.
05Barefoot in lightteamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketAnkle deep through a room of projected water in Toyosu. Entry runs on half-hour slots and the evenings empty first.
The seven day trips that take the pressure off a city base.
Mount Fuji
Nara
Arashiyama
Nikko
Kamakura
Miyajima
Shirakawa-goIn Japan the good evening starts at a counter, not a table.
Three ways to eat your way through a Japanese city, what it costs to sit down at each, and how late each one runs.
Six Japanese cities, and the day out worth building each stay around.
Neon and back-alley grills on the bay, temples and tea in the old capital, a kitchen city that eats standing up, a peace park with a ferry beside it, a samurai district, and the deer park everyone detours for.
The days out more travellers in Japan book than any other.
Every Japanese tour we have reviewed →A bus to Hakone and a bullet train home, a sumo bout with dinner after it, a night walk through Shinjuku. The tours that carry the most travellers, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Mt Fuji and Hakone 1-Day Bus Tour Return by Bullet Train
Leave Tokyo by air-conditioned coach for Mt. Fuji’s 5th Station, enjoy a buffet lunch, ride the Hakone Ropeway, cruise Lake Ashi, then return by Shinkansen. Guides such as Sora, Hiro, Momo, Levin, and Yui are known for warm, engaging explanations. Weather can change the plan.
From · $163
Read our review →
2
1-Day Tokyo Bus Tour
from $129
3
TOKYO SKYTREE® Admission ticket
from $13
4
teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry Ticket
from $25
5
Mt Fuji & Hakone Cruise, Drum Show Bullet Train 1 Day from Tokyo
from $149
6
Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a Photo
from $103
7
Shinjuku Food Tour (13 Dishes at 4 Local Eateries)
from $86
8
Peaceful Hiroshima & Miyajima UNESCO 1 Day Bus Tour
from $129
Tokyo does not close, and the good bars are up a staircase.
Golden Gai is six alleys of bars with six seats each and almost none of them signposted in English. A guide is the difference between three good ones and a locked door.
What a day out in Japan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A lot of the best hours in Japan come in under the train fare it takes to reach them.
Temple entry, a tea ceremony, a geisha-district walk after dark, the observation decks.
The full-day standards: Fuji and Hakone by bus, sumo with dinner, a food crawl through Shinjuku.
- 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 $149
Government-licensed private guides, a driver for the whole day, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Kimono, incense, and a tea room the size of a bathroom.
The hours that make a Japanese trip feel like Japan. Temple courtyards before the coaches arrive, a tea ceremony explained while it happens, an afternoon dressed the part in the Gion lanes.
Three things that happen in Japan and nowhere else.
Old quarters and good food exist everywhere. Six hundred kilos of wrestler in a clay ring, macaques sitting in a steaming pool while the snow comes down, and a forest of bamboo forty metres tall do not.
Sumo
A bout can be over in nine seconds and the salt-throwing before it takes four minutes. Grand tournaments run six times a year and only in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, so outside those fifteen-day windows the way in is a morning watching a training stable in Ryogoku or a staged bout with chanko afterwards. Both put you close enough to hear the slap.
- 1Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a Photo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,678 reviews
- 2Sumo Show and Dining Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,742 reviews
- 3the SUMO show★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,960 reviews
The Snow Monkeys
Japanese macaques worked out decades ago that the hot spring at Jigokudani is warmer than the valley around it, and they have been sitting in it every winter since. The walk in from the car park is a mile and a half of frozen forest path. Peak season is January and February, when the snow on their heads is the whole photograph.
- 1Snow Monkey & Nagano Customiseable Private Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 138 reviews
- 2Nagano Snow Monkey 1 Day Tour with Beef Sukiyaki Lunch from Tokyo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 123 reviews
- 3Nagano Tokyo: Snow Monkey Private Day Tour Hotel Pick & Drop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 84 reviews
The Arashiyama Grove
The path through the bamboo is only a few hundred metres long and the stems close over it completely, so the light goes green and the sound goes flat. It is packed solid from nine in the morning. Go at first light, then cross the Togetsukyo bridge to the monkey park on the hill for the view back over the city.
- 1Osaka/Kyoto:Kinkakuji,Arashiyama,FushimiInariShrine,NaraPark★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 1,596 reviews
- 2Kyoto/Osaka: Nara, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Arashiyama Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,275 reviews
- 3Kyoto Arashiyama Walking Tour: Bamboo, Monkeys, Gardens & Secrets★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,216 reviews
Four Japanese bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast on the day. These four run on timed entry, tournament calendars and a blossom front that moves north at its own speed.
- 01teamLab Planets TOKYO Digital Art Museum Entry TicketEntry is timed to the half hour and every slot is capped. Evenings and weekends go weeks ahead.
- 02Sumo Show Experience with Chicken Hot Pot and a PhotoGrand tournaments run six times a year in four cities. Outside those windows the only way in is a staged bout or a training-stable morning, and both take small groups.
- 03Tokyo Disneyland 1-Day PassportPassports are dated and the parks stop selling once a day is full. There is no gate ticket to fall back on.
- 04Mt. Fuji, Cherry Blossom & Shiba Sakura Pvt. Day TourThe blossom front moves north over about three weeks and nobody can date it more than ten days out. The tours sell before the forecast lands.
Tsuyu, typhoon season, and a February that bites. Japan has an indoor answer.
The rain front sits over the country through June, the typhoons come up the coast in September, and the north in winter is a different sport altogether. All three have the same answer: get under a roof and make something, drink something, or watch two enormous men collide.
By kind of day — temple, counter, ring or track
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