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Tokyo is a city that we would go back to again and again.
As the world’s largest city, it’s no major surprise that planning a trip there is overwhelming. There are enough things to see, do, eat and drink to spend a lifetime. And you’re planning to do it in just three days!
On our most recent trip to Japan with our kids, we started it with a fantastic three days in Tokyo. Being a serious travel planner (that is my job, after all), and having been to Tokyo on my own before, I came up with a super manageable and fun three-day itinerary.
Our itinerary had a mix of urban exploration (Day 1), chilled out experiences (Day 2), and family activities (Day 3, with the option to do a day trip instead), so that we’d all get something out of it. We intentionally avoided some of the biggest tourist magnets (Disney, Ghibli, Harry Potter) in favor of activities we found more appealing.
Below I’ll cover in detail some key things to know for visiting Tokyo, where we stayed and ate, and how exactly we executed this itinerary.
Table of Contents
Key Tips for Visiting Tokyo

- There are two airports in Tokyo, Haneda and Narita, both with train connections to the city.
- We landed at Narita and took the Skyliner Express to the city, which we booked on Klook.
- I picked up the tickets at the “Skyliner and Keisei Info Center” office at the airport. From the same office, I bought each of us Pasmo Passports, the IC cards which we used for transportation throughout our Japan trip.
- I also ordered our future Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets here on Klook. Klook allows you to buy them before the tickets are even released. It costs a little more, but worth it for someone who loves to plan in advance like me. If you plan to get a JR Rail pass, buy it here.
- We also booked tickets for Tokyo attractions like TeamLabs Planets and Joypolis VR center on Klook.
- The Tokyo subway system can seem overwhelming but it’s part of the experience! We often used GoogleMaps to plan our route then just followed the signs in the stations. Getting lost or disoriented a few times in also part of the experience.
- Due to overtourism in Tokyo, we found that any restaurant we had seen mentioned anywhere online was either fully booked or had a long line. Instead of planning where to eat, we’d just randomly choose restaurants without lines as we explored. Some of our best meals were random, unplanned finds.
- Even with a relatively low-key itinerary, we still didn’t a ton of walking every day. Wear good shoes and do some walking before your trip to prepare for it.
Where We Stayed in Tokyo
I tend to spend ages researching where to stay when I travel, poring over the reviews for many hours.
Tokyo is so big, and there are so many possible areas that we could have stayed. Right off the bat, I noted that everything in the most famous areas (like Shibuya and Shinjuku) was crazy expensive.
So, I opted for Tsukiji area, which used to house the world’s largest fish market. The main reason is that my wife and I are seafood lovers, and I figured we could start every day by having breakfast at Tsukiji Outer Market (what is left of the fish market).

Once I narrowed it down to that area, I started checking hotels, and Tsuki Tokyo (see on Booking / Agoda) jumped out at me for its huge wooden bathtubs, excellent reviews, and location near the seafood market.
The hotel wasn’t the cheapest (besides a fancy onsen resort we stayed at in Hokkaido, it was the most expensive on our trip). But we loved it! From the free drinks in the mini-fridge every day and cozy robes (with kids sizes!) to the sake bar and complementary coffee/breakfast on the ground floor, we loved our stay here.

The neighborhood was also very quiet and centrally located for the places we planned to go in our three days in Tokyo.
We actually found Tsukiji Outer Market totally touristy and overpriced, but some of our best meals in Tokyo ended up being in random little local restaurants we tried around our hotel.
Note that we stayed for 4 nights so that we could have three full days to explore Tokyo.
Our Tokyo Three-Day Itinerary
For our three-day itinerary, I didn’t count our arrival day, as we didn’t even reach our hotel until the evening.
On Day 1, we did a whirlwind tour of some of the most famous areas in Tokyo (Shinjuku and Shibuya), including some animal cafes in trendy Harajuku to keep the kids happy.
We balanced out this tiring day with some more chilled out activities on Day 2. Finally, on Day 3, we focused on family-friendly activities on Odaiba Island, but I’ll give you the option to do a day trip on this day instead (see the final section).
Day 1: Urban Bliss (Shibuya, Harajuku & Shinjuku)

On Day 1, we started with an early morning breakfast at Tsukiji Outer Market near our hotel. We were surprised to find that even by 7:30 AM the market was totally packed with tourists. It doesn’t feel local at all.
It was hard to find seats anywhere, not to mention everything seemed overpriced (we much preferred the morning markets in Hokkaido later on our trip!)

The kids did enjoy some tamago (egg) on a stick, which was very reasonable, then we bailed.
In the following days, I would come back toi Tsukiji Market much earlier (it opens from 5 AM) on my own to try some seafood. My wife and kids stuck to our free hotel breakfast.

After this somewhat disappointing experience, we quickly made our way to Shibuya Station, one of the largest train stations in the world. Inside, we managed to find the huge Myth of Tomorrow painting, which depicts the bombing of Hiroshima, and was once stolen from a hotel in Mexico.
Outside the station, we went to Shibuya Scramble Crossing, the busiest intersection in the world, while the morning rush was still going on.
Besides actually walking across it a few times to experience it, we also went up to the pedestrian overpass between Shibuya Station and Mark City department store, where we could look down on the famous intersection from above, for free. (Here are other spots with views of the crossing).


From Shibuya, we walked (about 20 min) to Harajuku. We could have gone back into the station and rode one stop to Harajuku, but that would require navigating the enormous station again!
Harajuku’s Takeshita Dori is one of the most famous streets in Japan. It’s where Japanese subcultures and youth fashions are born.
Visiting with kids, our main reason to visit was the many animal cafés in the neighborhood. These include Mame Shiba (a Shiba Inu café), a hedgehog café, a piglet cafe, a snake café, and multiple cat cafés.

We split up in teams for this one. My daughter wasn’t old enough for the Mame Shiba (they only allow 9+) but my wife loves shibas.
She took my son there, while my daughter and I went to this cat café across the street AND to this hedgehog café nearby. We had extra time because my wife and son were in the line for the shiba café for so long (it’s extremely popular). Besides hedgehogs, the latter also had hamsters and chinchillas.
Because my kids are such big cat lovers, we would actually come back to Harajuku the next day to do another cat café (see Day 2). I’ve covered our visits to these two Harajuku cat cafes in more detail here.



After the cafés, we adopted our strategy of just wandering and choosing a random restaurant with no line for lunch. We ended up with okonomiyaki, a dish we were familiar with from our visit years earlier to Osaka, where it originated.
After lunch, we hit Kiddy Land, a massive, multi-floor toy store. This was just the start of my son’s mission to find a stuffie from his favorite (but rather niche) Japanese video game, which he wouldn’t accomplish until the last day of our trip, two weeks later in Sapporo.
I must say, the toy store had far more adult shoppers than kids!


After some more shopping (I had got glasses made for ridiculously cheap here!) and enjoying some of the cutting edge architecture in the area, we crossed the street to get some fresh air in sprawling Yoyogi Park.
From Harajuku, we walked the path through the enormous Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii (traditional gate) and past the rows of sake barrels to Meiji Jingu, one of the most famous Shinto shrines in the city.




In the late afternoon, we ventured one subway stop north to Shinjuku Station, widely considered the world’s busiest railway station.
We ended up doing some more shopping around there before finally executing our main reason to go: to see the enormous 3D cat (here) at the large intersection outside the station.

For dinner, we again chose a random restaurant in the area without line, this time ramen.
As is the norm in many restaurants in Japan, we ordered and paid for our meal on the vending machine then sat down. I had a very interesting cheese ramen with powdered cheese, egg, bamboo, and mayonnaise.



If we had had more energy at that point, I would have liked to stroll down Omoide Yokocho (also known as “Piss Alley”) before returning to our hotel.
But I had been there on a previous trip on my own, and I knew that most of the little restaurant-bars in the famous alley don’t allow kids. If you’ve got the energy and time, check out this iconic alleyway!
Day 2: Finding Zen (Cat Temple & Matcha Tasting)

After our huge first day in Tokyo, we took a much more laid-back approach on Day 2. In the morning, we rode the subway to Gotokuji station for viiting Gotokuji Temple, AKA the Cat Shrine.
You may have seen photos on social media of the temple courtyard filled with little white and red cat beckoning cat statues. As big cat lovers (later on the same trip we would also visit Tashirojima Cat Island and a cat village in Taiwan), this was an absolute must for us.
It took about an hour to get to the temple from our hotel, including a 15-minute walk from Gotokuji Station to Temple. On the walk, we had a surprise, seeing a cat-themed train going by!


Arriving at the temple, it looked disappointingly normal (according to my kids), until we found the shrine with the cats around it. Then it was pure bliss!
It’s impossible to take a bad photo of all the cat statues on display, with the only challenge being that it’s fairly small and there are always people passing through.
We spent quite some time here and took approximately one million photos.


After the cat temple, we had lunch at a 7-Eleven (honestly so yummy and fun!) then made our way to an ice cream shop that had come highly recommended in my research, Japanese Ice Ouca.
The ice creams included many flavors with local ingredients, like yuzu, black sesame, sencha, and several types of matcha. This was the best matcha ice cream I’ve ever had!

After that, by popular vote, we went back to Harajuku for another cat café. I had done some research on the many cat cafés in Tokyo, and the Cat Café Mocha chain seemed to be one of the best (here’s the Harajuku location).
When we entered, we paid for a specific time slot (watch the time – if you go over, you pay more!) We then took off our shoes, got our included drink from a vending machine, and then pet tons of cats!
We were lucky enough to be there for a feeding, when all the kids are fed in a line, but at other times you can also purchase treats to feed them. We’ve been to a lot of cat cafés in Taipei (where they were actually invented!), so visiting a few of these in Japan was something we just had to do.



Next, we had to move on for our scheduled matcha tea and liquor tasting session at Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience (official site). I had booked this a couple months in advance. I knew it would be a little pricey, but as an unofficial tea and liquor geek, this was an absolute must for me.
Each person, including kids, had to order at least one set when we arrived. The kids went for a tea and snack sampling set, my wife got a beer and matcha cocktail, and I went for a full tea liquor tasting.
My tasting came with multiple samples of tea-infused liquors, each paired with a snack. All the teas were prepared in front of us, in an atmospheric setting. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the staff while they were preparing them, but photography of our drinks/snacks was permitted.



For dinner, realizing we somehow hadn’t had sushi yet, we returned to Shibuya area, where I had bookmarked a conveyor belt sushi place. My kids are big conveyor belt sushi fans (there are tons of them where my kids were born and raised – Taiwan).
This one did not disappoint, with iPads to order and lots of different options than what we are used to in Taiwan. There was a bit of a wait to get in, but nothing terrible.

We had a funny moment when we realized my son had ordered not one but two of the most expensive dish on the menu. My kids are massive fans of ikura (salmon roe) and he had ordered two plates or sushi literally doused in the fish eggs. They still ate all of it, though!
With all of our musts ticked off for Day 2, we returned to our hotel to make use of the large bathtub.
Day 3 (Option 1): Family Fun on Odaiba Island

Traveling with kids, we wanted to do some specifically kid-friendly activities in Tokyo, but we had zero interest in doing Tokyo Disneyland.
We started our day by riding the subway to Shin-Toyosu Station for TeamLab Planets. If you haven’t heard of TeamLab, it’s one of the hottest attractions in Tokyo these days (buy tickets here on Klook).


TeamLab Planets and the larger TeamLab Borderless (buy tickets) are an immersive art experience, where you walk through a variety of rooms with interactive displays of lights, steam, textures, smells, and so on.
Between the two TeamLabs, most people agree that TeamLab Borderless (not on Odaiba Island) is larger and better, but we also read that TeamLab Planets is more manageable with kids.
We were still extremely impressed with TeamLabs Planets and happy we chose it – it was still quite big and we spend a couple hours there.


At the start of it, we took off our shoes and walked up a water fountain. There were reflecting rooms with hanging glass, water-filled rooms with swimming fish lights, a botanical room with mist, a bouncy ball room, and so much more.
While there is nothing specifically “Japanese” about this experience, I highly recommend it, whether you have kids or not.
Heads up to women – maybe don’t wear a skirt that day. We couldn’t help but see lots of bums in the rooms with reflecting floors. They are lockers to store your things when go in, so you could bring a change of clothes.


Next, we continued on the Yurikamome Line to Odaiba Island, an artificial island with tons of family friendly attractions.
Riding this above-ground train was very fun because we saw all kinds of cool architecture and views of Tokyo Harbor on the way.


As soon as we got to Odaiba Island, we went directly to Odaiba Takoyaki Museum. This is not actually museum but more like a food court full of Takoyaki restaurants inside a large department store.
We are big fans of Takoyaki (it’s very popular in Taiwan, and we had also tried it on Osaka, where it’s from). We loved trying some of the different flavors of Takoyaki here, but in the end we concluded that the original flavor (with teriyaki sauce and fish flakes) is still the best!
The food court also had awesome views of the Odaiba Park and Tokyo harbor.



After eating, we got a little lost in the department store, going from one store to the next, filled with fun souvenirs. We also found a really cool vintage game arcade with Japanese comics, Nintendo arcade games, and the like.



There are a lot of attractions to choose from on Odaiba Island. These include a Legoland Discovery Center, a waterfront park with beach and replica of the Statue of Liberty, and the famous The Life-Sized Unicorn Gundam Statue.
But my kids had already considered the options and decided they wanted to go to Tokyo Joypolis VR center. We opted for the full Joypolis Passport on Klook, which gave us unlimited access to the rides and SEGA VR games all day. The pass quickly paid for itself.

Joypolis was a little different than we expected. We thought it would mostly be games with VR headsets. It did have a few of those, but the lines for them were very long.
Most of the activities we actually did were more like 5D VR experiences. Typically we would sit in a kind of amusement park-like car with other people. The car would go into a room with large screens all around us. Then it would feel like we were on a plane, boat, etc. – the car would move and shake and it would really feel like you were flying, sailing, or whatever.
As well as movements and eye stimulation, some of them even had smells, mist, heat, and so on.


Besides those, there was a rollercoaster, a scarier spinning ride (my kids weren’t old enough), a Sonic running game, and other more arcade-like games. We even watched a concert delivered by an anime character.
And my son, for the first time ever, actually won one of those claw machines – he got a Pokemon stuffie that he really wanted!
We spent about three hours there in total, but serious gamers could probably spend a whole day.


My kids had almost chosen the Harry Potter theme park instead, which is not on Odaiba island – far from it. But at the last minute they decided to go for Joypolis because of the temptation of video games.
Looking back, I think Joypolis was fun to experience, but I almost wish my kids had gone for Harry Potter, if only because they have been super into Harry Potter ever since our trip to Japan.

For our final evening in Tokyo, we decided to just eat around our hotel. We stepped into a random little standing sushi restaurant where they didn’t speak a word of English. And we ended up having one of our best meals ever in Japan!
I don’t even want to say which one because I don’t want to ruin it. I suggest just stepping into any restaurant that looks tempting, smile and be polite, and point at things you want or use a translator. We were greeted with nothing but smiles and the chefs were so accommodating, even with our kids.
Day 3 (Option 2): Day trip to Mt. Fuji, Hakone, or Nikko

If our Day 3 activities don’t appeal to you, you may consider to do a day trip from Tokyo.
Choosing one is not going to be easy, as there are so many great ones. This is another reason you should actually stay in Tokyo longer than three days, come back multiple times, or perhaps just move there!
If you want to see Mount Fuji, I suggest you read my guide to the various options for doing a day trip to Mt. Fuji.

If getting the best view of the elusive mountain is your main goal, I also have an article covering the best spots to view Mt. Fuji. I once did a whole trip to the area just focused on finding the best views. I’d like to point out: our family cat in Canada is even named Fuji (just bragging here!)
If you’d like to see Mt. Fuji, albeit from a little further away, but also enjoy some fantastic hot springs, you may opt for a day trip to Hakone. Here’s a day trip to Hakone and Mt. Fuji on Klook, but search around, as there are many others like it.

Last but not least, we would highly recommend a day trip to Nikko. In fact, after our stay in Tokyo, we did go to Nikko, except we spend a night there in this super cool guesthouse.
If you have the budget for it, we highly recommend riding the Spacia X train to Nikko. It’s a very new train and the seats are crazy comfortable!


The ancient shrines at Nikko are truly spectacular and the whole region around it is so peaceful.
But with more time there, you can also visit some atmospheric rows of statues by the river at Kanmangafuchi Abyss. You can also explore this beautiful area even deeper by visit Kegon Waterfalls, Lake Chuzenji, and more.

Yet another option for a day trip is Kamakura, which has numerous Buddhist monasteries, giant Buddhas, and so on. See my Kamakura day trip guide for more info.
To read more about our travels after Nikko, see how we visited Cat Island (which could be done as a long day trip from Tokyo) and then did a road trip on Hokkaido.
On past trips, I’ve also done the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage and visited the ancient cemetery at Koyasan in winter.