Tokyo Travel Guide

Tokyo is less a single city than a constellation of them, each district its own world, and the thrill is in the switch between them. Cross the organised chaos of Shibuya's scramble, then ten minutes later stand in the hushed forest around Meiji Shrine. Trade the teenage fashion of Harajuku for the old-Tokyo temple lanes of Asakusa, the electric arcades of Akihabara for a hushed sushi counter in Ginza. It is vast, immaculate, and astonishingly easy to navigate.

It is also, by many measures, the best food city on earth — more Michelin stars than anywhere, but the revelation is just as likely to be a bowl of ramen, a department-store food hall, or a six-seat yakitori joint under the train tracks. Endlessly safe, polite, and efficient, yet pulsing with neon energy after dark, Tokyo manages to feel like the future and a deeply traditional place at the same time.