Where to stay in Tokyo: six neighbourhoods, honestly compared
Tokyo is thirteen cities in a trench coat. A guide to picking the right base — plus the tax-free shopping change that lands on 1 November 2026.
onesim team
Tokyo is not a city with a centre. It is a ring of centres strung along the Yamanote line, and where you sleep changes your trip more than it would anywhere in Europe.
The good news is that the Yamanote loop takes an hour to go all the way round, so no choice here is wrong. These are the trade-offs.
The six, at a glance
| Neighbourhood | Suits | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
Shinjuku | First trips; the most connections of anywhere in Japan | Loud, enormous, and the station takes a week to learn |
Shibuya | Nightlife, shopping, being in the middle of it | Younger, busier, more expensive for what you get |
Tokyo Station / Marunouchi | Shinkansen days, business travel, quiet nights | Dead after 9pm; no neighbourhood life |
Asakusa | Old Tokyo, temples, budget rooms | Far east; 30–40 minutes from Shibuya and Shinjuku |
Ueno | Museums, Ameyoko market, the airport train from Narita | Rougher edges, less polished |
Nakameguro / Daikanyama | A second or third trip; low-rise, calm, good coffee | Fewer hotels, more flats, and you commute in |
If it is your first time and you are staying five nights or fewer, stay in Shinjuku. Everything else is optimisation. Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world, which is a nuisance for ten minutes and an advantage for the rest of the week: the Narita Express, the Chūō line west, the Odakyu line to Hakone, three metro lines and the Yamanote loop all leave from the same building.
If you want the quieter version
Yanaka, north-east of Ueno, survived both the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 firebombing largely intact, which almost nothing in Tokyo did. Wooden houses, a cemetery full of cherry trees, a shopping street that closes at six. It is twenty minutes from the loop and it feels like a different decade.
Shimokitazawa, two stops from Shibuya, is second-hand clothes, small live houses and about forty coffee shops. It is where people in their twenties who cannot afford Nakameguro actually live.
Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, east of the river, is the coffee district and has the Museum of Contemporary Art and a garden with stepping stones across a pond.
Things worth knowing before you book
The accommodation tax is small. Tokyo charges ¥100–200 per person per night on rooms above a threshold. Kyoto's is much higher and rising; Tokyo's is a rounding error.
Rooms are small and that is fine. A standard Tokyo double is 14–18 square metres and the bathroom is a moulded plastic unit. It is spotless, it works, and you will be out of it fourteen hours a day. Pay for space only if you genuinely need it.
Business hotels are the value pick. APA, Dormy Inn, Tokyu Stay and their competitors are clean, central, cheap and near-identical. Dormy Inn chains have a public bath, which is worth more after a 25,000-step day than any amount of floor area.
Two 2026 changes that affect your money
Tax-free shopping changes on 1 November 2026. Until then, you show your passport at the register and the 10% consumption tax comes off the price on the spot. From 1 November, the country moves to a refund model: you pay the full price in the shop and claim the tax back at the airport before you fly. If you are travelling in the changeover window, budget for paying the tax up front and allow extra time at departures.
The departure tax triples in July 2026, from ¥1,000 to ¥3,000. It is almost always collected inside your airfare, so you will not be asked for it at the gate — but it is now a real line in the cost of the ticket.
Getting around, and the IC card question
One card covers almost everything: trains, metro, buses, convenience stores, vending machines, most coin lockers.
If you have an iPhone or Apple Watch, the simplest route is Welcome Suica Mobile, JR East's app for visitors: you issue and top up a Suica on the phone before you arrive, with no counter queue. It is valid for 180 days and it is not available on Android.
If you are on Android, buy a plastic card on arrival. Unregistered Suica and Pasmo cards went back on sale in March 2025 after the chip shortage, so the counters at Narita, Haneda and the major JR stations have them again.
Either way, load ¥3,000–5,000 to start. Topping up is cash-only at most machines, which is the main reason to carry some.
A three-day shape, whichever base you pick
Day one, the west: Shinjuku's Omoide Yokochō in the evening, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building's free observation decks in the afternoon, Shibuya crossing at dusk, and Shimokitazawa or Ebisu for dinner.
Day two, the east: Senso-ji in Asakusa at 7am before the crowds, Ueno's museums, the Ameyoko market, and Yanaka in the late afternoon.
Day three, the middle: the Imperial Palace East Gardens, Ginza on a Sunday when the main street is pedestrianised, and Tsukiji Outer Market in the morning — the inner wholesale market moved to Toyosu, but the outer one still does the eating.
