Your first day in Tokyo: leave room to arrive

Our recommendation for a first Tokyo arrival is simple: make reaching your accommodation the main task. This is planning advice, not an estimate of how long airport procedures will take.

Your landing time is not the same as the time you can start exploring. Put baggage collection, onward travel, locating the hotel and any check-in restrictions between those two times.

• Save the accommodation address and its check-in instructions.
• Confirm your arrival airport rather than assuming all Tokyo flights use the same airport.
• Check an official airport or transport-operator route for your arrival time.
• Keep the hotel's contact details available if you arrive later than expected.
• Download the details you need if you cannot rely on immediate mobile data.

Do not book a tight dinner or a prepaid attraction simply because the flight schedule appears to leave a few hours.

Choose one nearby, easy-to-abandon activity. A meal, a short walk or shopping for essentials can be enough. You can decide on something more ambitious once you know how you feel.

If your room is not ready, ask the property about its actual baggage policy. Do not assume that storage, early check-in or late check-in is automatically included.

Use the three-day Tokyo route from the first day on which you have enough time and energy. Its neighbourhood groups are suggestions, so they can be reordered around weather or a booking.

If you lose a morning, remove an optional stop instead of squeezing the same list into fewer hours. Keep the place you care about most and let the rest be a bonus.

A ten-day holiday can contain fewer than ten sightseeing days. Count the dates on the ground, nights in accommodation and partial arrival or departure days separately. The Japan ten-day framework explicitly sets arrival and departure aside.

Use the official destination resources below for place ideas. Check airport transfers, ticket rules and late-arrival arrangements with the relevant operator or property; this checklist does not promise a particular service or travel time.

Our Ueno rainy-day course can help on a later full day. On arrival day, choose just one museum if time and energy permit, and leave luggage at your accommodation first.