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Étaperia

Kantō and Tokyo in 15 days: day-by-day itinerary and hotels

Fifteen days from the Edo warehouses of Kawagoe and the Chiba cliffs to ten days of Tokyo, district by district: Asakusa, Ueno, the Imperial Palace, Odaiba, Shinjuku, Shibuya and Roppongi.

Sequenced by Kylian Updated on 5 September 2026

Shibuya Crossing and its neon signs at night
  • 15 days
  • 62 places
  • 15 nights
  • sustained pace
Start
Hachiōji
End
Shibuya, Tokyo
Main transport
Hire car up to the entry into Tokyo, then metro and trains with a Suica or Pasmo card
Recommended season
Works all year round; late March for the cherry trees, late November for the maples, very heavy summer

What you get

  • The complete itinerary: 15 days sequenced Morning / Afternoon / Evening / Hotel
  • The card of every hotel, with the address and a direct booking link
  • Quota tickets, fixed-date tickets and surcharges flagged in advance
  • The country quick guide: weather, transport, formalities, budget
  • A PDF file of 34 pages

What the price does not include

  • Flights
  • Hotel nights
  • Tickets and admission fees
  • Travel insurance
  • On-the-ground assistance during your trip

The travel book preview

The free day in full, with its hotel card. This is the sample.

Day 10

The palace, Marunouchi and Ginza

Morning

East Gardens of the Imperial Palace

The heart of the old Edo Castle, the largest in the world in its day, which became the imperial residence in 1868. The East Gardens are the only part freely open: the stone base of the keep lost in 1657, the Fujimi-yagura guardhouse, and a Japanese garden designed in 1961. Access is through the Ōte-mon gate; closed on Mondays and Fridays.

Wadakura Fountain Park and Nijūbashi

The fountain park, created for the wedding of Emperor Akihito in 1961 and redone in 1995. A little further on, the Nijūbashi, the double bridge, is the classic viewpoint over the palace: an arched stone bridge and, behind it, an iron bridge topped by the Fushimi-yagura tower of 1628.

Afternoon

Marunouchi and Tokyo station

The red brick façade of 1914, designed by Kingo Tatsuno, lost its domes and its third floor to the bombs of 1945; it was restored identically in 2012 after five years of work. The Marunouchi business district around it lines up shopping galleries beneath the towers.

Ginza and the Kabuki-za

Rebuilt in brick by an English architect after the fire of 1872, Ginza has remained the district of luxury and of the first Western glassworks in Japan. The Kabuki-za, the main kabuki theatre, has existed since 1889; the present building, the fifth version, dates from 2013. You can buy a same-day ticket for a single act at the fourth-floor window: the simplest way to see kabuki without spending four hours on it.

Hama-rikyū garden

A former Tokugawa hunting estate turned imperial pleasure garden, opened to the public in 1946. Its pond is fed by sea water and its level rises and falls with the tide, which is unique in Tokyo. A tea house on stilts in the middle, and the Shiodome towers all around: the contrast is the whole interest.

Evening

Shinbashi and Caretta Shiodome

Shinbashi, the first railway terminus in Japan in 1872, is today the district of after-work izakaya, under the arches of the viaduct. Next door, the free observatory on the 46th floor of the Caretta Shiodome tower frames the bay and the Rainbow Bridge, open until 11:00 PM.

Good to know

Imperial Palace: the East Gardens close on Mondays and Fridays, and on days of official ceremony. Entry is free and is through the Ōte-mon gate, with a token handed out to be returned on the way out. The palace itself can only be visited on a booked guided tour, to be requested in advance.

Hotel · Night 10

Hotel Gracery Shinjuku

Thirty floors and a hundred and thirty metres in the heart of Kabukichō, five minutes' walk from the east exit of Shinjuku and three from Seibu-Shinjuku. Reception is on the 8th floor, on whose terrace sits a twelve-metre Godzilla head that roars at set times; the top floor has rooms decorated on that theme, bookable only online. Rooms that are spacious for Tokyo, separate bathroom and toilet, self check-in terminals. Three nights here.

Address
· 1-19-1 Kabukichō, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8466
Website
· whgshinjuku.gracery.com (new tab)
Book this hotel (new tab)

Buy this itinerary

€39 incl. tax

that is €2.60 per day of travel

The buy button becomes active once the box is ticked.

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  • Available immediately in your customer account: online reading with clickable booking links, downloadable PDF for offline use
  • Method: what is checked, and when

A hotel in the itinerary closed or impossible to find, a place to visit permanently closed?

Within 12 months of purchase, email contact@etaperia.com

Itinerary corrected within 7 days, or refunded in full. Terms in article 12 of the T&Cs, on top of the legal warranty (new tab)

€39 incl. tax · 15 days

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A question before buying? Email Kylian, reply within 48 working hours.

The day-by-day rundown

15 stops, 230 km as the crow flies

  1. Day 1 Kawagoe, little Edo Toki no Kane Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  2. Day 2 Sawara and Sakura, the Chiba of before Ono canal Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  3. Day 3 Narita-san and the end of Chiba Narita-san Shinshō-ji Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  4. Day 4 Tokyo DisneySea Tokyo DisneySea Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  5. Day 5 Tokyo Disneyland Tokyo Disneyland Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  6. Day 6 Asakusa and the Skytree Kaminarimon and Nakamise Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  7. Day 7 Ueno, museums and the lotus pond Tokyo National Museum Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  8. Day 8 Sumo at Ryōgoku, electronics at Akihabara Kokugikan and the sumo museum Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  9. Day 9 The Nerima studios, then rest The Making of Harry Potter Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  10. Day 10 The palace, Marunouchi and Ginza East Gardens of the Imperial Palace Free
  11. Day 11 Odaiba, teamLab and Zōjō-ji Miraikan Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  12. Day 12 Shinjuku, from the imperial garden to the lanes Shinjuku Gyoen Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  13. Day 13 Two Edo gardens and the roller coaster Koishikawa Kōrakuen Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  14. Day 14 From Meiji-jingū to the Shibuya crossing Meiji-jingū Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF
  15. Day 15 Aoyama, Roppongi and the west of the city Meiji Jingū Gaien, Aoyama and the cemetery Day reserved for buyers, unlocked in the PDF

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Country quick guide and logistics

The essentials of the country, scannable in ten seconds.

Weather and when to go

  • This stage works all year round. Late March and early April for the cherry trees of Ueno and Shinjuku Gyoen, late November for the maples of Rikugi-en and the ginkgos of Aoyama, December for the Roppongi illuminations.
  • Very heavy summer, 33 °C and high humidity, to be avoided for long days of walking.
  • Typhoon season from late August to October.

Transport and permits

  • The decision point of this stage: in Tokyo the car is expensive and useless. None of the four city hotels has free parking. The most rational thing is to return it on arriving at Maihama, then finish the stage on public transport.
  • A rechargeable Suica or Pasmo card, valid on the metro, JR trains and buses, also available in a phone wallet. Two separate metro networks, Tokyo Metro and Toei, with separate tickets but the same card.
  • The last train runs around midnight and there is nothing after that: plan for a taxi or head back before.

Formalities and safety

  • Valid passport, no visa for a tourist stay of 90 days maximum. This stage closes the first of the two stays of the Japanese route: at the end of it, seven days remain before the planned exit from the country.
  • Compulsory bookings: the two bay parks two months ahead, the Warner Bros. studios at Nerima several weeks, teamLab Borderless and Shibuya Sky by time slot. The East Gardens of the Imperial Palace close on Mondays and Fridays, the Tokyo National Museum on Mondays.
  • Tokyo is one of the safest cities in the world; the only useful caution concerns the bar touts in Kabukichō and Roppongi, to be ignored every time. Earthquake instructions are posted in every hotel.

Budget and meals

  • Japanese yen, cards accepted almost everywhere in Tokyo, cash useful for the counters of Omoide Yokochō and for the temples.
  • Indicative meal budget: ¥900 to ¥1,500 at midday in a neighbourhood restaurant, ¥2,500 to ¥5,000 in the evening. The food basements of the department stores slash the price of their prepared dishes an hour before closing. No tipping.
  • Left to you: the dated tickets for the two bay parks, teamLab Borderless, Shibuya Sky, the paid observatories, the museums, urban transport and the Tokyo stay tax.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly do I receive?

Your Étaperia itinerary, available immediately in your customer account after payment: readable online with clickable booking links, and downloadable as a PDF for the trip. Every day is sequenced Morning / Afternoon / Evening, with the hotel for each night, its address and its booking link, and timed-entry tickets flagged in advance.

How is this better than what an AI gives me?

A generative AI composes a plausible list in seconds, without saying what was checked or when. At Étaperia, every itinerary is sequenced by hand, place by place, with the booking constraints spotted before it is too late to get them. The Method page says what is checked, against which source and on what date.

Can I adapt it to my dates and my pace?

Yes. The days are self-contained blocks: you can shift the departure, stretch a stage or skip a day without breaking what follows. Only timed-entry tickets require adjusting the dates accordingly, and they are all flagged.

What if a hotel or a place in the itinerary has closed?

Email contact@etaperia.com within 12 months of your purchase. If a hotel in the itinerary is closed or can no longer be found, or a place to visit has closed permanently, the itinerary is corrected in your customer account within 7 days, or you are refunded in full. A hotel fully booked on your dates, a seasonal closure or a change in opening hours or prices is not covered. This guarantee comes on top of the legal warranty of conformity; details in article 12 of the terms and conditions of sale.

Who is selling you this itinerary

  • Kylian, sole trader, SIRET 927 587 709 00035
  • Consumer mediator: ANM Consommation
  • Payment handled by Stripe: Étaperia never sees your card number
  • Publisher, not a travel agency: you book flights, hotels and tickets yourself

In the same country

This module is one leg of the full itinerary: Japan itinerary: 88 days from Hokkaidō to Okinawa, hotels and bookings

For a first trip to the country, see instead: Hokkaido in 14 days: Japan's great north from Sapporo to Hakodate

The complete itinerary

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To read before you go

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