JP
What to see in Tokyo on foot
35 sights worth the detour, all walkable, all offline.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Tokyo offline.
Tokyo is a city made for walking. This self-guided guide maps 35 of its sights worth the detour — landmarks, historic sites, viewpoints, museums and galleries and parks and gardens — the places locals point to and the tour buses skip, close enough to string into a single day on foot. Download the Tokyo pack in Voyage GO before you go and the whole route works offline: no roaming, no dead battery from a live map. Every monument, viewpoint and park you pass quietly fills your travel passport.
Landmarks16
- 1Mode Gakuen Cocoon TowerA 50-story school curved like a cocoon — white aluminum and dark-blue glass, criss-crossed by diagonal white lines — that beat 150 rival proposals and won Skyscraper of the Year.
- 2Tokyo TowerA third of its steel came from US tanks scrapped after the Korean War — Japan's postwar recovery, painted orange and bolted into the sky.
- 3Akihabara (Electric Town)The black market that outgrew itself and became Japan's otaku capital.
- 4OdaibaAn 1853 cannon fort built to repel Commodore Perry's Black Ships now shares an island with a 19.7-metre Gundam statue.
- 5Japan National StadiumTokyo's Olympic centrepiece was deliberately built without air conditioning — and the roof covers only the seats, leaving the track open to the summer sky.
- 6Tokyo DisneylandThe first Disney park built outside the United States — and one of only two Disney parks in the world not owned or operated by Disney, the other being its companion, Tokyo DisneySea.
- 7Nippon BudōkanThe judo hall that became rock's most famous stage — and The Beatles were told they'd defile it.
- 8Tokyo Disney ResortThe only Disney resort on Earth that Disney doesn't own or operate — run under license by a Japanese railway subsidiary since day one.
- 9Tokyo DomeThe roof is literally held up by air — a 0.8 mm fiberglass membrane pressurized by blowers pushing 150,000 cubic metres of air per hour.
- 10Japan Meteorological AgencyEvery typhoon name issued across the Northwestern Pacific gets its label from a forecasting center inside this Toranomon building.
- 11Rainbow BridgeWalk the lower deck and you get Tokyo Tower to the north, Mount Fuji to the south — all on foot across 798 metres of open bay.
- 12Tokyo Mosque (Tokyo Camii)Ottoman domes and a 41-metre minaret rising out of a Shibuya backstreet — built by Russian exiles, completed by Turkish craftsmen.
- 13Yoyogi National GymnasiumA roof held up by steel cables — Kenzō Tange's 1964 design that the Pritzker jury later called "among the most beautiful buildings of the 20th century."
- 14St. Mary's Cathedral TokyoEight stainless steel shells fold skyward into a cross of light — Kenzo Tange's 1964 thin-shell gamble on sacred geometry.
- 15Tokyo Metropolitan GymnasiumA Pritzker Prize-winning dome that has hosted Olympics twice — and you can swim in its pool for 600 yen.
- 16Ryōgoku KokugikanWhere sumo moved off temple grounds into a permanent roof — and transformed from Shinto ritual into national sport.
Historic Sites10
- 17Yasukuni ShrineKamikaze pilots swore they would "meet again at Yasukuni" — 2,466,532 names are enshrined here, fourteen of them convicted of Class A war crimes at the Tokyo Trial.
- 18Tokyo Imperial PalaceThe most powerful address in Japan — 1.15 square kilometers where shogunate, empire, and Japan's surrender all converged.
- 19Edo CastleTokyo Station and the entire Marunouchi district once lay inside this castle's outermost moat — a footprint that swallowed what is now the heart of the modern city.
- 20Tsukiji Fish MarketThe inner auction halls are gone — but the outer ring of sushi counters, fresh seafood stalls, and knife shops is still running, if you get there before early afternoon.
- 21Meiji JingūA 70-hectare forest grown from 120,000 donated trees surrounds a cypress-and-copper shrine — the walk in is half the visit.
- 22Sensō-ji TempleThirty million visitors a year, yet the golden Kannon statue at the heart of this temple has never once been shown to the public.
- 23TōkaidōThe road where your pole length told every bystander exactly how important you were.
- 24National Diet BuildingJapan's parliament has bronze doors that almost never open — and a 107-foot stained-glass ceiling behind them.
- 25Nakagin Capsule TowerThe world's first capsule building packed 140 bachelor pods — each with a reel-to-reel tape deck and a circular porthole — into Ginza, then was demolished in 2022.
- 26Akasaka PalaceJapan's answer to Versailles — a Neo-Baroque imperial palace where a future emperor sheltered through the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, and Gerald Ford later became the first sitting US president to visit Japan.
Viewpoints2
- 27Tokyo SkytreeAt 634 metres, the height isn't random — 6-3-4 spells "Musashi," the ancient name for this exact corner of Tokyo.
- 28Tokyo Metropolitan Government BuildingThe world's tallest city hall hands you a 202-meter view over Tokyo for free.
Museums & Galleries4
- 29National Diet LibraryBorn in 1948 as a "citadel of popular sovereignty," Japan's national library holds 12 million volumes — and anyone can walk in.
- 30Tokyo National MuseumOne in ten of every artwork Japan has ever officially designated a National Treasure lives here.
- 31National Museum of Western ArtThe only Le Corbusier building in the Far East, filled with Monet, Van Gogh, and Rodin — right in Ueno Park.
- 32National Art Center, TokyoJapan's most-visited art center owns no art — every visit is a different show, inside Kisho Kurokawa's last building.
Parks & Gardens3
- 33Ueno ParkFormer temple grounds where museums dating to 1872, a Le Corbusier landmark, and 800 cherry trees share land once gifted by an emperor.
- 34Ueno ZooJapan's oldest zoo — open since 1882 — still carries the weight of 1943, when the city's administrator ordered its animals poisoned and starved for wartime propaganda.
- 35Yoyogi ParkOn Sundays, cosplayers, rock-music fans, jugglers, and martial arts clubs all stake out their own corner of the same lawn.
