Tokyo is not one city but twenty-three wards, and a first trip is often decided by a single mistake: a hotel booked for its name rather than its station, and every evening starts with a long ride across the map. The Tokyo City Guide, our 2026 edition, starts from that map. It reads the city territory by territory, from Shinjuku to Asakusa, and for each one it says who it suits and which addresses make it worth the stay.
What is inside
116 plates. 102 numbered addresses, from an eight-seat cocktail counter in Azabu-Juban to a 1933 public bathhouse in Koenji. 22 maps. 30 illustrations. Three itineraries. Five parts: the opening, the territory, the address book, the themes and the practical section.
The address book is the core of it: 10 places to stay, 12 to eat, 8 to drink, 6 for coffee and early hours, 10 for shopping, 10 for culture and heritage, 8 outdoors, 5 for wellness, 6 after dark, 8 experiences, 8 dates in the calendar, 6 day trips and 5 quiet addresses for readers who already know the city.
Eight territories, from Shinjuku to Asakusa
The guide divides central Tokyo into eight territories: Marunouchi and Otemachi, around Tokyo Station; Ginza and Nihonbashi, the old merchant city; Roppongi, Azabudai and Toranomon; Omotesando, Aoyama and Harajuku; Shibuya; Shinjuku; Asakusa and Kuramae; and Daikanyama and Nakameguro. For a first visit it recommends sleeping around Tokyo Station or Ginza, where the trains to both airports and the shinkansen connect, and keeping Shinjuku and Shibuya for a return trip built around nightlife and shopping.
The addresses are spread the way they really are. Ginza and Nihonbashi hold 14 of them, Roppongi, Azabudai and Toranomon 12, Marunouchi and Otemachi 11, Shibuya 8, Shinjuku and Asakusa and Kuramae 7 each, Omotesando, Aoyama and Harajuku 6, Daikanyama and Nakameguro 2. Another 28 sit elsewhere in Tokyo, from Yanaka to Toyosu and Koenji, and 7 lie around it, from Kamakura to Hakone and Nikko.
22 maps on a single base
Every map in the guide uses the same drawing of central Tokyo: same extent, same scale, same Sumida, bay, parks and avenues, same place names, with the same inset of the Kanto region for the day trips. Only the addresses lit in gold change, numbered as in the index. One map shows all 102 addresses, eight show one territory each, and thirteen show one chapter of the address book.
Every address says why it is there
Each entry carries its number, its category, its territory, a detail that sets it apart and one line on why it made the book, followed by a practical block: where, when, for whom, and how to get in.
Kyu-Asakura House, in the quiet addresses, is there for its calm. A wooden residence built in 1919, with tatami rooms that open onto a sloping garden of moss and maples, five minutes from the boutiques of Daikanyama, and designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 2004. Admission is 500 yen, shoes off at the entrance, and the guide recommends a weekday morning, or late November for the maples.
Kosugiyu is there for a different reason. A neighbourhood public bathhouse open since 1933 under a temple-style roof, five minutes from Koenji station, with four baths used every evening by the people who live around it. The guide calls it the one way into daily Tokyo that no hotel spa reproduces and suggests Sunday morning from 8am, when it is quietest.
Three itineraries, from one day to five
Three routes built only from addresses in the guide and laid out around real opening days, because in Tokyo the calendar decides more than the map: most museums close on Mondays, Tsukiji Outer Market largely shuts on Wednesdays and Sundays, and the Imperial Palace grounds tour runs only Tuesday to Saturday.
One day between Tsukiji, the Imperial Palace and Ginza, on a Thursday, from the Palace Hotel Tokyo. Tsukiji Outer Market at 8am, the Imperial Palace grounds tour at 10am, the noon seating at Tempura Kondo, Ginza on foot, the Andaz rooftop before 8pm, dinner at Sézanne and a last drink at Bar High Five.
A weekend from Aoyama to Asakusa and Daikanyama, Friday to Sunday, from Trunk (Hotel) Cat Street: Meiji Jingu Forest and the Nezu Museum on Friday, Senso-ji before 8am and SCAI The Bathhouse in Yanaka on Saturday, Kyu-Asakura House and Shibuya Sky at sunset on Sunday.
Five days from Asakusa to Hakone, Monday to Friday, from Aman Tokyo. The Sumida by water bus on Monday, the tuna auction at Toyosu on Tuesday, Ueno, Yanaka and Rikugien on Wednesday, the tea ceremony at Chosho-an on Thursday, and Hakone on Friday, back in time for Bar BenFiddich.
Written for the way Tokyo really works
The guide is plain about money and time,. It explains that prices displayed in Japan already include the 10 percent consumption tax, and that from November 1, 2026 tax-free shopping changes: visitors pay the full price in store and the tax is refunded at the airport after customs checks the goods. It notes that tipping is not part of Japanese service, and that Tokyo's lodging tax becomes a flat 3 percent of the room rate above 13,000 yen from April 1, 2027.
When to read it
Before you book rather than after. In Tokyo the territory you sleep in decides the trip more than the hotel does, and the tables that make a stay, from Den to Sézanne, book out weeks ahead. The guide names the reservations to hand to the concierge before you fly. Its page gives access to the download. It opens in the browser, and it is free.