5 days in Tokyo with kids: the family itinerary we actually use

Five days is our number for Tokyo with kids. Three is too short once you factor in jet lag, and a week means every neighborhood starts blurring into the last. Five gives you a proper morning in Asakusa, a full afternoon at teamLab, a day for Odaiba or Disney without forcing it, and enough breathing room to eat well and let the girls pick a random animal cafe. This is the version we run when we come back to Tokyo, which we have done thirteen times now.

We keep this itinerary anchored in Taito because that side of the city is quieter at night, cheaper for family rooms, and puts Senso-ji, Kappabashi, and the Skytree inside a fifteen minute walk. From Ueno station the whole Yamanote and Ginza network opens up. If you want the full case for staying on this side, we broke it down in our Kappabashi apartment write-up.

The five-day plan at a glance

The order matters. Day one is a low-effort neighborhood day to shake off the flight. Day two is the big art install. Day three covers the tourist grid you have to see. Day four is our overflow, either Odaiba or a hotel-pool half day if the kids are toast. Day five is Disney or Warner Bros, whichever fandom is louder in your house.

Where each day happens on the map

Tokyo is huge on paper and small in practice once you accept that everything you actually want to do sits along three train lines. The Yamanote loop covers Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Ueno. The Ginza line runs east to Asakusa. The Yurakucho line drops you at Toyosu for teamLab. If you pin those five nodes you have the whole trip.

Before you fly: eSIM, transit card, luggage

Get an eSIM before the plane door closes. Every family we know that landed in Tokyo without one lost forty five minutes at Narita queuing at a rental counter, then paid triple. We use Holafly. One eSIM covers all five of us because it doubles as a hotspot for the girls' iPads, and the Holafly Plans subscription rolls over so we still have a data trickle when we leave Japan for the next country. Full breakdown on the Holafly hub and specifically the best eSIM for Japan guide.

Load a Suica or Pasmo card into Apple Wallet the moment you sit down at the gate. You will use it for every train, every convenience store snack, every vending machine. If you want the physical card for the kids to hold, buy a Welcome Suica at the airport. If you want to skip the top-up dance entirely, the 72-hour Tokyo Subway ticket on Klook at 6 dollars is the best deal in the city if you are staying in Asakusa or Ueno.

Day 1: Asakusa, Senso-ji, Kappabashi

The move on day one is to do nothing hard. Land, drop bags, walk. Asakusa is the perfect first neighborhood because everything is close, the temple is dramatic without being a puzzle, and the food is cheap and constant.

Start at Kaminarimon, the giant red gate. Walk Nakamise Street slowly and buy the ningyo-yaki and a melon pan. The Senso-ji main hall is at the top. The five-story pagoda is on the left and it is the shot you want at night, not during the day. Come back for it after dinner.

From the temple, walk fifteen minutes west to Kappabashi, the restaurant supply street. This is where every sushi place in Tokyo buys its plastic food samples. The girls always leave with a fake sushi keychain and Lindsay leaves with a pair of Japanese kitchen shears that she still uses four years later.

Dinner is where day one earns its keep. Torikizoku is a chain yakitori place where nothing costs more than 350 yen and the kids' lemon sours are just lemonade. Every skewer arrives in under three minutes. We have taken every visiting relative to one and no one has complained.

After dinner, walk back toward Senso-ji. Between 7pm and 9pm the pagoda is lit and the daytime crowd is gone. If you want the postcard, the shot with Skytree behind the pagoda is from the northeast corner of the temple grounds.

Adam's walking route below is the one we run when we have first-timers with us. It hits Kaminarimon, Nakamise, the temple, the pagoda, Kappabashi, then loops back through Iriya to the apartment.

Day 2: Ueno Zoo, Ameyoko, teamLab Planets

Ueno Park opens early and the zoo opens at 9:30. Buy your zoo tickets at the gate for 600 yen an adult, kids under 12 are free. The pandas are the marquee attraction and the queue for the panda enclosure gets long by 11am, so head there first if that is your thing. If you want a slower morning, the swan boats on Shinobazu Pond are 800 yen for thirty minutes and Harper still asks about them by name.

Lunch happens in Ameyoko, the market strip under the JR tracks running south from Ueno station. Everything is cheap. Fresh seafood, fresh fruit, ramen. There is a takoyaki stand that takes cards, which is unusual and worth knowing.

The afternoon is teamLab Planets. Book your slot for around 3pm because the earlier slots sell out and you want daylight for the transit but not the exit walk. From Ueno take the Ginza line to Ueno-Hirokoji, transfer to the Toei Oedo line, and get off at Tsukishima or Kachidoki. Or just take a taxi. It is fifteen minutes and the price splits five ways.

Day 3: Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya

Day three is the tourist grid. It is unavoidable, and it is actually good, provided you do it in the right order.

Start at Meiji Shrine before 9am. The entrance is a two minute walk from Harajuku station and the shrine itself is a fifteen minute forest walk from the gate. At 8:30am there is nobody there. At 10am it is full of tour groups. This is the single biggest timing win in Tokyo.

From the shrine, walk south to Takeshita Street. Rainbow cotton candy, purikura booths, a Line Friends store the girls will not leave. Lunch is a Marion crepe or a bowl at Afuri ramen, both of which are on the same block.

Afternoon is Shibuya. The otter cafe on Meiji-dori is the one the girls remember most from any of our Tokyo trips. Book online, thirty minute slots, they hand you a smock and rubber boots and the otters climb up on you. It is unhinged and completely fine. There are hedgehog and owl cafes on the same block if otters are not your thing.

Sunset move: Shibuya Sky. Book the slot that ends at civil twilight, which in Tokyo is usually 6:15pm in autumn and 7:30pm in summer. You want the top open deck at the moment the city switches from blue to gold to on. It is the single best skyline photo in the city and no, Tokyo Tower does not compete.

Come down at 7pm, cross Shibuya scramble twice for the video, then eat at Uobei Genki sushi where every plate is 137 yen and comes to your seat on a little bullet train. The girls have never turned down a Uobei night.

Day 4: Odaiba by boat

Day four is the day people mess up. They cram it with a second temple day and a museum, and everyone is done by 2pm. Odaiba fixes that by putting the whole day in one place, with a boat ride on either end.

The Himiko cruise leaves from Asakusa pier at 10:00am and drops you at Odaiba Seaside Park about fifty minutes later. It costs 1720 yen a head, kids half price, and it is worth it for the view of Rainbow Bridge alone. If you booked the Klook Pass Greater Tokyo, it covers a version of this cruise plus five other attractions for 40 dollars.

At DiverCity, the life-size Unicorn Gundam is out front. It does a light show every two hours starting at noon. Inside, the food court on the second floor is huge and cheap, and the Water Science Museum next door is free.

End the day at Round1 Stadium, a six-story arcade with bowling, batting cages, and karaoke on the top floor. This is where the girls burn off the last of the day. Take the Yurikamome monorail back over Rainbow Bridge just after sunset because the view is better in that direction.

Day 5: Disneyland or Harry Potter

Day five is a whole-day commitment. Pick one.

Tokyo Disneyland is fifteen minutes from Tokyo Station on the JR Keiyo line. It is the cleanest, most polite theme park on the planet and the food is genuinely good. Get there at rope drop and use the standby pass system for the top three rides. Book tickets on Klook because it is 6 to 8 dollars cheaper per person and the QR code works at the gate.

If Disney is not your family's thing, Warner Bros Studio Tour Tokyo, The Making of Harry Potter, opened in 2023 on the old Toshimaen site. Book the earliest slot at 8:30am and give it four full hours. It is genuinely well done and it takes as long as it says it will.

What to book and what to skip

The Klook Pass Greater Tokyo is 40 dollars and covers six attractions from a menu of about fifteen, including Skytree, teamLab Planets, and a Sumida River cruise. If you are hitting three of those, it pays for itself. The full breakdown is in our Klook Tokyo city pass guide. We keep our full library of Klook activity picks on the Klook hub.

Where to stay for this itinerary

Asakusa is our default. It is cheaper than Shinjuku, closer to Senso-ji obviously, and the Ginza and Asakusa lines get you anywhere in twenty minutes. The Kappabashi apartment we keep going back to is a serviced Minn with two bedrooms and a washer, which matters on a five-day trip with kids.

If you are traveling with grandparents and need a second room, or if the girls are old enough to want their own space, we wrote up how we handled a multi-generational Tokyo reunion across two apartments in the same building.

The stuff we get asked every week