4 Days in Tokyo and Beyond
Four days adds a second day trip onto the 3-day Kamakura spine : Nikko, the UNESCO-listed shrine complex two hours north, which needs a full day of its own, not a half-day add-on. Two city days plus two day trips is a genuinely different trip from four rushed city days; if you’d rather stay in the capital, see the 4-day city-only itinerary instead.
Book these before you go:
- Your Tokyo hotel on Agoda
- A guided Nikko day tour , day 4, if you’d rather skip juggling the Tobu line yourself
- A guided Kamakura and Enoshima day trip , day 3
| Day | Focus | Distance/time from Tokyo |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asakusa/Senso-ji, Akihabara, Golden Gai | In Tokyo |
| 2 | Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku | In Tokyo |
| 3 | Kamakura: Great Buddha, temples, Enoshima coast | ~1 hr each way (JR Yokosuka Line) |
| 4 | Nikko: Toshogu Shrine, mountain scenery | ~2 hrs each way (Tobu Limited Express from Asakusa) |
Day 1: Old Tokyo
Base yourself in Asakusa or Shinjuku. Start at Senso-ji before the crowds arrive, then walk Nakamise street for breakfast snacks. Take the subway to Akihabara for electronics and anime shopping in the afternoon. For dinner, find a ramen counter with a queue outside, that’s a better signal than any review site. At night, Golden Gai in Shinjuku is the tiny-bar crawl worth doing once.
Day 2: Modern Tokyo
Meiji Shrine first, reached through Harajuku, ideally before 9am. Then Takeshita Street for the fashion chaos and Omotesando next door for the calmer version of the same street. Cross at Shibuya Scramble at least once. Skip the Shibuya Sky queue if you’re short on time and go instead to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building’s twin observatories , free, comparable views, plus a free nightly projection show. Don’t tip at dinner, it isn’t done here.
Day 3: Kamakura
Take the JR Yokosuka Line direct from Tokyo Station, about 57 minutes each way for roughly ¥940 one way. Skip the JR Pass math for this trip, a single return fare covers it. Once there: the Great Buddha at Kotoku-in, a temple walk, and the Enoden line out to Enoshima if you have energy left. A guided Kamakura and Enoshima day tour handles both stops in one booking if you’d rather not plan the connections.
Day 4: Nikko
Take the Tobu Limited Express from Asakusa, about two hours each way. Toshogu Shrine, UNESCO-listed as the Shrines and Temples of Nikko , alone earns three to four hours if you go inside the inner sanctuary and treasure museum, so this is a full day, not an add-on to anything else. A basic return runs around ¥2,800, or get the Nikko Pass World Heritage Area for about ¥3,000, which also covers the local bus out to the shrine cluster. If you’d rather have a guide handle the two train companies and the bus, a Nikko day tour from Tokyo does it in one booking.
Is the JR Pass worth it for this 4-day Tokyo-plus-Nikko trip?
No. Nikko’s fastest route runs on the private Tobu line, not JR, and Kamakura alone doesn’t cost enough in train fares to break even on a ¥50,000 pass. Pay for each leg individually; it comes out cheaper than the pass for this exact itinerary.
How much time does Nikko actually need?
A full day, not a half-day stop. Toshogu Shrine’s inner sanctuary and treasure museum alone take three to four hours, and the round trip from Asakusa eats another four hours on top of that. Trying to pair Nikko with anything else the same day means rushing the shrine.
Get Welcome Suica or Welcome Suica Mobile the moment you land, it covers every subway tap plus the Kamakura leg. Cash still matters at smaller shops and shrine stalls in both Kamakura and Nikko even though your IC card covers the trains. Tipping isn’t a Japanese custom anywhere on this itinerary.