The story
Forty million people and it still works. The awe is in the functioning, not the view, and in how fast a side street goes silent.
Destinations · Tokyo · City
Tokyo
The first city on this site, and the test of whether a photographer's rubric works on a place with no reef and no ridgeline.
Scored belowContentsTokyo · Tokyo
01Why Tokyo
A city that rewards wandering more than planning
Tokyo is the destination that forced a third rubric. Terrain, wildlife and trails describe nothing here, and neither does anything in the dive block.
What it does have is streets that reward aimless walking, architecture across a century of very different ideas about what a building should be, and a transit system that removes the friction cities usually impose.
It scores well and it is one visit. That is worth knowing when you read the number.
02Scored
Scored · the place on six axes, the operator on its own
78
Place
82
Operator · The Knot Tokyo Shinjuku
B+
Overall
The only city scored here, on streets, architecture, culture, nightlife and light.
The city · the place
Streets8
Architecture7
Structure7
Culture9
Nightlife9
Light7
Total47/60 · 78%
The dot is Tokyo; the pale band is where the other zero places on this site fall on that axis. How the scoring works
03The story
04What it asks of you
What it asks of you
The city is walkable to a degree that will surprise you and exhausting for the same reason. Trains stop around midnight, the good light is early, and the districts worth photographing are far enough apart that a day covers two of them properly or five of them badly.
LevelCasualActiveStrenuousRemoteExpeditionCasual
Temperature
5–30 °C
Four real seasons
Season
Year-round
Best months
Mar – May, Oct – Nov
Blossom and autumn colour
Format
Hotel
One stay reviewed
Getting there
Haneda or Narita
Haneda is closer
Crowds
Very high in places
Early mornings are empty
05When
March to May and October to November is what you are aiming for
March to May is when Tokyo is at its best. Tap any month for what the water is actually doing.
Visibility, sea state, what is in the water and how much of it you can count on. The season turns at March and again after May.
06The money
Flights, transfers and what to sort first
An IC card and a rail pass, in that order. Most of what you need is local rather than shinkansen.
- DAILY RATE
- $300 to $550 a day, USD, at the operator
- Getting there
- Haneda or Narita. Haneda is closer
07What you see
The evidence
What the week actually looked like
There are no photographs from this trip on the site yet. It was shot on film in 2000 and 2001 and the scans are not done; the scores and the conditions below are complete.
Night is the axis that matters
Tokyo after dark is a different city, and Night is scored accordingly. Neon, wet streets, tunnels of signage and the particular quality of light in a Japanese convenience store at two in the morning.
Streets scores high because the reward for turning down an unpromising alley is unusually good here.
Crowd Pressure is the interesting one. Shibuya at rush hour is unworkable; a residential street in Yanaka at seven on a Sunday is empty.
08The dives
What the week is built around
Six I dived more than once and would plan a week around, named as the resort names them.
01
Shinjuku after dark
The obvious one
Golden Gai and Omoide Yokocho. Small, crowded and worth it once.
02
Yanaka
The quiet counterweight
Low-rise, residential and almost empty early. The best morning walk in the city.
03
Architecture
A century in one city
From Tange to SANAA. Worth building a day around.
04
Tsukiji and Toyosu
Early
The outer market rather than the auction. Go at six.
05
Transit itself
A subject
Stations, platforms and the choreography of a system that works.
06
Day trips
Out of the city
Kamakura, Nikko and Hakone are all within reach by train.
09Who with
Where you stay
There is one place to stay here, so the reef score and the operator score arrive together. It is still worth separating them. The five trip axes below belong to the operation alone, and the final rating is the baseline score of the reef plus that operator's score.
Operator · scored 2023
The Knot Tokyo Shinjuku
82%
Price band
$$$
$300 to $550 a day, USD
Dived
2023
Scored on the last visit
10Who it suits
And who should cheerfully book elsewhere
The right-hand column is the useful one. Tokyo asks something specific of you, and going for the wrong reason is an expensive way to find that out.
Book it if
- Notes still being written.
Book elsewhere if
- Notes still being written.
11If not Tokyo
12The trip
Would you dive Tokyo?
Put your hand up and I will tell you when a trip is planned
There is no trip here yet. Where they go next is decided by who puts their hand up, so this counts as a vote for Tokyo — and it also gets you each new guide as it is finished. Four or five emails a year.
Four emails a year, unsubscribe in one click, and the address goes nowhere else.