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City Guide · Japan

Yokohama

Half an hour from Tokyo and a completely different temperature. Yokohama is where the city goes to breathe.

Minimum stayHalf a day
Ideal stay1 day, or 1 night
Best timeApr–Jun, Oct–Nov
From Tokyo~30 minutes by train
Overview

The port that opened Japan

Yokohama was a fishing village until 1859, when it became one of the first ports foreign ships were allowed to enter — and it has felt outward-looking ever since. The waterfront is open in a way Tokyo’s never is: brick warehouses, a wide harbour promenade, and a skyline you can see all of at once. It holds the largest Chinatown in Japan, a hillside of Western merchant houses, and one of the country’s best strolling gardens. Most people come for an afternoon. It is worth an evening, because the harbour is better after dark than it is at noon.

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Experiences

A harbour afternoon

Yokohama is compact and walkable — the waterfront chain of sights takes about three hours end to end.

🚢 Waterfront

  • The Minato Mirai promenade, best from late afternoon
  • The red-brick warehouses, now shops and cafés
  • The Nippon Maru, a preserved sail training ship

🥟 Food

  • Chinatown — the biggest in Japan, and genuinely good
  • Ramen at the museum in Shin-Yokohama, which is odder and better than it sounds
  • Harbour-front bars with the skyline across the water

🌳 Quieter

  • Sankeien, a strolling garden of relocated historic buildings
  • The Yamate bluff and its Western houses
  • Osanbashi pier at dusk — a wooden deck over the harbour

👨‍👩‍👧 Who it suits

  • Anyone finding Tokyo relentless
  • Families — open space, and a lot of it
  • A first evening for jet lag, before the city proper
How Long to Stay

An afternoon, or a night

Afternoon

Waterfront

Arrive after lunch, walk Minato Mirai to the red-brick warehouses, then out onto Osanbashi pier.

Evening

Chinatown

Dinner in Chinatown, then the harbour lights on the way back to the station.

If you stay

Next morning

Sankeien garden, or the Yamate bluff and its merchant houses, before returning to Tokyo.

Getting Around

Thirty minutes, then walk

Getting here is trivial. Once you arrive, almost everything is on one waterfront path.

🚆 Arriving

  • Tokyo, Shibuya and Shinagawa all run direct
  • Minato Mirai station puts you on the waterfront
  • Shin-Yokohama is the Shinkansen stop, and is inland

🚶 Around

  • The waterfront sights are a continuous walk
  • Chinatown and the bluff are twenty minutes further
  • The Minatomirai Line covers the gaps

💳 Practical

  • The same IC card you use in Tokyo works here
  • No separate pass is worth buying for a day
  • Last trains back to Tokyo run past midnight
Travel Intelligence

Worth knowing

Yokohama is the easiest city in this guide to visit and the one most often rushed.

EnglishComfortable

A port city that has hosted foreign residents for over a century, and it shows. Chinatown, the waterfront and the hotels are used to visitors; the smaller places inland are less so.

Hotel roomsLarger than Tokyo

Rooms here are noticeably bigger for the same money, which is one real argument for a night. Harbour-view categories are worth the difference; inland ones are not.

EatingChinatown, carefully

Chinatown is large and uneven — the good places have queues of locals rather than photographs of the food. Vegetarians do better here than almost anywhere in Japan.

TimingGo late

The waterfront is at its best from about four in the afternoon. Arriving at eleven and leaving at three is the common mistake.

Where to Stay

Stay, or come for the day

Most travellers day-trip from Tokyo. A night here makes sense if you want the harbour after dark.

Minato Mirai

  • On the water, with the skyline from the room
  • Best for a one-night stop
  • Quiet at night — it is a business district

Yokohama Station

  • The transport hub and the cheaper rooms
  • Fifteen minutes’ walk from the waterfront
  • Convenient rather than atmospheric

Or stay in Tokyo

  • Thirty minutes each way makes a day trip easy
  • Worth a night only if the harbour is the point
  • No luggage to move either way
Where to Photograph

The harbour, mostly

One view repays the trip on its own, and it needs the right hour.

🌇 Blue hour

  • Osanbashi pier looking back at Minato Mirai
  • The red-brick warehouses lit from the water side

🏮 Colour

  • Chinatown’s gates and lanterns after dark
  • The Ferris wheel, which doubles as a clock

🍃 Green

  • Sankeien’s pond and pagoda, especially in November
Nearby

Close by

Yokohama sits between Tokyo and the Kanto coast.

Tokyo
The capital · 30 min
Kamakura
Temples by the sea · 30 min
Hakone
Hot springs and Fuji · 1h
Good to Know

Frequently asked

Worth half of one. Arrive after lunch and stay for the evening — the waterfront is far better at dusk than at midday, and the whole chain of sights is a single walk.
Tokyo, unless you specifically want the harbour at night. Rooms are bigger and cheaper here, but thirty minutes each way makes a day trip painless.
Yes, and it is the largest in Japan — but it is uneven. Follow the queues of local families rather than the photographs of food, and it is one of the better meals in Kanto.
More open space than Tokyo offers: the harbour promenade, the Ferris wheel, the sail training ship and the cup noodle museum, all within one walk.
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