Budget · 3-hour walk · Tokyo
Harajuku to Shibuya in three hours
A forest shrine, the teenage shopping street, the architecture boulevard and the world's busiest crossing.
Three hours covering the stretch where Tokyo is loudest and quietest within a few hundred metres: a 70-hectare forest around an imperial shrine, and a scramble crossing three thousand people use at a time. It is all on one side of one JR stop, entirely flat, and free from end to end.
The route, stop by stop
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Yoyogi Park
Next to the shrine and completely different in character: buskers, dance troupes and picnics rather than silence.
15 min here Walk here → -
Meiji Jingu
A hundred thousand trees donated from across Japan in the 1920s, now a real forest. Bow at the torii; everyone does.
40 min here Walk here → -
Takeshita Street
Four hundred metres of teenage fashion, crepes and noise. Impassable at weekends and that is rather the point.
25 min here Walk here → -
Omotesando
The other Harajuku: a zelkova-lined boulevard where every flagship store was built by a different famous architect.
25 min here Walk here → -
Shibuya Crossing
Up to three thousand people cross at once. The Starbucks window above it is the cliche; the station walkway is free and better.
20 min here Walk here →
More in Tokyo
Every walking route in Tokyo, or the full Tokyo guide for where to stay and what a day costs.