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Here is the conversation we have most often about the Ghibli Museum: a family has booked flights, someone's teenager has watched every film twice, and then they discover that you cannot simply turn up, and you cannot even buy a ticket for next week. The Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo is one of the most loved small museums in the world, and it runs on one of the strictest ticket systems in Japan. Understanding that system before you lock in your Tokyo dates is the whole game.

Every first trip to Tokyo ends up circling the same three names: TeamLab, the Skytree, and Shibuya Sky. They get grouped together because they are the city's three big look-at-Tokyo experiences, but they are completely different days out, they book out differently, and most itineraries only have room for one or two. Here is how to choose. TeamLab Planets, and its sibling Borderless TeamLab Planets in Toyosu is the one you have seen on every feed: rooms of water, light and flo

Of all the images that sell a Japan winter, one is unbeatable: wild monkeys soaking in a steaming hot spring while snow settles on their fur. That scene has a real address, Jigokudani Monkey Park in the mountains of Nagano, where a troop of Japanese macaques comes down to bathe in their own onsen. It is one of the few world-famous wildlife encounters that genuinely looks like the photos, and if your trip includes the Nagano snow country, it is an easy day to add and a hard on

Tokyo has two Disney parks sitting side by side on Tokyo Bay, and travellers with one park day to spend face a genuinely difficult choice. Tokyo Disneyland is the classic. Tokyo DisneySea is the one that exists nowhere else on earth. They share a resort, a train station and a reputation for being among the best-run theme parks anywhere, and they offer two quite different days out. Tokyo Disneyland: the classic, polished to a shine Tokyo Disneyland is the park you already know

Every travelling household has one member whose Japan list begins with Akihabara. Tokyo's electric town is the world capital of anime, manga, games and electronics, a district where entire buildings are dedicated to model kits, retro cartridges or trading cards, and where the arcades still ring like it is 1999. It is also the neighbourhood attached to one of the most asked questions we get: can you actually drive Mario Kart through Tokyo? Short answer, sort of, and there is a

Japan does theme parks with the same care it applies to everything else, which is to say: better than almost anywhere. For families planning a trip from New Zealand, the question is rarely whether to include a park day, it is which parks, how many days, and where they fit in the route. Here is the field, from the giants to the specialists. Universal Studios Japan, Osaka The biggest single-park day in the country, home of Super Nintendo World and the Wizarding World, and usual

Japan is one of the world's great eating countries, and some of its best eating never involves a table. Grilled skewers passed over a market counter, octopus balls flipped at speed in Osaka, a warm taiyaki eaten in the cold outside a shrine: street food is where Japan's food culture is at its most fun, and its cheapest. For Kiwi travellers, it is also the easiest way to eat well from day one, no reservations and no menu anxiety required. Street food in Japan works a little di

Ask a Kiwi kid what they want to do in Japan and Universal Studios Japan is usually in the first three answers, somewhere between Pokémon shopping and eating their body weight in convenience store snacks. USJ sits in Osaka, it is one of the most visited theme parks in the world, and for families it is often the single most anticipated day of the whole trip. It is also the day most likely to go wrong if it is not planned properly. This guide covers the decisions that actually

Shopping is a genuine event on a Japan trip: the drugstore haul, the Don Quijote trolley of chaos, the camera or the skis that cost meaningfully less than at home once the tax comes off. For years the deal was beautifully simple, show your passport and the 10 percent consumption tax vanished at the register. That deal is changing, and the date matters: from 1 November 2026, Japan switches to a refund system. If your trip is this ski season or later, you will be shopping under