Tokyo Open-Top Hop-On Hop-Off Bus: Three Routes, One Ticket

Tokyo is a difficult city to get an overview of. The subway is superb and completely hides the surface, so you can spend a week here moving between stations without ever seeing how the districts join up. An open-top bus fixes that in an afternoon.

One ticket covers all three routes and unlimited hopping on and off. The Skytree course runs east through Kodemmacho, Ryogoku's sumo district and the Edo-Tokyo Museum to Skytree itself, then Asakusa, Ueno and Akihabara. The Tokyo Tower course goes south past Zojo-ji, across to Odaiba's Teleport Station and back through Tsukiji and Ginza. The Shinjuku and Shibuya course covers Shinjuku Gyoen, the Nishi-Shinjuku towers, Shibuya and Meiji Jingu. All three start and finish at the Marunouchi Mitsubishi Building, a few minutes from Tokyo Station.

The on-board audio guide runs in Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, French, German and Spanish, though it is worth knowing that a small number of buses do not carry the vehicle-mounted system. A free shuttle service is also included with the ticket.

The practical case for this is strongest on a first day, before you have a mental map of the city, or on a day when you have luggage or tired legs and want to cover ground without the stairs the subway demands. The upper deck is open, so it is a much better experience in spring and autumn than in the humidity of August or a January wind.

The same-day ticket is enough if you plan to ride one or two routes. The two-day ticket costs about half again and makes sense if you intend to actually hop off and explore rather than ride the loops.