First edition · October 2026 · Instant PDF
Your first trip to Tokyo starts before you land.
The practical pre-trip guide for first-time independent travelers: getting in from the airport, trains and fare gates, IC cards and credit cards, rail passes, what has to be booked in advance, and what to do when something goes wrong at the gate.
Instant PDF · 64 pages · read it on your phone
Why Tokyo confuses you
The train crosses. Your ticket doesn't.
Seven of Tokyo's nine subway lines run onto another company's track. Nothing announces it.
The problem
Tokyo isn't difficult. It's unfamiliar.
You can spend a week jumping between Reddit threads, YouTube videos and blog posts written four years ago, and still land with the same unanswered questions. Most of them are not about what to see. They are about how the place actually works.
And the ones that cost you are the ones you can only fix before you fly.
Questions before you fly
Nine things you are going to look up anyway.
Every one of these is answered in the guide, with the page it came from and the date we read it.
See the guide
Real pages. Not a sales mockup.
Scroll. These are pages from the actual PDF.
The deadline list
Some things cannot be bought in Japan, applied for in Japan, or fixed in Japan. Two of them have a deadline measured in months. This is the page that tells you which, and by when.
Money, cards and gates
Three ordered steps, not a list of options: what your phone may already have decided for you, what your own credit card can do, and when a pass beats paying as you go.
The 60-minute rule
One rule that catches visitors out at the exact moment they think they have understood the system. It is on the operator's own page, and almost nobody reads that page.
When the gate won't let you out
Part B is not meant to be read at home. It is written to be opened standing at a gate, in the order the problem happens to you, one page per situation.
Every claim, with its source
Eighty-five rows. What the guide claims, who publishes it, and the day we read their page. You can check any of them yourself before you fly.
What to do before your flight
Decisions that get harder after take-off.
The first chapter of the guide is a dated list. These are the kinds of things on it.
- Work out which airport railway reaches your half of the cityThe fastest train from Narita does not go where most visitors assume.
- Check whether your phone can carry a transit card at allIt depends on where the phone was bought, not on the model.
- Decide on a rail pass before you arrive, not at the stationWhat the pass covers is a route, not a map — and it refuses specific trains on that route.
- Measure your suitcase, add the three sides togetherPast one number, a free reservation becomes compulsory — and skipping it is not free.
- Handle the things with a deadline in months, not daysA handful of them exist. Most first-time visitors meet them at the airport.
- Know which station name means four different stationsAsakusa is four. Shinjuku is five companies, plus one hidden in the exit guide.
What this saves you from
Not inspiration. Avoided mistakes.
The walk back
One failure in Tokyo sends you back on foot to a machine you have already passed. It happens at the newest gates, to people paying with the newest cards.
The first day
Arriving and spending the first morning working out basics is the most expensive thing an eight-day trip can do with its time.
The thing you can't fix there
A short list of items cannot be bought, applied for or corrected once you are in Japan. Reading about them on arrival is reading about them too late.
What's inside
Organized by the problem, not by the alphabet.
Three parts. Part A is read once, in order, at home. Part B is not read in order at all — it is opened at the moment something goes wrong. Part C is the evidence.
Six chapters, read once, at home
- Why Tokyo confuses you — the mechanism behind it
- The deadline list
- Choosing where to sleep
- Money, cards and gates, in three ordered steps
- The mistakes that cost the most
- Rail passes, and what they are not
Six chapters, opened standing up
- I've just landed — Narita and Haneda, page by page
- Something has gone wrong at the gate
- Stations that mislead you — Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Asakusa, Ueno, Akihabara, Shibuya
- Before you go in
- Buying things
- Leaving Tokyo
The source table
- Eighty-five rows
- What the guide claims
- Who publishes it
- The date we read their page
A one-page pre-flight check
- The last page of the guide
- Five things to confirm at source before you fly
- Because operating rules change, and we would rather say so
Before / after
Same trip. Different first morning.
Researching
- Twenty tabs, four of them contradicting each other
- A blog post from 2021 describing a card that changed in 2024
- A video that was filmed at the other airport
- A rail pass bought because a stranger said it was worth it
- Finding out at the gate
Prepared
- One document, read once before the flight
- Every claim dated and attributed to the operator
- The airport you are actually flying into
- A pass decision made from what the pass refuses
- Knowing before the gate
Who it's for
This is a narrow guide. On purpose.
Written for
- →First-time visitors to Tokyo
- →People organizing the trip themselves, not with a group
- →Travelers whose cards and phones behave differently in Japan
- →Anyone who would rather read one sourced document than forty blog posts
Not for
- ×Restaurant, bar or shopping recommendations — there are none in here
- ×Itineraries, day plans or lists of attractions
- ×Japan beyond Tokyo and the day trips out of it
- ×Anyone who has already traveled Japan independently and knows the gates
Product preview
Look before you buy.
Tap any page to read it at full size.
How it was made
Every claim carries its source and the day we read it.
Not a single figure in this guide comes from another guide, a summary, or a search result. Each one was taken from the page published by the organization responsible for it — the railway, the airport, the ministry — and the date of that reading is printed next to it.
Sourced claims
Listed in a table at the back, each with the body that publishes it and the date.
First edition
These are operating rules and they change. The last page tells you which five things to re-check at source before you fly.
Invented reviews
There are no testimonials on this page because the guide has just been published. When there are real ones, they will appear here with names.
Questions
Before you buy.
What exactly do I get?
A 64-page PDF, downloadable immediately after purchase, readable on a phone, tablet or laptop, and printable. There is no app, no login and no subscription.
Is this an itinerary or a list of things to see?
No, and that is deliberate. There are no restaurants, no attractions and no day plans in it. It covers how Tokyo works: transport, fare gates, cards, passes, reservations, luggage, and what to do when something goes wrong.
Does it cover the rest of Japan?
It covers Tokyo and leaving Tokyo — the bullet train rules, luggage and the passes that reach out of the city. It is not a guide to Japan.
I've been to Japan before. Is it for me?
Probably not. It is written for a first trip. If you already know why your ticket stops at a boundary your train does not, you know most of Part A.
Things change. How current is it?
First edition, October 2026. Every claim is dated, so you can see exactly how old each one is rather than trusting the guide as a whole. The last page lists the five things worth confirming at source before you fly.
What if it isn't what I expected?
Write to us within 14 days and you get your money back. The refund policy is linked at the bottom of this page.
Who is behind it?
The Japan Checklist, an independent publisher. The guide is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any railway, airport or government body named in it.
One file. Read it once.
Spend less time researching. Arrive knowing what to do.
64 pages · 14-day refund