33 of the best free things to do in Tokyo

Located inside the Kitte shopping mall across from Tokyo Station, Intermediatheque (jointly run by Japan Post and the University Museum of the University of Tokyo) is a hidden museum dedicated to the intersection of culture, history and science. It holds a fascinating collection of scientific specimens and cultural artifacts, from steampunk oddities to an imposing menagerie from the natural world. You’ll stumble upon taxidermy birds and forest animals as well as skeletons in all sizes, from a frog to a minke whale. Perhaps the most compelling exhibit, though, is the story of humans’ evolutionary descent from our ape ancestors, told through progressively taller skeletons. Lovers of biology, history and design will enjoy wandering through the dimly lit halls that remind you of Hogwarts’ library.

Did you know some of Japan's most famous manga artists lived together in an apartment building in Toshima? While the original building was knocked down, a replica has been built in Minami-Nagasaki, west of Ikebukuro, and turned into the Tokiwaso Manga Museum. The reconstructed apartment even copied the living situations of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, as well as Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko, aka Fujiko Fujio aka the founders of Doraemon.

Now, budding artists can explore the highly successful mangakas' days of yore in this museum modeled after the trio's old apartment. The details are incredibly specific: you can see replicas of their tatami mat bedrooms filled with sketches, the communal kitchen and even see the Showa-era electronics and appliances.

Admission is free, but you'll have to make an online reservation in advance. 

Located a safe distance from Yanaka’s main shopping street is the singular Scai the Bathhouse. It’s easy to walk past the sento (bathing facility) without a second thought as the traditional architecture blends in with the quiet neighbourhood. But venture in, past the shoe lockers (a remnant from the building’s previous life) and you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Instead of dried-out bathtubs, the hollowed-out space now hosts rotating contemporary art exhibitions featuring a repertoire of local and international artists. Korean-born painter and sculptor Lee Ufan, Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo and American artist Jenny Holzer have all presented their works here in the past.

Wander in and out of classrooms filled with art at 3331 Arts Chiyoda. The former junior high school may still look like an educational institution from the outside, but its interiors have been transformed to serve a very different purpose. Each classroom is dedicated to a gallery or creative space, whose occupants are free to experiment with the interior any way they choose. As such, every room feels like a world of its own: some simply display paintings gallery-style while others fill the space with installations. Artists can often be found in their classroom galleries and are happy to explain their art. The first floor houses a bigger gallery where large-scale exhibitions take place on a rotating basis, in addition to a café, gift shop, and small playroom for kids.

Established galleries Taka Ishii, Tomio Koyama and ShugoArts make up the three-storey Complex 665, along with the showroom of Broadbean, a modern furniture and design group, on the first floor. Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Roppongi, the warehouse-like building stands out from its surroundings thanks to a distinctive white-spiral motif on its exterior. The galleries are spacious and so you'll find a wider variety of works here – not just in scope and topic but size as well – compared to other space-limited galleries in the neighbourhood. They have been known to exhibit floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall paintings as well as realistic life-size human sculptures. 

Happening twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight, Design Festa is a multidisciplinary celebration of everything from painting to performance art, with up to 12,000 artists and creatives participating in each event. This gallery is the festival’s permanent outpost, open throughout the year with 71 exhibition rooms and spaces to explore. With a unique concept of allowing artists to display and sell their works without any commission fee, the exhibitions here are a constantly changing roster. There’s also a bar and café on site, featuring more art on the walls.

This museum is devoted to Japanese advertising, from fascinating 17th-century woodblock prints to modern product-placement techniques. Although English explanations are limited, the images largely speak for themselves. Inspired technology allows touch-screen browsing of historic ads and on-demand viewing of award-winning commercials from the past three decades. The museum also contains a library of over 100,000 digitised images.

Admission is free, but you'll have to make an online reservation in advance. 

Architecture aficionados rejoice: Toto Gallery Ma, while bearing the name of its associated company – which is well known for its high-tech toilets – is dedicated to the art and design of buildings and physical structures, and not the household white porcelain thrones. Located in the Toto Building, the gallery features changing exhibitions with models, diagrams and sketches that focus on a particular architect’s or firm’s prototypes and projects. The exhibitions spill out to the outdoor space, where you climb stairs to get a bird’s-eye view of the showpiece.

The gallery reopens on October 21 for its new exhibition. Note that you'll have to make an online reservation in advance.

With its fascinating mix of exhibits across three departments – commodities, criminal materials and archeology – this basement attraction in the huge Meiji University building is one of Tokyo’s best secret museums. The first section is dedicated to traditional Japanese handicrafts such as pottery, indigo-dyeing, bamboo work, washi paper and lacquerware. The next section, which is also the highlight, is where it gets really interesting. It reveals the torture procedures used in the second half of the 18th century to punish criminals, such as haritsuke (crucifixion), gokumon (displaying the head publicly after a decapitation) and ishidaki gougu (putting large rocks on the knees of a sitting person). As a contrast, there are also some historical Western torture instruments including the iron maiden and the guillotine. There are English explanations, too, should you want to read up on all the details.

Japan Airlines’ hangar tour takes an hour and 40 minutes and is split into three exciting sections. First, at the Sky Museum you will get an introduction to the airline’s history from its beginnings in 1951, and a sense of how commercial air travel has evolved in the decades since, with a fleet of miniature aeroplanes and the changing fashions in flight-attendant uniforms over the past few decades. You can also take a seat in a faithfully recreated cockpit while listening to announcements in different languages.

The second part of the tour gets a bit more technical as you get into the nuts and bolts of how air travel works and are given an overview of Haneda Airport. The last part is what you’ve been waiting for: you’ll be guided into the hangar to see aeroplanes up close, and watch the aeronautical engineers and mechanics at work.

Admission is free, but you'll have to make an online reservation in advance. 

Learn about the history of massive men crashing into each other at Ryogoku's Kokugikan Sumo Museum, a veritable treasure trove of sumo-related memorabilia and woodblock prints. Special exhibitions are held six times a year.

Following the example of the Champs-Elysées Maison in Paris, Louis Vuitton transformed the seventh floor of its Jun Aoki-designed Omotesando store into an art gallery in 2011. Since opening, Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo has held solo exhibitions by Alyson Shotz and Ernesto Neto, as well as group shows featuring work by artists from Finland, India and Japan.

Occupying the site of the former Edo Castle, which was also the residence of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokyo’s Imperial Palace has been home to a succession of emperors since 1868. While the East Garden is open to the public – and free – throughout the year, visitors wanting to take a tour of the rest of the precincts must reserve in advance (see the English reservation site for details).

This will bring you to historic premises such as the former Privy Council building and the Imperial Household Agency Building (both constructed in the early 20th century boasting Western architectural designs), the beautiful Fujimi-yagura Keep and, of course, the Imperial Palace itself. The steel-framed reinforced-concrete structure was completed in 1968, using materials mainly produced in Japan. Tours are available in English and note that you can’t step inside the buildings.

Also known as 'Sake Plaza', the Japanese Sake Information Centre makes available an abundance of information about Japanese alcohol. As well as being able to search for particular brands by computer, there is also a library with around 6,000 books on the topic of sake. You're welcome to give all that a miss, of course, and move swiftly on to the tasting area. Need we say more?

Known for its blue and gold cans of Premium Malt’s, Suntory will take you on a tour of its brewery, walking you through the various stages of beer-making, from nurturing the hops to the customary sampling of the wares. The 70-minute tour starts with an introductory video before diving into the production process, and, somewhere along the line, you’ll get the chance to walk into a beer vat. While you can’t wander into the production line itself, explanatory footage with English subtitles give you the lowdown on what’s going on as you look on from the observation gallery. At the end, you’ll be treated to three draft beers – just what you need to relax after watching other people hard at work.

Admission is free, but you'll have to make an online reservation in advance. 

Roughly 30 minutes from Shibuya, this tranquil zoo in Kawasaki combines animal-watching with a spot of cultural activity as it also houses two shrines and a temple. Established in 1972, it’s home to more than 50 types of animals including mountain zebras, llamas and penguins. The grounds are especially scenic in spring, when 400 cherry trees are in bloom, making it the perfect spot for a picnic. Its uphill location also offers a splendid view of Kawasaki city.

This fully fledged zoo, located within Nogeyama Park on a hill overlooking Yokohama’s Minatomirai area, was established in 1951, and is home to 93 species. There are the big game animals such as lions, tigers and giraffes to tick off your safari checklist, as well as pettable creatures the little ones can get their hands on, including squeaking guinea pigs and tiny mice at the Nakayoshi Hiroba (numbered tickets are required; check website for time slots). Don’t miss the kagu; this greyish-blue bird with red eyes is originally from New Caledonia and, in Japan, can only be seen at Nogeyama Zoo. The relaxing grounds are also equipped with a café and gift shop.

Himonya Dobutsu Hiroba is a great little place for families with young 'uns. Aimed at children below junior high school age, the kids get the chance to bother guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs and even ponies. The latter come with a nominal price tag (¥200 per ride), but the others are subject to a real live free-for-all. Renting a rowing boat on the nearby lake is so cheap it's almost free, too, costing a mere ¥200 per 30 minutes for a boat.

Throughout the Edo period (1603-1868), traditional Japanese wooden boats known as wasen were used to transport goods and passengers along Tokyo’s many rivers and canals. In order to preserve the wasen and its unique rowing techniques, members of the Wasen Tomo no Kai association provide free rides on these boats once or twice a week. No booking is required: just make your way to the Yokojukken-gawa Shinsui Park in Koto to enjoy a ride (roughly 20 minutes) on the canal. If you’re lucky, the boat operator might even wear a shirushi-banten (traditional indigo-blue jacket) complete with a suge-gasa conical hat, perfect for your Instagram shot. The staff will also be delighted to teach you how to use the ro, a wooden propulsion tool more effective than the regular oar.

The entrance to this wooded hilltop park is right next to Oji Station, from where you can take the Asuka Park Rail, a free train that takes you all the way to the summit. Despite the one-way trip being only a two-minute adventure, the beauty of the spring flowers below makes it worth your while.

10am-4pm, closed on the 1st Thu in July and from 10am-noon on the 1st Thu of all other months due to maintenance.

Operated by the Tokyo Fire Department, this free museum is where you can learn about firefighting and disaster prevention through the centuries in Japan, presented through a series of woodblock prints, dioramas and historical documents. There’s also a collection of stunning vintage fire trucks in the basement. But it’s not all just show and tell. Kids can change into minisized firefighter uniforms on the third floor and explore the inside of a fire truck equipped with working sirens. Don’t miss the huge helicopter on the fifth-floor outdoor terrace as well – you can climb into the cockpit and get a sense of the scale of the Fire Department’s operations. The tenth floor, meanwhile, offers a panoramic view of the Shinjuku skyline, Tokyo Skytree and Mt Fuji on a clear day.

This small zoo in Edogawa ward’s Gyosen Park may not have the big beasts but kids will love its variety of smaller animals such as rabbits, guinea pigs, sheep and goats, especially since they can interact with these friendly creatures at the petting area (sessions run 10am-11.45am, 1.15pm-3pm; summer 10am-11.45pm, 2.30pm-3.45pm).

The zoo is also home to adorable Humboldt penguins, Bennett’s wallabies and spider monkeys plus the two crowd-favourites, red pandas and giant anteaters. The zoo’s cosy atmosphere makes for a leisurely stroll, and there are seats scattered about for you to enjoy a lunchtime bento box. Don’t miss the adjacent traditional Japanese Heisei Garden, which offers calming scenery far removed from Tokyo’s hustle and bustle.

Note that the petting area is temporarily closed due to the coronavirus.

The pond at this quiet Meguro park was once used to irrigate farmland in the area, but now functions as one of the few free freshwater fishing spots in Tokyo. You're not allowed to take any fish home, so picking up dinner supplies will have to be done elsewhere.

Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall is completely decked out in European oak, which is well known for its excellent acoustic qualities. Come enjoy the majestic sounds of the 3,826-pipe organ during the venue’s free lunchtime concert. There’s no reservation necessary: just drop in before the show starts, grab a seat either on the ground or second floor and let your cares drift away with the music. Check the website for the programme.

The concert is free, but you'll have to make a reservation in advance by calling the ticket centre (03 5353 9999).

The imposing Austrian-made organ at the world-class concert venue Suntory Hall has been described as a ‘jewel box of sound’ by Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan. The acoustics are, of course, superb, and you can experience them for yourself at the free Organ Promenade Concert that’s been a fixture since 1991. Once a month, on a Thursday lunchtime for half an hour, you can be immersed in the tones of one of the world’s biggest organs, which features a total of 5,898 pipes. Check the website for the programme.

The concert is free, but you'll have to make a reservation in advance by calling the ticket centre (0570 55 0017).

The distinctive Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple is well worth a visit for its unique stone architecture alone, inspired by traditional Indian temple designs. The interior is just as stunning but features classic Shin Buddhist temple aesthetics instead, complete with stained glass, chandeliers and beautiful furniture. The best way to experience the serene atmosphere, though, is during the free monthly pipe-organ concert, which takes place on a Friday lunchtime and usually includes a mix of classical tunes and Buddhist hymns.

Few would argue that Tokyo can charge a pretty penny when it comes to concert tickets, but gratis gigs are available if you dig about. You'll find plenty going on at this Brit-themed pub in Ebisu, where local bands plug in and wig out most nights of the week. The full schedule is available on their website.

Admire the wonders of the Tokyo cityscape – from Mt Fuji to Tokyo Bay – without spending anything

Here are our favourite free museums in Tokyo for art, history and even kids

Relax in one of these secret parks and gardens, found way above ground on the city's shopping mall rooftops