Yokohama

Kanto, Japan · City

Half the dishes in a modern Japanese cafe were invented here: spaghetti napolitan, doria and iekei ramen all came out of places still open today. That is what a port opened to foreigners leaves behind: a Chinatown that is not a restaurant strip but a neighbourhood with its own schools and working temples, seven Western houses on the Yamate bluff that cost nothing to visit, and a cruise terminal without a single step whose timber deck is a public park.

The essentials

Getting there

Train — 30 minutes from Tokyo by train, no car needed

What it is genuinely strong in

🛌 Pure relaxation🔭 Viewpoints & panoramas🤖 Technology / Futurism

Frequently asked questions about Yokohama

What to do in Yokohama: 112 activities

• Free walk around Yamate's Western houses 3 h must-see

  Seven preserved houses of the foreign residents, all free to enter: Berrick Hall and House 234, the Diplomat's House and House 111 by the lookout, the British House, the Ehrismann Residence and Bluff No. 18. All open 9:30 to 17:00, and you cannot do the whole circuit on any given day because each closes on a different day of the month, usually the second or fourth Wednesday: check the calendar first. The walk takes a couple of hours between Motomachi-Chukagai and Ishikawacho.

• Sankeien's inner garden: Rinshunkaku and Kakushokaku 2 h must-see

  The inner half of Sankeien is the part silk merchant Hara Sankei kept for himself: Rinshunkaku, a Tokugawa villa built in 1649 on the Kino River in Wakayama and moved here piece by piece between 1906 and 1917, and Kakushokaku, where he hosted painters such as Yokoyama Taikan. Rinshunkaku is an Important Cultural Property and is normally not open inside; you walk around it, along the corridor and over the bridge. Garden admission is 900 yen for adults and 200 for schoolchildren, 9:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, and the only annual closure is 26-31 December.

• Stroll Along Minato Mirai Bay 1.5 h must-see

  A futuristic waterfront skyline, including an iconic Ferris wheel.

• Yokohama Chinatown 2 h must-see

  The largest Chinatown in Asia, with hundreds of restaurants and food stalls. An important nuance: it is not a dining zone but a neighbourhood with a resident community, its own Chinese schools and temples still in use. It began with the opening of the port in 1859, with mainly Cantonese roots, and it has survived the 1923 earthquake, the bombing of 1945 and episodes of anti-Chinese hostility.

• Osanbashi terminal and its timber deck 1 h

  Foreign Office Architects' cruise terminal is one of the key works of 2000s world architecture: a building with no stairs, all ramps and folded timber. The roof is a free public park and the best view of the bay at sunset.

• The Hotel New Grand trio: napolitan, doria and pudding a la mode 1.5 h

  Three dishes now found in every Japanese cafe were invented in this 1927 hotel's coffee shop: napolitan spaghetti, doria and pudding a la mode. Eating them where they were invented is the best food-history lesson Yokohama offers.

• Aboard the liner Hikawa Maru 1.5 h

  Launched in 1930 for the Yokohama-Seattle run and now an Important Cultural Property, it is the only surviving prewar Japanese ocean liner: you walk the art deco first-class cabins, the dining saloon, the bridge and the engine room. Admission 300 yen for adults and 100 for schoolchildren, cash only, 10:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:30, closed Mondays. The NYK Maritime Museum that used to face it has been closed since April 2023 and will not reopen until spring 2027.

• Cherry blossoms lit up at night in Sankeien 2 h only 27 Mar - 5 Apr

  For ten days in late March the garden stays open until 21:00 (last entry 20:30) and lights its two hundred and fifty cherry trees of nine varieties along with the 1457 pagoda. The catch that ruins plans: the inner garden and the hill paths still close at 17:00, so after dark you only get the outer garden and the pond. No surcharge beyond normal admission.

• Chinatown's ten gates and the four guardians 1.5 h

  Chinatown has ten gates and four of them mark the cardinal points with the feng shui guardian animals: Choyomon to the east with the azure dragon, Suzakumon to the south with the vermilion bird, Enpeimon to the west with the white tiger and Genbumon to the north with the black tortoise, each painted in its colour. The most photographed, the 13.5-metre Zenrinmon, went up in 1955 as a symbol of postwar recovery. Doing all ten is a good hour's walk, best early before the streets fill.

• Christmas Around the World in the Yamate houses 3 h only 1-25 Dec

  From 1 to 25 December each of the seven Yamate houses is decorated after the Christmas of a different country by local florists and designers, with occasional concerts. Entry to all of them is free; on Fridays and Saturdays they stay open until 18:00, and the Italian Garden sets out a candle garden at dusk on one evening around the 20th. It is also the time of year with the longest queue at Berrick Hall.

• Climbing to Sankeien's three-storey pagoda 1 h

  The pagoda crowning Sankeien's hill dates from 1457 and came from Tomyo-ji in Kyoto: it is the oldest structure in the garden and the silhouette in every photo taken from the pond. The path climbs about ten minutes through pines and from the top you look out over Honmoku Bay and the port cranes. You cannot go inside the pagoda, only walk around it.

• Free Tour of the Kiyoken Shumai Factory 2 h booking

  Ninety free minutes watching the best-selling station bento in Japan being made, with a tasting of shumai straight off the line. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday only; bookings open three months ahead at midnight and go fast.

• Hot Spring Bath and Rooftop at Manyo Club, Minato Mirai 3 h

  Thermal water trucked in daily by tanker from Yugawara and Atami, in a nine-storey building beside the bay. Admission includes yukata and towels, and the rooftop foot bath looks straight at the Ferris wheel. This is not an onsen with its own spring: for that you go to Hakone.

• King, Queen and Jack: Kannai's three towers 2 h

  Foreign sailors named the port's three towers after playing cards: Jack is the Port Opening Memorial Hall (1917, brick and stained glass), Queen is the Customs House (1934, green dome) and King is the Kanagawa Prefectural Government building (1928). All three can be visited free, and King opens its rooftop and a history room on weekdays. Local lore says there are three spots in the city from which all three are visible at once, and there are stamps to prove you found them.

• Kishamichi, the promenade on the harbour railway 1 h

  Half a kilometre of walkway between Sakuragicho and the red brick warehouses, laid out in 1997 on the 1911 harbour railway alignment, with the original rails still set into the ground. You cross three historic truss bridges, two of them built by the American Bridge Company in 1907, and at the far end sits the preserved platform of the old Yokohama-ko station. At dusk it is the best place to watch the Ferris wheel light up.

• Mitama Matsuri and bon odori at Soji-ji 3 h only 17-19 Jul

  From 17 to 19 July the great Soto Zen monastery in Tsurumi holds a three-evening bon odori on its forecourt, 17:30 to 20:30, with the monks themselves dancing in the circle and thousands of lanterns offered by the Kokaramon gate. It began in memory of the victims of the 1945 Yokohama air raid and the 1963 Tsurumi rail disaster, and it is still a neighbourhood affair: free, with food stalls and tens of thousands of locals. Five minutes from Tsurumi station.

• Night cruise through the Keihin factories 2 h booking

  Ninety minutes among the refineries and chemical plants of the Keihin industrial belt, with pipework and flare stacks lit up a few metres from the hull and a guide on board. It leaves from the Hammerhead pier, costs 4,500 yen for adults and 3,000 for children, runs Tuesday to Sunday with departures around 19:00, and must be booked; it is cancelled if fewer than fifteen passengers sign up. Nothing is sold on board, so bring your own drinks, and the deck is bitterly cold in winter.

• Noge Daidogei, the street performers' festival 3 h only one weekend in mid-April

  On a weekend in mid-April the drinking district of Noge turns into a stage: jugglers, mime artists, acrobats and music at twenty-odd spots across Noge, Sakuragicho and Miyakobashi street. It is free, performers pass the hat, and the 2026 edition was the 51st, on 18 and 19 April. Families come in numbers and the area becomes impossible by mid-afternoon.

• Rose garden at Harbour View Park 1.5 h

  High on the Yamate bluff, the English rose garden holds around eight hundred plants of a hundred and fifty varieties mixed with perennials, and behind it opens the terrace over the Bay Bridge. The park is free and never closes, so it works equally at seven in the morning or at night with the bridge lit; peak bloom is mid-May and mid-October.

• Street eating in Chinatown without falling for the trap 1.5 h

  The butaman from long-established Edosei on the main street is the bite that defines the district: it opens at 10:00 and there is a queue at weekend lunchtime. Around it you find sesame dango, fried quail eggs and shark fin soup in a cup. The uncomfortable truth: the all-you-can-eat signs offering a hundred and fifty dishes for two thousand yen are almost all industrial frozen food; you eat far better ordering three or four dishes à la carte in a small restaurant.

• Trail of Dishes Invented in Yokohama 3 h

  Yokohama is probably the city where the most modern Japanese dishes were invented: gyunabe, iekei ramen, sanma-men, napolitan, doria. A walking route through the original restaurants explains the city better than any museum.

• Yokohama DeNA BayStars Game 3.5 h booking

  The stadium sits literally inside Yokohama Park, ten minutes on foot from Chinatown, and the BayStars crowd is among the loudest and most choreographed in Japan. Tickets for good dates sell out weeks ahead.

• Yokohama Museum of Art after Its Renovation 2 h

  Reopened in March 2024 after three years closed, with the Grand Gallery turned into free open space and a strong collection in photography and surrealism. It closes on Thursdays, a detail that catches almost everyone out.

• Yoshimuraya, the mother house of iekei ramen 1.5 h

  Iekei was born here in 1974: pork-and-soy broth, thick noodles and sheets of nori, a style now copied by thousands of shops. It sits a few minutes from Yokohama Station's west exit. You buy a ticket from the machine and choose noodle firmness, fat level and sauce strength; a basic bowl runs around a thousand yen. An hour's queue is normal and the shop closes one day a week and sometimes without notice, so do not build a day around it.

• A hundred thousand tulips in Yokohama Park 1.5 h only 25 Mar - 20 Apr

  The park around the baseball stadium fills with more than a hundred thousand tulips from late March to mid-April, and in the first days of April the flower fair adds stalls and display beds in Yamashita Park and along Nihon-odori as well. It is all free and outdoors, and it is the most central flower outing in the city: two minutes from Kannai and from Chinatown.

• A hundred-yen concert on the Lucy organ 1 h

  Minato Mirai Hall's pipe organ is called Lucy, and several times a year the hall opens it to everyone with its One Dollar Concerts: half an hour at 12:20, a hundred yen or a one-dollar bill in cash at the box office on the day, no booking and unreserved seating. The 2026-27 season has five dates, always on Wednesdays. For a full programme there are the one-hour organ concerts at around a thousand yen.

• Bashamichi: gas lamps and Japan's first ice cream 1 h

  The street widened in 1867 so foreigners' carriages could pass was the first in Japan with pavements, street trees and gas lamps, and in 1869 Japan's first ice cream, aisukurin, was sold here, remembered today by a monument and by shops that recreate it with a milk-and-yolk flavour. It is a twenty-minute walk between Kannai and Bashamichi, with period stone benches and replica lamps still standing.

• Black hot spring water at Nakajima-kan sento 1.5 h

  A neighbourhood bathhouse in Gumyoji with black sodium bicarbonate hot spring water, the kind you can only see a few centimetres into and which leaves the skin slippery: there is a kuroyu outdoor bath and, unusually, a cold plunge filled with undiluted spring water. It costs 550 yen, sauna 200 more, open 12:00 to 23:00 and closed Fridays. Shampoo and soap are not provided, so bring them or buy at reception, and ask about tattoo rules on arrival.

• Breakfast at the Central Wholesale Market 1.5 h

  The annex building opens to the public from nine to two on auction days, with a dozen sushi, ramen and sashimi canteens serving market workers. Come by public transport, and filming video requires city permission.

• Broadcast Library: fifty years of Japanese television 2 h

  Japan's public broadcasting archive is in Yokohama and it is free: more than forty thousand programmes, newsreels and commercials that you request at the desk and watch in individual booths, from 1960s dramas to legendary ad campaigns. Open 10:00 to 17:00, with requests taken until half an hour before closing, and closed on Mondays. It sits on Nihon-odori with direct access from the station.

• Bungo Stray Dogs Pilgrimage around Yokohama 3 h

  The series is explicitly set in Yokohama and the city runs recurring official stamp rallies through Cosmo World, the Air Cabin, the Marine Tower and Kannai. Outside campaign periods the location route still works on your own.

• Chinatown as a community: the two Chinese schools 1 h

  Behind the restaurants there is a community with its own school since 1898, pushed by Sun Yat-sen during his exile in Yokohama and originally taught in Cantonese. In 1952 the Cold War split it in two: the Beijing-aligned school, today the Yokohama Yamate Chinese School, and the Taipei-aligned Yokohama Overseas Chinese School; both are still running a few blocks apart. These are working schools: look from the street, do not go in and do not photograph the children.

• Cup Noodles Museum 1.5 h

  An interactive museum where you can design your own instant ramen; general admission doesn't require a reservation, but the cup-design workshop hands out a limited number of same-day numbered tickets.

• Gyunabe at Ota Nawanoren, open since 1868 2 h booking

  It opened in 1868, the year Japan started eating beef openly, and still serves the original gyunabe: cubes of beef simmered with miso in an iron pot at low tables, not the thin slices of modern sukiyaki. It is near Hinodecho, it is not cheap and booking is advisable; it is the most literal way to eat the history of the port.

• Hara Model Railway Museum 2 h booking

  The collection Nobutaro Hara built over sixty years, with hand-made gauge 1 locomotives and a huge layout that runs on real metal rail, so the trains actually sound like trains. It costs 1,500 yen for adults, 1,000 for students and 750 for children from four; closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, open 10:00 to 17:00. Tickets must be bought in advance online or at a convenience store terminal, not at the door. It is five minutes from Yokohama Station.

• Ito Hirobumi's villa at Nojima 1.5 h Yokohama (Kanazawa-ku) · 45 min

  The seaside retreat prime minister Ito Hirobumi built in 1898 facing the Kanazawa shore, thatched and with rooms opening onto the garden; it was rebuilt in 2009 using traditional techniques and reopened on 1 April 2026 after restoration. Admission is free, it opens 9:30 to 16:30 and closes on the first and third Monday of the month. It stands in Nojima Park, beside Nojima-koen station on the Seaside Line, about three quarters of an hour from the centre.

• Iwasaki Museum, on the site of the Gaiety Theatre 1 h

  This was the Gaiety, Japan's first Western-style theatre, where in the 1880s foreign residents staged Hamlet long before modern Japanese theatre existed. The 1923 earthquake destroyed it, and in 1980 this costume museum was built on the spot, with a small concert hall that still programmes performances. Open 9:40 to 18:00, last entry 17:30, closed Mondays.

• Japanese Overseas Migration Museum 1.5 h

  Free museum at JICA Yokohama about the million Japanese who emigrated to Brazil, Peru, Hawaii and Manchuria from this very port, and about their descendants who came back to Japan to work. Closed Mondays, and almost nobody knows it despite sitting in the middle of Minato Mirai.

• Kanagawa Prefectural Museum in the old Specie Bank 1.5 h

  The building dates from 1904, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka for the Yokohama Specie Bank, which financed the silk export trade; it is both an Important Cultural Property and a National Historic Site. The 1923 earthquake burned out the interiors and the dome, which was not rebuilt until 1967. Inside, Kanagawa's history runs from the palaeolithic to the postwar years; the permanent exhibition costs around 300 yen and it closes on Mondays.

• Kanazawa Matsuri fireworks from the beach 3 h Yokohama (Kanazawa-ku) · 40 min only one Saturday in late August

  Around 3,500 fireworks over the bay on a Saturday in late August, watched from the sand of Umi-no-Koen, the city's only beach: it is Yokohama's most informal fireworks night and the only one you can watch barefoot. It is free, it is cancelled in bad weather, and Seaside Line trains leave packed afterwards. The 2026 edition was the 52nd, on 22 August.

• Kanbaikai: plum blossom at Sankeien 2 h only 7 Feb - 3 Mar

  Around five hundred plum trees bloom in waves from early February to the first days of March, among them the sprawling garyobai and the green-calyx ryokugakubai donated by Shanghai in 1977. During Kanbaikai there is free barley tea on weekends from 10:00 to 15:30 and a plum bonsai show in mid-February; only the regular garden admission applies.

• Kanteibyo and Masobyo Temples in Chinatown 1 h

  Kanteibyo, dedicated to Guan Yu, has stood since 1871 and remains the real religious heart of Yokohama's Chinese community; Masobyo, from 2006, honours the goddess of the sea. These are working temples: do not photograph the interiors or anyone praying.

• Kirin Brewery Tour 2 h booking Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama · 25 min

  Ninety-minute tour of the Namamugi plant in Tsurumi, ending with a tasting of freshly poured Ichiban Shibori. Over-20s only and online booking required; the price rose to 1,000 yen on 1 October 2026.

• Kodomo no Kuni: woods, dairy farm and slides 4 h Yokohama (Aoba-ku) · 50 min

  A hundred hectares of wooded hillside at the far north of the city with a working dairy farm, long hillside slides, rowing boats, odd bicycles and ice cream made from the farm's own milk. Admission 800 yen for adults, 300 for primary and middle school and 200 for ages three to five (April 2026 rates); open 9:30 to 16:30, closed Wednesdays. Take the Kodomonokuni line from Nagatsuta; from central Yokohama it is close to an hour.

• Koganecho: Contemporary Art under the Railway 2 h

  Until 2005 this was an illegal prostitution district of tiny cubicles under the Keikyu viaduct; today the same units are studios and galleries of the Koganecho Bazaar. It is the most studied case of urban regeneration through art in Japan, and the eviction fell above all on vulnerable migrant women: it should not be told purely as a success story.

• Marine Tower lookout at dusk 1.5 h

  A hundred and six metres above Yamashita Park, opened in 1961 and once the tallest lighthouse in the world until the light was switched off in 2008; it reopened refurbished in September 2022. You look down on Chinatown, Yamate and the bay from much closer in than at Landmark Tower, with which it competes on proximity to the water rather than height. Open until 22:00 with last entry at 21:30, 1,000 yen on weekdays and 1,200 at weekends.

• Minatomirai Festival Fireworks 3 h booking only early August

  Some 18,000 shells in 45 minutes over the bay, with the finale synchronised to music. The whole site is ticketed, from 6,000 to 18,000 yen depending on the zone, and the organisers explicitly ask people not to watch from the street or from boats.

• Nanbu Market and its Saturday fish sale 2 h Yokohama (Kanazawa-ku) · 40 min

  The city's southern wholesale market keeps a food-shop arcade open to anyone on weekdays, and on top of that it opens the fish hall to the public on the second and fourth Saturday of the month, 8:00 to 10:00, at wholesale prices. Note: it is suspended in July and August for temperature control. Take the Seaside Line to Nanbu Shijo station; the car park jams up, so go without a car.

• Noge Izakaya Alleys 2.5 h

  Dense warren of retro taverns near Sakuragicho, the most genuine and least touristy nightlife district in Yokohama. Note: Chigusa, the oldest jazz cafe in Japan, dating from 1933 and an emblem of the neighbourhood, is closed for works to turn it into a museum, with no end date. Its successor listening room has been in Kannai since February 2025.

• Otsuka Yayoi village and Yokohama History Museum 2.5 h Yokohama (Tsuzuki-ku) · 40 min

  The thing almost nobody associates with Yokohama: a two-thousand-year-old Yayoi village excavated in full, with its defensive ditch and several thatched houses rebuilt on the site itself, and next to it the burial ground of the same settlement. The archaeological park is free and the museum's permanent exhibition costs 400 yen; closed Mondays, five minutes from Center-Kita subway station.

• Port Opening Festival, Kaikosai 4 h only 1-2 Jun

  On 1 and 2 June the city marks its port anniversary with stages, open ships and the Beam Spectacular in Harbour, which combines fireworks, light and music over the water. 2 June is a school holiday in Yokohama.

• Rakugo at Yokohama Nigiwaiza 2.5 h booking

  Noge's municipal variety theatre, with 391 seats split between chairs and tatami benches, programmes rakugo, manzai and juggling almost daily, with afternoon shows around 14:00 and evening shows from 19:00. Tickets usually start around 3,000 yen, with discounts for students and over-65s. It is three minutes from Sakuragicho and everything is in Japanese: without the language you will enjoy the acrobatics and music, not the storytelling.

• Red Brick Warehouse (Akarenga Soko) 2 h

  Former early-20th-century port warehouses converted into shops, restaurants, and an event space by the sea.

• Sankeien Garden 1.5 h

  A traditional garden featuring historic buildings relocated from across Japan.

• Sauna and Rest at Sky Spa Yokohama 2 h

  Near-24-hour urban spa attached to Yokohama Station, with sauna, carbonated bath and views over the tracks. Standard course 2,600 yen; no tattoos and no under-12s.

• Sky Garden Observatory at the Landmark Tower 1 h

  Observatory on the 69th floor of Yokohama's tallest building, with 360-degree views over Minato Mirai and, on clear days, Mount Fuji. 1,000 yen for adults, floor 69 at 273 metres. The lift is the fastest in Japan, about 40 seconds, but it stopped being the fastest in the world in 2016.

• Soji-ji Temple 1.5 h

  One of the two great Soto Zen monasteries in Japan, with expansive gardens and wooden buildings in the Tsurumi district. A point of precision: it is one of the TWO head temples of Soto Zen, along with Eihei-ji, not the only one. It moved to Tsurumi from the Noto Peninsula in 1911 after a fire. The grounds are free and enormous, and zazen and the guided visit are charged separately.

• Staggered cherry blossom at Mitsuike Park 2 h

  Three linked ponds on a Tsurumi hillside, with around 1,600 cherry trees of seventy-eight varieties: by planting so many species the bloom stretches from February to late April instead of lasting a week, which is why it is on the list of Japan's hundred best cherry blossom spots. It is a prefectural park, free, reached by bus from Tsurumi station. On April weekends the park itself discourages drinking parties.

• Stroll Through Yamashita Park 1 h

  A waterfront promenade with harbour views, considered Japan's oldest seaside park.

• The Eight Views of Kanazawa and Seto Shrine 2 h Yokohama (Kanazawa-ku) · 40 min

  Hiroshige engraved this bay's eight views in the 1830s and turned Kanazawa into a fashionable day trip from Edo. Seto Shrine, founded by tradition by Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1180, and tiny Biwajima on its islet are still there, but here is the honest part: almost all the sea in those prints is now reclaimed land occupied by industry, and the walk is largely a matter of comparing panels with what stands there. The one stretch that survives intact is the pond at Shomyo-ji.

• The great flower bed at Satoyama Garden 2 h only slots in spring and September

  Next to Zoorasia zoo in Asahi Ward there is a hillside with an enormous bed of hundreds of thousands of flowers that opens only twice a year: from mid-March to early May and for a few weeks in September, 9:30 to 16:00. Outside those windows the flower bed and picnic area are closed while the next display is prepared, so a summer visit is pointless. Entry is free and it pairs well with the zoo on the same trip.

• The station you cannot leave: Umishibaura 1.5 h Yokohama (Tsurumi-ku) · 30 min

  The Tsurumi Line branch ends inside Toshiba's works: the ticket gates open onto private land and only employees may pass them, so visitors stay on the platform and in Umishiba Park, a little garden with benches at the water's edge facing Tsurumi Tsubasa Bridge and the Bay Bridge. Timetables follow factory shifts and gaps of over an hour are common: check your return train before boarding. Photography is banned in the gate area.

• Tsurumi: Yokohama's Okinawan and South American Quarter 3 h Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama · 25 min

  Nakadori street concentrates Okinawan restaurants, Brazilian bakeries and Peruvian shops founded by descendants of emigrants who returned to Japan. Eating soki soba and pao de queijo on the same block explains a century of Japanese migration. Come to eat, yes; come to photograph people as exotica, no.

• Yamate Historic District ("the Bluff") 2 h

  Hilltop neighbourhood where foreigners settled after the port opened in 1859, with preserved Victorian mansions, a foreign cemetery and gardens overlooking the bay. Context worth keeping: these Western houses are the pleasant face of a regime of extraterritoriality imposed by the unequal treaties, which Japan took decades to reverse. Telling only the picturesque side distorts the history.

• Yokohama Anpanman Children's Museum 3 h booking

  The character most loved by Japanese children under six has his indoor park here, with a ground floor of shops and restaurants that is free to enter. Tickets are bought for a set date and time, and outside that age range it makes little sense.

• Yokohama Archives of History and the Treaty Camphor Tree 1.5 h

  The treaty that opened Japan was signed in this courtyard in 1854, and the camphor tree in the middle is the same one that witnessed the scene. The museum tells the opening of the port from the Japanese side, not just Perry's.

• Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery 1 h

  Some five thousand graves from more than forty countries on the Yamate slope, from sailors of Perry's fleet to the engineers who built Japan's first railway. It is a working cemetery and opens to visitors only on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from 12:00 to 16:00, never in the rain and never in January or August; a donation of around 200 yen towards upkeep is asked. The small museum at the entrance opens more days and is free.

• Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise 4 h Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama · 45 min

  A complex combining an aquarium, amusement park and waterfront area on an artificial island in Yokohama Bay, hugely popular with families. It is not in Minato Mirai but in the Kanazawa district to the south, so you have to allow for the real journey out from the centre. It is often planned as a half day when in practice it eats up a whole one.

• Yokohama Jazz Bar Trail 3 h

  Yokohama is the birthplace of Japanese jazz, which arrived through the port and the American bases. The legendary Chigusa in Noge, from 1933, is under renovation until further notice, but its successor listening room in Kannai and the historic clubs keep the trail alive.

• Yokohama Jazz Promenade 4 h booking only one weekend in October

  In October the city fills with jazz across ticketed halls and free street stages through Kannai, Bashamichi and the port. Tickets are sold per venue and specific date, with no general pass: pick one hall and build the walk around it.

• Yokohama Noh Theatre and its 1875 stage 2.5 h booking

  The main stage was built in 1875 in the Tokyo residence of former daimyo Maeda Nariyasu at Negishi, and after a move to Somei and dismantling in 1965 it was reassembled here in 1996: it is the oldest noh stage still in use in the Kanto region and a city-designated cultural property. It was closed for refurbishment from January 2024 and reopened in summer 2026, so check the programme before counting on it. Some performances include an introductory talk aimed at newcomers.

• Yokohama Tram Museum 1.5 h

  Seven original streetcars from the network that ran until 1972, kept in a hall with their doors open so you can sit in them, plus a large model layout of the city and simulators. Admission 300 yen for adults and 100 for children; closed Wednesdays and Thursdays, open 9:30 to 17:00 at weekends but only 10:00 to 16:00 on weekdays. It is out in Isogo and you need a bus from Negishi: it is not walkable.

• Yokohamabashi shopping arcade 1.5 h

  Three hundred and fifty metres of covered arcade with around a hundred and thirty-five shops in Minami Ward: fishmongers selling by the piece, prepared-food stalls, Korean shops with kimchi and pickles, greengrocers shouting prices. This is a working-class district's daily shop, with not a single souvenir shop. The rakugo master Katsura Utamaru was the local celebrity and still appears on the posters. Two minutes from Bandobashi subway station.

• Zazen and Guided Visit to Soji-ji in Tsurumi 2.5 h booking Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama · 25 min

  One of the two head temples of Soto Zen alongside Eihei-ji, not the only one, with hundreds of monks in training and grounds on a scale no temple in Kamakura can match. Monthly zazen sessions are open to the public with advance booking.

• Zoorasia Zoo 4 h Asahi-ku, Yokohama · 45 min

  One of the largest and best designed zoos in Japan, organised by biome, with okapi, Indian elephants and a long walk through woodland. It is in Asahi-ku, a fair way from the centre, so it takes a long half day.

• Chinese New Year in Chinatown 2 h only Lunar New Year (late January to February)

  Several days of celebration in late January or February with lion and dragon parades and thousands of lanterns in the largest Chinatown in Asia. The date shifts each year with the lunar calendar: in 2026 it began on 17 February, the 40th edition, and in 2027 it falls between mid-February and early March. Any fixed date is wrong.

• Christmas Market at the Red Brick Warehouses 2 h only late November to 25 December

  From late November to Christmas the Akarenga courtyard hosts a German-style Christmas market, running since 2010, with mulled wine and a giant fir tree. Admission is charged at peak hours and weekend queues are considerable.

• Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris Wheel 1 h

  A bayside amusement park featuring one of Japan's most iconic Ferris wheels. A useful correction: entry to the Cosmoworld grounds is FREE and you only pay for each ride, a thousand yen for the Ferris wheel, in cash. It was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world between 1989 and 1997, but not any more. And it closes on Thursdays.

• Craft Beer in Bashamichi and Noge 2 h

  Japan's first commercial beer was brewed here, and today the area concentrates brewpubs, taprooms and local breweries. It is an alternative to the izakaya alleys with less smoke and more room to sit.

• Dry Dock No. 1 and the Dockyard Garden 1 h

  The stone dry dock of 1896, a national cultural property, is built into the base of the Landmark Tower and works as a sunken plaza and concert venue. It is the reminder that Minato Mirai was a Mitsubishi shipyard until 1983.

• Football or Rugby at Nissan Stadium 3.5 h booking Shin-Yokohama · 20 min

  The largest stadium in Japan, host of the 2002 World Cup final and the 2019 Rugby World Cup, home to Yokohama F.Marinos and the Canon Eagles. It is in Shin-Yokohama, with excellent transport links.

• Hamagin Space Science Center 2.5 h Isogo-ku, Yokohama · 35 min

  A large planetarium and five floors of hands-on experiments about space and physics, in Isogo. It is the best rainy-day plan with children in Yokohama and very few foreigners go.

• Hodogaya Commonwealth War Cemetery 1.5 h Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama · 30 min

  Almost 1,900 graves of British, Australian, Indian, Canadian and New Zealand prisoners of war who died in captivity in Japan, among eucalyptus trees planted as a diplomatic gesture. It is a place of active mourning, visited by families: silence, no drones, no group photos.

• Individual Rides at Yokohama Cosmoworld 2 h

  Entry is free and you pay only for what you ride, including the Vanish roller coaster that plunges under water for 900 yen. It closes on Thursdays and takes cash only, two things that ruin plans regularly.

• Mitsubishi Minatomirai Industrial Museum 2 h

  Reopened after renovation in July 2025, with a helicopter simulator, the Shinkai 6500 submersible and full-size H-II rocket engines. It closes early, at three on weekdays, so it has to be slotted in early.

• Motomachi and the Hamatora Style 2 h

  The shopping street that served foreign residents from the 19th century and where the hamatora look was born in the 1970s, with historic houses making bags and made-to-measure shoes. It is the opposite of a shopping mall: family businesses more than a century old.

• Night Cruise on Yokohama Bay 2 h booking

  Boats leaving from Osanbashi and Yamashita loop around the Bay Bridge with Minato Mirai lit up behind. There are cruise-only and dinner-on-board options, and weekends are worth booking ahead.

• Nippon Maru Sailing Ship and Port Museum 1.5 h

  Four-masted sailing ship from 1930 moored beside a museum covering the opening of Yokohama's port to foreign trade in 1859, the founding event of the modern city.

• Nissan Global Headquarters Gallery 1 h

  Free exhibition in the lobby of Nissan's world headquarters, next to Yokohama Station, with prototypes, racing cars and historic models. You simply walk in, and it is one of the most underrated free visits in the city.

• Nojima aircraft shelter and the hilltop lookout 1.5 h Yokohama (Kanazawa-ku) · 45 min

  Dug between March and June 1945 to hide aircraft in the last months of the war, it is one of the largest shelters of its kind left in Japan: roughly 260 metres long with a seven-metre-high mouth. You cannot go in, it is boarded up because of collapse risk, and there is only an explanatory panel installed in 2010, so the visit is short and best combined with the climb to the Nojima hill lookout, which takes in the bay and, on clear days, Mount Fuji.

• Riding the Sea Bass Water Bus 0.5 h

  Scheduled boat linking Yokohama Station with Minato Mirai, the red brick warehouses and Yamashita Park in about 15 minutes. It is genuine public transport and it spares you the dullest walk in the city.

• Rinko Park Lawns and the Zou-no-hana Terrace 1.5 h

  Two open meadows facing the water where Yokohama residents lie down with a konbini bento and watch the cargo ships go by. Zou-no-hana also marks the exact site of the original 1859 pier.

• Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum 2 h

  An underground theme park set in 1958 Japan, featuring replica ramen stalls representing regional styles from across the country.

• Shomyo-ji Temple and the Kanazawa Bunko Library 2 h Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama · 45 min

  Thirteenth-century Pure Land garden with a red bridge and a pond shaped like the character for water, next to the medieval library of the Hojo clan. It sits in Kanazawa-ku, well off the usual circuit, and has a calm that no longer exists in Kamakura.

• Silk Museum 1 h

  Museum devoted to silk, the historic engine of Yokohama's port, with looms, kimono and the history of the textile trade that opened Japan to the West.

• The Yokohama Silk Scarf: Showroom and Workshop 1.5 h booking

  Yokohama historically concentrated the hand printing of Japanese silk and still produces high-end scarves using dozens of screens per design. Beyond buying, there are workshops that teach how to choose and knot a scarf.

• Tsurumi's Okinawan Festival and the Eisa Parade 3 h Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama · 25 min only parades in August; Uchina-sai in November

  Tsurumi has the largest Okinawan community in Kanto, and its Uchina-sai and the Michijunee parade in August fill Nakadori street with eisa drums, awamori and sanshin. It is a neighbourhood festival, not a tourist production.

• Yamate Tin Toy Museum 1 h

  Some 3,000 Japanese tin toys from 1890 to 1960 assembled by collector Teruhisa Kitahara, in a small house in Yamate. It is the missing link between postwar craft workshops and the Japan that later exported robots and games consoles.

• Yokohama Air Cabin, Urban Ropeway over the Canal 0.5 h

  Japan's first permanent urban ropeway: 629 metres between Sakuragicho and Unga Park, in air-conditioned cabins with views of the red brick warehouses and the Ferris wheel. 1,000 yen one way, and it is worth doing at night.

• Yokohama English Garden in Rose Season 1.5 h

  Close to 2,200 rose varieties in a compact garden behind Hiranumabashi Station, peaking in May and again in October. It charges admission and is modest in size, but the colour-based design is well above the Japanese average.

• Yokohama Marathon 6 h booking only late October or early November

  The 2026 edition falls on Sunday 25 October, with a full marathon, pairs relays and short 7-kilometre races through Minato Mirai. You can run it or just watch, but the centre is closed to traffic that day and everything else has to be replanned.

• Free Nogeyama Zoo 1.5 h

  Municipal zoo with free entry on a hill above Noge, with red pandas, giraffes and a petting area with small animals. It is where local families take their children, not a theme park.

• Hammerhead, Marine and Walk and Bay Quarter 2.5 h

  Three waterfront complexes with independent brands, ice cream shops, a cruise terminal and a continuous promenade linking them. They are walkable end to end and work well as an afternoon with no fixed goal.

• Iseyama Kotai Jingu, the Ise of Kanagawa 1 h

  Official branch of the Grand Shrine of Ise, founded in 1870 on a hill in Nishi-ku, with the same shinmei-zukuri architecture and almost no tourists. It is the city's tutelary shrine.

• Isezakicho at Night, Multicultural Yokohama 2 h

  A shopping street nearly two kilometres long where Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Peruvian and Korean bars overlap with pachinko parlours and second-hand shops. It is ugly, loud and completely real; use judgement and keep the camera down.

• Maioka Park and Its Terraced Rice Paddies 2.5 h Totsuka-ku, Yokohama · 35 min

  A preserved satoyama inside the limits of Japan's second city, with rice paddies worked by volunteers, frogs and dragonflies. In June and October you can watch rice being worked 20 minutes by train from the skyscrapers.

• Negishi Forest Park and the Racecourse Grandstand 2 h

  A huge sloping meadow laid over the course of Japan's first Western-style racecourse, from 1866, with the ruined 1930 grandstand looming among the trees. In March it is one of the best hanami spots in the city and there are almost no foreigners.

• The Old Tokaido through Kanagawa-juku 2.5 h Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama · 20 min

  The stretch between Kanagawa and Hodogaya still has temples that served as improvised foreign consulates in 1859, stone markers and the original slopes. This is the Yokohama that predates Yokohama, running through completely ordinary neighbourhoods.

• Umi-no-Koen Beach and Clam Digging in Kanazawa 3 h Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama · 45 min

  Yokohama's only sandy beach, artificial but with real clam digging in spring at low tide. It is a local family outing rather than a tourist one, and combines well with Shomyo-ji.

• Yamate and the Birthplace of Modern Sport in Japan 1.5 h

  Japan's first games of baseball, rugby, cricket, tennis and football were played in the Yokohama foreign settlement, and monuments remain beside the athletic club founded in 1868. A short walk that reorders the country's sporting history.

• Yokohama Doll Museum 1.5 h

  More than 10,000 dolls from around a hundred countries, including the friendship dolls exchanged with the United States in 1927 that nearly disappeared during the war. It is an oblique reading of the port's diplomatic history.

• Yokohama's Christian Heritage: Yamate and the Kaigan Church 1.5 h

  The first Catholic church in Japan after the ban ended was built here, as was the first Japanese Protestant church, the Kaigan Church of 1872. This is the point where Christianity returned legally to Japan after two and a half centuries underground.

What only happens on specific dates

• Chinese New Year in Chinatown Lunar New Year (late January to February)
• Kanbaikai: plum blossom at Sankeien 7 Feb - 3 Mar
• Cherry blossoms lit up at night in Sankeien 27 Mar - 5 Apr
• A hundred thousand tulips in Yokohama Park 25 Mar - 20 Apr
• The great flower bed at Satoyama Garden slots in spring and September
• Noge Daidogei, the street performers' festival one weekend in mid-April
• Port Opening Festival, Kaikosai 1-2 Jun
• Mitama Matsuri and bon odori at Soji-ji 17-19 Jul
• Kanazawa Matsuri fireworks from the beach one Saturday in late August
• Minatomirai Festival Fireworks early August
• Tsurumi's Okinawan Festival and the Eisa Parade parades in August; Uchina-sai in November
• Yokohama Jazz Promenade one weekend in October
• Yokohama Marathon late October or early November
• Christmas Market at the Red Brick Warehouses late November to 25 December
• Christmas Around the World in the Yamate houses 1-25 Dec

Chains well with

More destinations in Kanto