For the longest time, it seemed like I could talk hardly anyone into visiting Japan. Only some 2 million international visitors came to Japan when I first landed in 1983, and over the years that I’ve been writing Frommer’s guides to the country, I rarely had friends or strangers contact me about the desire to go.
No longer. Japan mounted a huge tourism campaign after the 2011 tsunami, with the goal of increasing international visitors to 20 million by 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics. They surpassed that goal, with more than 31 million foreigners visiting in 2018. Now the goal is 40 million by 2020, and with 10 million expected for the Olympic and Paralympic games, including athletes, staff, and spectators, that seems sure to happen.
Just as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics introduced a modern city to the world, with the debut of the Shinkansen bullet train, the ultramodern monorail from the new Tokyo airport, and futuristic sports venues, the 2020 Olympics aims to impress with its technical and sustainable prowess. Think robots (which will give directions, deliver concessions to spectators, and collect shot puts from the fields, among other duties), driverless electric cars, medals made from recycled electronics, and the relay torch manufactured from materials used temporary housing after the 2011 tsunami.
Of course, all those visitors already visiting Tokyo are more interested in what the capital has to offer right now, which includes world-class cuisine, pop culture, hip fashion, a vibrant nightlife, the largest concentration of museums in the country, and cultural immersion opportunities from the tea ceremony to Japanese cooking.
I wrote the Tokyo blurb for Frommer’s 2020 list. To see the other destinations that made the cut–including Indiana, Extremadura in Spain, the Bahamas, and Papua New Guinea–see Frommer’s Best Places to Go in 2020.
For suggestions on what to see on your trip to Japan, check out my articles on this website, including Places to visit between Tokyo and Kyoto, Places to visit between Kyoto and Hiroshima, Japan’s Top World Heritage Sites, and many more.
