Japan can be as affordable or as expensive as you’d like it to be, from $8 best-ramen-of-my-life to $250 sushi at Nobu. For me, I definitely err on the side of budgeting so I still have money for little things back home, y’know, like food and rent. Not only was Japan full of inexpensive unique things to do and places to see, there were manyyy free spots! 

Here were some experiences that came at no-cost: 

Free things to do in Tokyo

 1. Imperial Palace and Edo Castle:

Although the actual Imperial Palace is not available to the public, it’s free entry to the palace gardens, the exhibits on the premises, and to see Edo Castle. The grounds are expansive and it could take awhile to explore all of it, but an hour gave me a great overview of the kind of garden one  has livin’ like an emperor. 

2. Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building:
This one I didn’t get to on this trip (I’m definitely going to be back) but there is an amazing (and free!) view from the top. It’s an office, so it is closed on the weekend but if you can check this one out, definitely do so!
 
3. Yoyogi Park:
This park is massive. Like, walked-20-minutes-straight-and-still-couldn’t-see-the-end massive. It took awhile to go through to say the least. Granted, we did stop a few times to look at the cute dogs running all over the park, but still. It’s. Really. Big. 
 
4. MeiJi Shrine:
The Shrine is located near Yoyogi park, however enter from the east side because we tried entering from the west after walking all the way through the park, we realized the only entrance was on the East. So we had to walk alllll the way back. 
 
5. Sumo Museum (30 minutes):
This is a small exhibit right by the Edo Museum. During certain hours you can watch practices but we went right before closing and saw just the exhibits. For how small the room is, it holds a lot of information about the history of sumo wrestling!
 
6. Fuji TV building:
It cost about $5 to go up to the top and see the view from their windows, but once you climb the escalator to the ticket booth, the surrounding area view still is impressive.
 

7. Senso-Ji temple:

There is a prayer spot inside the temple which encourages you to to drop a few coins (I saw the biggest donation was 500 yen to some others dropping in a few 10 yen coins) as a donation before walking up to the shrine. Some tourists walked right past the donation spot, but after observing the Japanese walk up, throw a few coins in, and then bow, I decided to do the same.

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