I’ve found Japan’s greatest city for kids – and it’s only half an hour from Tokyo

It would be foolish to go all the way to Japan and miss out on Tokyo. Most trips to the country start there, in a jetlag-infused waking dream of blurred neon, packed pavements and mega-city main-character energy.

But Tokyo is a lot. Just when you think you’ve found peace (at Tsutaya Books in the upmarket Ginza Six shopping mall, for example, where shelves are lovingly curated, dimly lit and deliciously scented), you’re thrust out, across the street and into the chaos of Uniqlo, with its international crowd of bargain-seeking punters travelling at full throttle up and down the narrow escalators.

Seen from tween-level (mine are 10 and 12), it’s a place of choice paralysis, endless temptation and extreme overwhelm. Which is why – if you have kids – I’d recommend starting off with a couple of days in Yokohama instead. I wish we had.

Half an hour by train from Shibuya (the Tokyo district famed for its chaotic crossing), this lesser-known city may be the country’s second largest, but it feels practically deserted in comparison to its better-known neighbour. And it has enough museums, shops and attractions to keep kids occupied.

Yokohama grew into an important port with the advent of international trade in the 19th-century. Now, as you can see from the 63rd floor of its Landmark Tower (which tourists whizz up to in Japan’s fastest lift), the two cities almost merge into each other in a tight-knit sprawl of skyscrapers, belching factories and busy roads, with Kawasaki acting as a sandwich filling in between. In the other direction, the coastline glitters enticingly at Kamakura and, on a clear day, you can see Mount Fuji from up there too – a hazy cone beneath the sun’s sharp gleam.

Yokohama is still a popular place for expats to base themselves, as well as a cruise port for passengers shuttling to Tokyo, but most tourists only come for the day: we stayed for three. After an itinerary crammed with shrines, shops and sushi stops, it was the off-the-map break that we didn’t realise we needed.

Arriving at the shinkansen train station from Kyoto (alongside a handful of skiving commuters rather than the crowds of tourists found elsewhere), we exhaled gratefully. A beaming station employee showed us the way to the underground and we were off to Minato Mirai, a seaside district that’s a kind of Japanese equivalent to Brighton, topped by a glowing big wheel. As this is Japan, even the station escalators were space-age, rising to outdoor travelators that revealed skyscraper views over the city’s cablecar and the sea.

Another benefit of Yokohama is the relative value of the hotels. We’d booked into the five-star Yokohama Bay, the sort of hotel where a stay would probably stretch into the thousands per night in Tokyo. Here, though not cheap, an apartment-sized room cost £260. Cocooned on the 23rd floor, we marvelled at faded neon views over the city, watching teens scream on its famously rocky rollercoaster and ships drift across a hazy horizon. Then, grateful for the empty pavements, we went for a stroll to Marine & Walk, where shops and restaurants have been carved out of old warehouses along the waterfront.

It was Halloween, and Yokohama’s dog owners were queuing up to take their pets’ pictures in front of a spooky-cute backdrop at Paw’s Living, before going for an actual dog’s dinner at Yakiniku Ushisuke (where pets can choose grilled meat from a special menu). Some mutts sported tutus, others had macho combos of knitted jumpers and baseball caps. All were like catnip to my kids (the older one surreptitiously snapped several candids on her phone to show me later).

It wasn’t the strangest thing we saw during our stay: one of Yokohama’s biggest attractions is the Cupnoodles Museum, a love letter to the snack’s inventor Momofuku Ando, featuring a diorama of him alongside some of history’s biggest names (among them Einstein, Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin) as well as a golden statue of him holding his creation. More than a million visitors per year pay to enter and queue patiently to create their own cup noodle pots, filling them with a personalised choice of seasonings and flavours.

Despite it being a brilliantly surreal experience, a bigger highlight for us was the lesser-visited (and free) Customs Museum, which we strolled into on a whim one morning. Mysteriously escaping the full-beam glare of Instagram and TikTok influencers (who love Japan and are partly responsible for the queues at its 100 yen stores, strange attractions and busiest restaurants), this tiny museum’s exhibits included fake guns and drugs hidden in replica luggage.

After searching bags using model sniffer dogs and scanners, as well enjoying an intriguing game of “spot the fake” where Louis Vuitton bags, Hermes belts and Pokémon cards are neatly displayed alongside their counterfeit counterparts, the kids rounded off their visit by making origami models of the museum’s mascot: a kawaii sniffer dog.

Smaller children should also enjoy the city’s museum dedicated to Anpanman (the Japanese equivalent of Peppa Pig, with a head made of baked goods), but mine preferred the souffle-pancake-vending Hawaiian restaurants that pipe sleepy music out over the water. They also savoured the chance to run ahead on pavements or among the flowers of shoreside Yamashita Park – an impossibility among the crowds of the busier cities we’d visited.

A long and winding stroll away from the tourist district, past ramen shops and office blocks, brought us to Yokohama baseball stadium, home to the revered Yokohama DeNA Baystars. Packed on match days, it was deserted on our drizzly visit, so we reverted to the Starbucks opposite to escape an unexpected downpour with iced chai lattes (my kids’ new obsession) and read stories of Yokai, the monsters who’ve inhabited Japanese folklore since the 8th century. Across the road, a man read his own book on a park bench under an umbrella, pretending it was a perfect weather day.

Perhaps he was waiting for the sun to shine again. When it does, Yokohama feels like a beach holiday – so far removed from Tokyo that it might be another country. Another day, under bluer skies, we lost ourselves in the mansion-dotted district of Yamate (often known as “The Bluff” in English), once home to merchants and diplomats, now dotted with pretty clapboard houses, climbing alleys and hilly parks reminiscent of San Francisco.

Near it sits Japan’s largest Chinatown, where criss-crossing streets come laced with red and gold lanterns and kiosks sell panda-shaped bao buns and treacly strawberry skewers. Having eaten sushi, takoyaki and ramen on repeat, my kids were keen to devour egg fried rice and char sui pork in one of the area’s cavernous, gilded restaurants.

On any other holiday, an empty restaurant would be taken as a bad sign. Here, it was a real treat. And, though it wasn’t the best meal we ate on our holiday (that prize goes to an unexpectedly fantastic sushi lunch in the basement of an aging department store in Kyoto), it was by far the calmest.

Essentials

Yokohama is a half-an-hour train or bus ride from Haneda airport (allow much more time during rush hour). It is also on the shinkansen (high-speed) line that connects Tokyo with Osaka and Kyoto. Book the Yokohama Bay Hotel via booking.com. For more information about the city, see yokohamajapan.com.