The GO WILD TOKYO! series introduces eight experiences across the city’s western and southern reaches that showcase the appeal of adventure tourism. These are not just sightseeing itineraries, but travel meant to encounter fascinating ways of life: meeting people who protect forests while welcoming visitors, and innovators creating new experiences through fire, water, and the natural world.
The digital art museum teamLab Planets TOKYO DMM, located in Toyosu, Tokyo, has been named “Asia’s Leading Tourist Attraction” at the World Travel Awards 2025, one of the most prestigious honors in the global travel industry. This marks its second win, following the award in 2023. Since opening seven years and three months ago, the museum has welcomed over 10 million visitors, with about half being international travelers.
Hamura City, along the middle reaches of the Tama River, is a compact municipality where people and water systems have long coexisted—and where diverse wildlife and human life still share the landscape. In the Edo period, excavation of the Tamagawa Josui aqueduct brought water to Edo. From the Meiji through the Showa eras, construction of the Murayama Reservoir and Yamaguchi Reservoir made Hamura the starting point for sending water to Tokyo—and remain as sources that sustain daily life. Through tours that trace the route of the former Hamura–Yamaguchi Light Railway that was used to build those reservoirs, the Hamura City Tourism Association shares the region’s role and history.
About an hour by train from Shinjuku, the Nishitama area of western Tokyo opens into gentle valleys with clear rivers and forested mountains. Today, this region has become a hub for raising the standard of Japan’s adventure-tourism (AT) guides to international levels—and spreading those standards nationwide. Leading the charge is Fourth Wellness (now Tokyo Yamagawa DMC). Despite its location within Tokyo, the Tama area encompasses a national park and brims with nature, history, and culture. With mountains, rivers, and four distinct seasons that support diverse ecosystems, it is an ideal place both to enjoy adventure tourism and to cultivate professional guides. We joined the field sessions of their guide-training program.
Hinohara Village lies at Tokyo’s western edge, with forests covering roughly 90 percent of its land. Despite being only about 90 minutes by car from central Tokyo, the area boasts an untouched natural environment ideal for trekking, river play, and fishing. It’s the only municipality in Tokyo (excluding the island areas) officially designated as a “village,” where traditional mountain hamlet scenery and culture still endure. Once sustained by forestry and mountain worship, the community today is welcoming new hubs—cafés, saunas, accommodations—and bringing in fresh sensibilities. It’s an area to watch for it blend of history and new ideas.
Kodaira lies near the heart of Tokyo’s North Tama area, where the legacy of water and greenery still runs deep. At the center of this story is the Tamagawa Josui canal—an essential part of Kodaira’s landscape. Built in the Edo period, the canal provided a stable water supply that made possible the cultivation of new fields, the growth of settlements, and, ultimately, the emergence of Kodaira as a town. Even today, its history still lives on in the canal-side calm that defines the area.
Roughly 1,000 kilometers south of the capital—24 hours by ferry—the Ogasawara Islands are a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site famed for the endemic wildlife and pristine ecosystems. In 2023, Kanaka Village, a “luxury-eco” hideaway designed for travelers seeking to reconnect with nature, opened on the largest inhabited island of Chichijima, in the remote area of Kitafukurozawa.
An interview with Christopher Harding, historian and author, who explores Japan’s culture and history through books that blend narrative flair with scholarship.
