About This Day Trip
Nikko is a mountainous UNESCO World Heritage town roughly 130 kilometres north of Tokyo, famous for the ornate Toshogu Shrine — the lavishly decorated mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. A private car tour from Tokyo lets you experience Nikko’s temples, waterfalls, and mountain scenery in a single full day without the hassle of multiple train connections.
Your driver picks you up from your Tokyo hotel early in the morning for the roughly two-hour drive north along the Tohoku Expressway. The first stop is usually the Toshogu Shrine complex, where you’ll see the famous carved monkeys (“see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”), the Sleeping Cat carving, and over 5,000 intricate wood carvings covered in gold leaf. Nearby, the quieter Rinnoji Temple and Futarasan Shrine are equally worth visiting.
After the shrines, the tour continues up the winding Irohazaka switchback road to Lake Chuzenji, a scenic crater lake at 1,269 metres altitude, and Kegon Falls, one of Japan’s most spectacular waterfalls with a 97-metre drop. In autumn (October–November) the mountainsides blaze with red and gold foliage, making this one of the most photogenic day trips in all of Japan. The return drive gets you back to your Tokyo hotel by early evening.