The best way to see Tokyo? Get lost, say these two experts

In the decades since Michelle Mackintosh and Steve Wide first set foot in Tokyo on their honeymoon in the late 1990s, they’ve watched the city transform. It hasn’t been Tokyo itself so much, as the travellers arriving into it.

“When we first went, not a lot of people were travelling there,” Wide recalls. “We were just blown away – the food, the design, the people. It felt completely unexpected.”

They’ve been returning ever since, building a deep, evolving relationship with the city that now underpins their latest book, Tokyo Story (Hardie Grant), one of eight books about travel in Japan making the couple leading and prolific authorities on the subject.

Some of their other books include Train Japan: The Essential Rail Guide, Hidden Pockets in Kyoto, Mindfulness Travel Japan and Onsen of Japan.

Tokyo Story is a richly illustrated, design-led guide, it’s both a love letter to Tokyo and a toolkit for experiencing it as something personal.

For Mackintosh, a Melbourne-based designer who illustrates and art directs their books, the connection began even earlier, sparked by a Japanese exchange student and a fascination with graphic design.

Together with Wide – a writer, broadcaster and longtime cultural observer – the pair have built a body of work documenting Japan that sits somewhere between travel guide, visual essay and cultural deep dive.

Their earlier title Tokyo (2018) started to carve out their approach. They wanted to avoid list-ticking and encourage melting into the city’s rhythms, neighbourhoods and subcultures. Tokyo Story expands on that idea, shifting the focus from geography to experience – organised around interests, obsessions and the kinds of discoveries that happen when you wander.

One thing is certain, says Wide. You will wander off track. “But that’s one of the great things about Tokyo. You’ll see so many things you didn’t expect just by getting lost.”

That’s even with Google Maps, though the couple have observed that with the app and its ilk now smoothing out navigation and social media amplifying certain spots, “It seems like people are just going to the same places,” Mackintosh says. “You might go somewhere we put in a book 10 years ago and there’s a queue of Australians.

“And you don’t want to be in some TikTok queue for something in a city like Tokyo,” she says.

It’s also why the pair talk as much about how to travel as where to go. If there’s a single thread running through their advice, it’s respect – for the culture and for the people whose city you’re moving through.

“There are rules, and you follow them,” Mackintosh says.

That might mean something as simple as queueing properly for a bus, not eating on the street, or asking before photographing.

“We’ve seen very poor manners from Westerners in the last year,” she says, describing travellers pushing past queues or ignoring basic etiquette.

The behaviour, they say, has meant some visitors have been met with resistance from locals. For Wide, the key is flexibility. “If you have a bad experience, just brush it off,” he says. “You’ll have a great experience in the next half hour.”

So how should you approach Tokyo now?

First: get curious. Whether it’s music, food, fashion or stationery, “Get into everything,” says Wide.

Second: Mackintosh and Wide both advocate doing a little groundwork. Before you go, watch Japanese films, try unfamiliar Japanese dishes, learn a few basic phrases.

Third: embrace the everyday. Some of Tokyo’s best moments aren’t found in headline attractions but in the in-between. That could be a department store food hall, a neighbourhood wander, a train ride across the city.

And finally, allow space for your own version of the city to emerge.

“The book’s called Tokyo Story,” she says. “But it’s really about making your own Tokyo story – what you come back with.”

Tokyo Story, RRP $49.99, is published by Hardie Grant Explore. See publishing.hardiegrant.com