A few free hours left before taking off from Narita airport? Let’s hop on a train for a ten minutes journey to Narita city! Your last temples, restaurants and shopping before leaving Japan.
Reaching Narita city from the airport or Tokyo
Narita station is ten minutes away from the airport by train, with either a Keisei or a JR line. It’s also possible to go by taxi. You’ll have to look for the local taxi service in front of the airport. It’s a way to save some time (not waiting for the train and reaching Narita-san temple directly, without walking up the street) in case you’re really tired or short on time.
There are coin lockers at Narita station to leave your luggage, but there aren’t many and all of them were in use when we were there. I advise you to drop you luggage at the Narita airport at a JAL counter (in 2025, it was ￥700 per checked luggage, see their prices online).
It’s also possible to reach Narita city without transiting by the airport, directly from Tokyo. It takes a connection from major Tokyo stations (Tokyo central, Akihabara, Shinjuku…). For example, we left from Akihabara to Nippori with JR Yamanote, then took the Keisei Narita-line that brings you to Narita city or to the airport.
Please note the Keisei line to Narita-keisei station is a local line and trains are not meant to accommodate checked-in luggage, contrary to the Keisei Skyliner that is dedicated to airport users. The local line is cheaper but please refrain from using it during peak hours or if you have many pieces of luggage.
Narita-san Shinshoji temple
The main point of interest in Narita is the Narita-san or Shinshoji temple. It’s a huge temple ground with various buildings (temples, pagodas, gates…) from different eras and styles. Some date 1665 while others were built a few years ago. There’s also a garden to wander around.
The buildings are really diverse and surrounded by greenery and trees, far from the crowd and traffic of the main street, making it ideal for people who could only visit big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto during their stay in Japan. Even though we stayed in Japan twice, each time for a whole month, and went off-the-beaten-track, we still found it enjoyable.
The tourism information advises to spend an hour on the precinct. We visited in 30 minutes because we were a bit short on time, which was sufficient to see all buildings. However, we did not visit the museum or wander in the garden. Also, we’d already seen tons of temples before this one. I think one hour is a good recommendation for most tourists.
Please note: you’ll have to go up stairs and/or hills to see it all.
Enjoy eel on rice
Narita is really famous for its dish of eel on rice (unagi don or unagi meshi). When walking the main street, you’ll see many restaurants serving eel, and a lot of them even have open kitchens for pedestrians to enjoy the view, see how the fish is cleaned, cut, prepared and cooked (at least, that’s what we experienced at noon). Not a show for the faint of heart…
Some restaurants are full and have a queue, others have some free seats. We chose the easy and fastest option by going in a restaurant that had a free table for us: Omiya. Note most of their tables are on tatami (but occidental style), you’ll have to take your shoes off if you want to eat there. It was really good. The eel on rice serving was about ￥3 000 (December 2025) and their menu is available online on their English version website. They also have more classic dishes to accommodate everyone.
Omotesando
Omotesando is the main street for tourists and will take you from Narita station to Narita-san temple by walking about 15 minutes (but it’s going up coming from the station). There you’ll find the above mentioned eel restaurants but also a few bars and snacks shops, and souvenir stores.
I wouldn’t advise to plan your shopping at Narita as it really gave us a “last-minute-shopping-for-the-absent-minded” vibe, with nothing much of interest.
There was not a lot of food to discover apart from eel. The only thing worth mentioning was a shop that sells soft serve ice cream with umeboshi (sour fermented plum) syrup.
As a consequence, we really didn’t spend much time in that street.
All in all, is Narita city worth visiting?
I think it’s especially worth going to Narita if you’ve only seen big cities like Tokyo or Kyoto, and smaller temples that are inside the city. The Narita-san Shinshoji temple precinct has a wide variety of buildings in a quite green environment, which gives it a different feeling.
It’s of course a good addition to your itinerary if you’re left with a few hours to spend before registering for your flight, since it’s really easy to access from Narita terminals.
However, I wouldn’t recommend making time for Narita in your itinerary. It’s convenient if you need to add something to your planning without making big changes, but not worth spending more time in Japan just for it.
