Only One Of The World's 10 Most Walkable Cities Is Located Outside Europe

I lived in Tokyo for seven years, and when people would come to visit, I always offered two nebulous pieces of advice: Use your feet and look up. I offered the latter because a lot of the most interesting restaurants, cocktail bars, and izakayas (a kind of pub diner) are located on the upper floors of skyscrapers. And the first piece of advice was always crucial because Tokyo, despite its immense size and scale, is a wonderful city for walking. So when Compare the Market ranked Tokyo as the third most walkable city worldwide for 2025, it rubberstamped something I had felt for years.

Compare the Market analyzed 90 cities across the world, assessing factors like car-free spaces, public transport infrastructure, levels of public safety, annual rainfall, and commuting habits. Tokyo is famous for its transport network and safety, but it also scored well for its convenience: 77% of people live near schools and healthcare facilities, and 48% live near car-free areas. The Japanese capital notably jumped three places in this year's rankings, from sixth in 2024.

Old-world European cities, with their sun-splashed promenades, streetside cafes, and gorgeous architecture, are always going to find their way onto a list of the world's most walkable cities. So it's unsurprising that palatial capitals Prague (in first place) and Vienna (in second) joined Tokyo on the podium. Polish cities Wroclaw, a surprise addition in fourth place, and Warsaw, the "Paris of the East," rounded out the top five.

First-timers in Tokyo quickly become acquainted with the city's transport network. Even if they organize their itinerary into sensible chunks — Akihabara and Ueno one day, Shibuya and Shinjuku on another — the instinct is to use trains and subways to race between the "must-see" sights. But travel isn't, or at least shouldn't be, an exercise in box-ticking.

If you only visit the most popular corners of Tokyo, traveling by rail all the while, you will deny yourself the spontaneous finds and encounters that make travel meaningful: the mom-and-pop ramen shop down a rain-slicked alley, the vintage clothing shop in the basement of a nondescript office building, the hidden jazz cafe that opens by whim rather than schedule. It's what Japanophile and author Alex Kerr would call "the appeal of nothing special." The experiences travelers have in between the checklist items are what they truly value long after returning home.

From a practical perspective, Tokyo is also easy to walk through. Sidewalks are broad, clean, and plentiful, and an abundance of vending machines means you won't go thirsty. There are promenades running along the Sumida and Tama Rivers, and shaded walking streets, called shotengai, in popular areas like Asakusa and Nakano. Walking is also a great way to discover some of Tokyo's most underrated neighborhoods, and it's perfect for tourists in Japan on a budget. And while there might be a lot of rainfall in Tokyo compared to other walkable cities — an average of nearly 5 inches per month — this is negated by the cheap umbrellas and plastic ponchos available at every convenience store.