The train
The Meitetsu line runs from inside the terminal to Nagoya Station in 28 minutes on the μSKY express, 37 on the ordinary limited express. Buy the ticket at the machine or tap through with any Japanese IC card; μSKY reserved seats cost a small supplement and are worth it with luggage.
Trains run roughly every fifteen minutes until around 11pm. There is no need to book anything in advance — this is a commuter line that happens to serve an airport.
Money and data, in the first ten minutes
Two machines between the arrivals gate and the station solve the whole trip. The ATM row takes foreign cards, and the ticket machines sell manaca — the local IC card that works on every train, subway and bus in this guide, and in the rest of Japan besides. Charge it with ¥3,000 and stop thinking about fares.
If you did not arrange an eSIM before flying, the terminal has counters and vending machines for travel SIMs; buying data before you leave home is cheaper.
Eat before you leave the airport
The airport’s fourth floor has a replica Edo street with several Nagoya speciality shops — miso katsu, kishimen, eel, and a famous coffee chain doing the morning set. It is a tourist construction, but the food is real and the shops are branches of real houses.
It is also open when everything else is closed: this is the one place in the region where you can eat kishimen at seven in the morning before an early flight home, which is why the three-days guide ends here too.
Tokoname, ten minutes away
One stop from the airport is Tokoname, a pottery town with a walking path lined with kiln chimneys, cafés in old workshops, and an unhurried harbour-town feel. The Japanese word for ceramics comes from kilns like these.
If your flight lands at noon and the hotel check-in is at three, this is a far better use of the gap than the terminal. Lockers at the station take the luggage.
If you land late
After nine at night the airport restaurants thin out and the city is the better bet. The station buildings above Nagoya Station keep restaurant floors open to ten or eleven, and the wing houses and taverns around Meieki serve until midnight. A late arrival is, honestly, a good excuse for the tebasaki dinner.
Luggage
Coin lockers at Nagoya Station fill by mid-morning, and hunting for a free one with bags in tow is a bad start to a day. The station’s staffed luggage room is more reliable, and hotels will hold bags before check-in as a matter of course — just walk in and ask.