[Sangetsu]

There is a book you can usually find at larger book stores which lists 200 of the most commonly used kanji. These kanji are the ones you'll most likely see when shopping or traveling, and determining dates and times. If you are just traveling to Japan for a short time, I recommend getting this type of book.

On the other hand, if you are studying Japanese seriously, you are better off with more intensive books, which introduce kanji in a similar way to how it is taught to Japanese children. The first kanji taught are the most common types with the fewest number of strokes. Later on you learn to make compound-type kanji, which made up of combinations of simple characters. Learning the simple characters (or radicals) makes putting together the more complicated kanji much easier.