This is one of the busiest short-haul rail corridors in the world, and it is about as easy as intercity travel gets.
The train#
Services run from Shanghai Hongqiao to Hangzhou East in 45 to 60 minutes, with departures throughout the day. Frequency is high enough that booking a specific train matters less than it does on longer routes, though holiday periods are the exception.
Book through 12306, which has an English mode and accepts foreign passports, or through Trip.com for a small fee and a friendlier interface. The ticket is electronic and your passport is the ticket — you scan the document itself at the gate.
Arrive about 40 minutes early. Hongqiao is airport-scale, with security screening and gates that close three to five minutes before departure and do not reopen.
Day trip or overnight#
It works as a day trip, and plenty of people do it that way. West Lake is walkable from Hangzhou East by metro, and a full day gives you the northern shore, a boat to the island and the Lingyin Temple.
But the lake is best at dawn, before the coach groups and in the mist that gives the classical views their point — and that is only available to people who slept there. If the itinerary can absorb a night, it is the better version.
Two nights lets you add the Longjing tea villages on the hills west of the lake, and Xixi wetlands if the lake feels crowded.
Which station, and where it puts you#
Hangzhou East (杭州东站) is the main high-speed station and the one almost all Hongqiao services use. It connects to the metro, which reaches the lake in about twenty minutes.
At the Shanghai end, note that Hongqiao is both the railway station and an airport, sharing a site — convenient if you are flying out, and a reason to schedule this trip around your departure day if the timing suits.
The alternative worth knowing#
Suzhou sits on the same network in the other direction, 25 to 30 minutes from Hongqiao, and is the other classic day trip from Shanghai. If you have one spare day rather than two, the choice is between Suzhou's classical gardens and Hangzhou's lake — Suzhou is closer and more compact, Hangzhou is larger and rewards the overnight more.
Doing both from Shanghai in a single day is possible on paper and not worth it in practice.
For West Lake, the tea villages and how long the city really needs, see the Hangzhou guide; for the Shanghai end and its other day trips, the Shanghai travel guide.