Kaifeng is close enough to Zhengzhou that it works as a day trip, but the connection changed recently and older advice sends you to the wrong station.
The line as it is now#
The Zhengzhou–Kaifeng intercity railway (郑开城际铁路) runs 57.14 km with a design speed of 200 km/h. The full line opened on 15 March 2025, and the change that matters to a visitor is the eastern end: trains now terminate at Kaifeng station (开封站), in the city, instead of at the suburban Songchenglu stop the line previously used.
If a guidebook or blog post tells you to get off at Songchenglu (宋城路) and take a bus or taxi onward, it predates the extension. You do not need to.
Where to catch it#
Most services start from Zhengzhou East (郑州东站), which is the high-speed station in Zhengdong New District and an interchange for metro Lines 1, 5 and 8. If you are arriving in Zhengzhou by high-speed rail from Beijing, Xi'an or Shanghai, you are already there — this is a same-station change rather than a cross-city one.
Fastest journey time from Zhengzhou East is about twenty-five minutes. Services that stop at the intermediate towns take longer.
Planning the day#
Kaifeng has no metro. Daxiangguo Temple is central enough to walk to; the Iron Pagoda, Longting Park, Kaifeng Prefecture and Millennium City Park are short taxi or bus rides. The city is small enough that this is not a burden.
One full day covers the sights, which is what makes the trip work — all five fit into a day without rushing. Stay a night if you want the night market, which is the part people remember, and doing it properly means not watching the clock for the last train back.
Check the last departure when you arrive, not when you leave. Intercity services thin out in the evening, and a night market that gets going at nine is not compatible with a last train at ten.
Whether to base yourself in Zhengzhou or Kaifeng#
Zhengzhou is the transport hub and has the range of hotels, so most people sleep there and come out for the day. That is a reasonable default. But Kaifeng is the more interesting place to be after dark, and the rail link is good enough that basing yourself in Kaifeng and commuting into Zhengzhou for onward trains costs you almost nothing.
Kaifeng also pairs naturally with Luoyang — the Longmen Grottoes and the Shaolin Temple are on the other side of Zhengzhou — which turns Henan into a three- or four-day block rather than a stopover between Xi'an and the east coast.
For what to see in the city and how the Northern Song capital fits into Chinese history, see the Kaifeng travel guide; for booking Chinese rail tickets as a foreign passport holder, the guide to transport in China.