7 days
Seven days in China means choosing. The temptation is Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai and maybe Chengdu; the reality is that four cities in a week…
Ready-made China itineraries
Each itinerary below is built around real high-speed rail times, realistic opening hours and a sane pace. Take one as written, or use it as a skeleton and swap in the cities you care about.
Most popular
10 days
Hangzhou is under an hour from Shanghai if you want to stretch the last leg. The Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai triangle is the standard first…
Best all-round
14 days
Fourteen days is the sweet spot for a first China trip. It absorbs a rainy day and a slow morning without wrecking the plan, and it adds…
21 days
Three weeks is where a China trip becomes a proper journey rather than a highlights reel. The route below keeps the classic four cities and…
Silk Road route
The Silk Road was never one road. It was a shifting network of routes carrying silk east to west and Buddhism, Islam, glass, horses and…
Southern landscapes
This route skips Beijing and Xi'an entirely. It is for a second China trip, or for a first trip by someone whose interest is scenery rather…
Slow east
The 21-day itinerary mentions this route twice — once as "slow east", once in answer to what a second China trip should look like — and…
240-hour transit
This site's other itineraries treat the 240-hour scheme as a problem. The 21-day route notes that it "exceeds the 240-hour transit…
Yunnan, 10 days
The trip-length guide offers "a full ten days in Yunnan" as the alternative ten-day trip, then lists "a full Yunnan loop — Kunming, Dali,…