China in 7 days: Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai by train

Six nights, three hotels and two trains

Book two nights in Beijing, two in Xi’an and two in Shanghai, flying into Beijing and home from Shanghai. Day 1 is arrival, days 3 and 5 are train days and day 7 is the flight home, which leaves three full days for sights: the Great Wall at Mutianyu, the Terracotta Army and Shanghai’s old centre. The Forbidden City fills the morning of day 3 before the train, and the Xi’an City Wall the end of day 4. The order follows the railway, from Beijing West to Xi’an North and then from Xi’an North to Shanghai Hongqiao, so you never double back. The Forbidden City and Yu Garden both close on Mondays except statutory holidays, so do not start the week on a Saturday (day 3 would be a Monday) or a Wednesday (day 6 would be).

Stay at the Renaissance Beijing Capital Hotel at 61 Dongsanhuan Middle Road, above Shuangjing station on Metro Line 10; the Renaissance Xi’an Hotel at 355 Huixin Road in Qujiang, near TV Tower station on metro lines 2 and 8; and the Courtyard by Marriott Shanghai Central at 338 Heng Feng Road, a few minutes from Hanzhong Road station. All three are mid-range international chain hotels, and the day plans below start from them.

Book in the order the sales open. Book the Terracotta Army’s real-name ticket as soon as your dates are fixed, and Mutianyu when its real-name sales open 30 days ahead. Book both trains as soon as 12306 opens sales for your dates. The Forbidden City opens last; day 3 below gives the times.

Days 1–2: Beijing’s hutongs and the Great Wall at Mutianyu

Day 1: arrive in Beijing. From Capital Airport (PEK) the Capital Airport Express runs from Terminals 2 and 3 to Sanyuanqiao and Dongzhimen for CNY 25 a person one way, about every 10 minutes; the first and last trains are 06:22 and 22:52 from T3 and 06:36 and 23:10 from T2. Get off at Sanyuanqiao and change to line 10 for Shuangjing, the station under the hotel. From Daxing (PKX) the Daxing Airport Express runs to Caoqiao from 06:00 to 23:00, and the ordinary fare for the full run is about CNY 35; at Caoqiao change to line 10, which also stops at Shuangjing. Check in, then spend the evening in the hutongs around Nanluoguxiang, the old lanes of courtyard houses in the centre of the city, and eat there.

Day 2: Mutianyu. Mutianyu is a restored stretch of the Great Wall in Huairou District, 70 km from the centre of Beijing: a line of watchtowers on forested ridges that is quieter and greener than Badaling; our Great Wall guide compares the sections. The official tourist bus leaves the Qianmen Transportation Hub between 07:00 and 11:00 and costs CNY 80 a person return, sold on the bus from 30 minutes before departure until it is full. For one of the first buses, take a taxi from the hotel to the Qianmen hub. Return buses leave car park P4 between 13:00 and 16:00, so take an early departure and keep the middle of the day for the wall.

Tickets are real-name, sold on the Mutianyu website or its official WeChat account up to 30 days ahead, one per passport per day, and you pass the gate by showing your passport. Admission is CNY 45. In the main season, 16 March to 15 November, the wall opens at 07:30 and closes at 18:00 on weekdays and 18:30 at weekends; from 16 November to 15 March it opens at 08:00 and closes at 17:30. Ticket sales stop one hour before closing and entry half an hour before.

The shuttle bus from the entrance (CNY 15 a person) and the cable car (CNY 140 return, CNY 100 one way) are sold separately from the wall ticket. For an easy visit, ride the cable car from the North Gate to the tower 14 viewing platform and walk on to tower 15. For a longer walk, climb the path to tower 10 and walk along the wall; towers 1 to 20 are open by day, but while the repair between towers 16 and 17 lasts (since 26 May 2026; the inside of tower 16 stays open), turn at tower 16 and walk back to tower 14 for the cable car. Be back at car park P4 for the bus, then have dinner near Qianmen.

Days 3–4: the Forbidden City, Xi’an and the Terracotta Army

Day 3: the Forbidden City, then the train to Xi’an. The Forbidden City was the palace of the Ming and Qing emperors, and its halls and courtyards cover 1.12 million square metres; it has been the Palace Museum since 1925. You walk north through the great halls of the outer court, led by the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest hall in the palace: completed in 1420 and in its present form since a rebuilding in 1695, it stands 35 metres high with its three-tier white marble base. Ming and Qing emperors were enthroned and held court there. The Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace do not fit this week; our Beijing guide covers them.

Book a morning ticket. The palace sells no tickets on the day; they open seven days ahead at 20:00 China time, you book with your passport, and a morning ticket must be checked in by 12:00 at the Meridian Gate, the only entrance, with the original passport you booked with. Admission is CNY 60 from April to October and CNY 40 from November, and the Treasure Gallery and the Clocks Gallery are CNY 10 each; the Hall of Martial Valour (Wuying Hall) has been closed since 19 October 2026 for conservation and exhibition works. From Shuangjing, take line 10 to Guomao and line 1 to Tiananmen East, or a taxi if your cases are heavy; the path from Tiananmen through Duanmen to the Meridian Gate opens at 08:00. Tiananmen Square, across Chang’an Avenue from the gate, needs its own real-name reservation one to seven days ahead, in the Tiananmen Square Reservation mini-programme inside Weixin (WeChat); its web portal does not accept non-Chinese phone numbers. Come at the 08:30 opening with your luggage: suitcases and bags of 20 inches or more go into the visitor service centre on the west side of Duanmen Square, before the Meridian Gate, and you collect them outside the exit, Shenwumen in the north or Donghuamen in the east. Cash, watches, laptops and other valuables and electronics are not accepted.

Then take an afternoon train from Beijing West to Xi’an North. Leave the palace by Shenwumen or Donghuamen by about 11:15, collect your bags at the exit and take a taxi to the station. Beijing West is about 7 km south-west of the palace in a straight line, so allow 30 to 45 minutes in midday traffic; with about an hour at the station, that suits a train from 13:15. The 12306 timetable, checked on 25 October 2026 for an early-November weekday, lists 17 direct high-speed trains from Beijing West between 07:00 and 19:00, taking 4 hours 10 minutes to just under 6 hours; the five leaving between 13:15 and 15:05 reach Xi’an North between 18:30 and 19:44. Xi’an North is the high-speed station, not the old Xi’an station, and metro line 2 runs from it to TV Tower, near the hotel. Our Xi’an guide covers the Bell and Drum Towers and the Shaanxi History Museum, which this week has no room for.

Day 4: the Terracotta Army. Give the morning and early afternoon to Lintong, east of the city, where the Terracotta Army belongs to the museum of the First Emperor’s Mausoleum. Farmers digging a well in March 1974 found the first pit. Start with Pit 1, the great one: 14,260 square metres under one roof, with about 6,000 clay soldiers and horses standing in long earth-walled trenches, of which more than 500 figures and 24 horses have been cleared. Pit 2 holds crossbowmen, cavalry and chariots, and Pit 3, the only pit that was not burned, kept the most original paint. A free shuttle then takes you to Lishan Garden, on the mausoleum grounds, which shows two half-size bronze chariots found in 1980 beside the burial mound.

The museum’s ticket costs CNY 120 all year and covers both sites, which the museum says take about 1.5 hours each. Everyone, foreign visitors included, must reserve a real-name ticket on the museum’s website or one of its two WeChat accounts. You choose an entry time slot when you book, should be at the gate half an hour before it, and show your passport there. Electric carts inside the sites cost CNY 5 a person at Pit 1 and CNY 15 at the garden. From 16 March to 15 November tickets are checked from 08:30 to 17:00 and the museum closes at 18:30; from 16 November to 15 March they are checked from 08:30 to 16:30 and it closes at 18:00.

Huaqing Palace, the museum’s neighbour in Lintong, lies 30 kilometres east of the city and about 40 minutes from downtown by expressway, and the museum is a 15-minute drive further on. By public transport, take metro line 2 from TV Tower to Beidajie, line 1 to Fangzhicheng and line 9 to Huaqingchi, then the Lintong You 613 or Lintong 602 bus, the museum’s own route. Plan about 1 hour 30 minutes each way. A car with a driver who waits costs about CNY 500 a vehicle for the return trip and takes about an hour each way. Book an early slot: with about three hours at the two sites and the ride back, an 08:30 entry has you in the city by mid-afternoon.

Back in the city by mid-afternoon, climb the City Wall. It runs for 13.74 kilometres around the old city, and the city government calls it the largest and best-preserved ancient city wall in China, with a history of some 1,400 years. You go up at one of the gates and walk along the broad top, with the old city on one side and the modern city on the other. The full ticket is CNY 54, a government-set price. Go up in daylight, while the view over the old city is clear. Then have dinner in the Muslim Quarter. On the way back to the hotel, look at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Yanta district, in the south of the city: the monk Xuanzang began it in 652 in the courtyard of Ci’en Temple to keep the Buddhist scriptures he had brought from India, and it now stands seven storeys and 64.7 metres high. The temple closes at 18:00, so this is a look from outside.

Days 5–7: Shanghai, then home

Day 5: train to Shanghai. Book the G92, which leaves Xi’an North at 08:51 and reaches Shanghai Hongqiao at 14:43. At 5 hours 52 minutes it is the fastest morning train in the same timetable, and it leaves the afternoon and evening free; the other morning trains take over 7 hours, and later departures arrive between about 18:00 and midnight. Line 2 runs from TV Tower, near the hotel, to Xi’an North without a change, but the ride crosses the whole city from south to north; with about 60 minutes at the station, leave the hotel about two hours before the train, at about 06:50. If the G92 is sold out, a domestic flight from Xi’an Xianyang to Shanghai is the alternative; book it on the airline’s own site or app and allow for the airport rides at both ends. Hongqiao is a metro hub on lines 2 and 17, so you can reach the centre without a taxi. In the evening, take a short ride to the Bund, the financial centre of old Shanghai, whose Baroque, Gothic and Ancient Greek-style buildings the city government calls an exhibition of world architecture. Stay after dark, when the façades are lit and the Pudong towers shine across the river.

Day 6: Yu Garden and Wukang Road. Yu Garden is a walled garden of ponds, pavilions and rockeries in the old city, surrounded by a free-to-walk bazaar. It is open 09:00 to 16:30 with the last entry at 16:00. The adult ticket is CNY 40 from 1 April to 30 June and 1 September to 30 November, and CNY 30 from 1 July to 31 August and 1 December to 31 March; buy at the windows or in the garden’s mini-programme. Allow one to two hours. In the afternoon, take the metro or a taxi to Wukang Road in Xuhui, a block of historic houses, cafés and shops. Wukang Mansion rises like the bow of a ship where Wukang Road meets Middle Huaihai Road, and the same streets hold the former residences of Soong Ching Ling and Ba Jin. It is a walk, not a ticketed sight. Our Shanghai guide lists museums and towers if you want one.

Day 7: fly home. International flights leave from Pudong (PVG). From the hotel, take the metro to People’s Square and change to line 2, which runs from there to Pudong Terminal 1&2 station in about an hour for about CNY 7; a taxi from the centre costs around CNY 180 a vehicle and takes about 50 minutes, depending on traffic. The maglev runs only between Longyang Road, on line 2, and the airport. On top of the ride, allow the check-in time your airline gives for an international flight.

Trains, airports and paying your way

Book both trains on the 12306 website or app, or at a station counter; the railway does not handle problems with other sites. The English site accepts valid foreign passports only, the name on the booking must match the passport, and you take the original passport to the station. Tickets go on sale up to 15 days ahead, counting the day you buy, and online sales run until 30 minutes before departure, from 05:00 to 01:00 the next day (Tuesdays 05:00 to 23:30). If 12306 asks you to verify your passport, take it to a station ticket counter before the travel day. Use the exact station names: Beijing West, not Beijing South, and Xi’an North, not the old Xi’an station. Allow about 60 minutes at a large, unfamiliar station for security, the passport check and queues.

Second class is usually 3+2 seating (seats A, B, C, D and F) and first class 2+2 (A, C, D and F). Our transport guide covers flights, other corridors and the airports in full.

Set up Alipay and Weixin Pay (also called WeChat Pay) before you leave, test both with a small payment and keep a second card and some renminbi, because shops must generally accept cash. Our payments and apps guide has the set-up, the fees and the SIM options. A 15-day data SIM costs about CNY 150 a person, an estimate based on China Telecom’s published 15-day visitor card at CNY 125.

Entry, passport and safety

Ordinary-passport holders from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom can enter without a visa for tourism, business, visiting family or friends, exchange or transit, for up to 30 days counted from the day after entry. The waiver is published until 31 December 2026, and no extension into 2027 has been announced, so a 2027 trip needs a published extension or a visa. If your dates cross the end date, check with the National Immigration Administration or a Chinese embassy first. US and Czech passports are not on this visa-free list.

A flight home from Pudong to the country you started from is not transit under the 240-hour rule, so on this route US and Czech travellers need a visa unless their flight from Shanghai goes on to a third country or region. Our entry guide has the transit rules in full.

China’s own waiver FAQ asks for a passport valid for your intended stay, the British government advises six months from arrival with two blank pages, and the French government advises six months after you leave China. Plan for six months after departure and two blank pages. You can fill in the arrival card online before you travel, on the National Immigration Administration’s website, its app or the WeChat or Alipay mini-programme, or by QR code or on paper at the border; the card is free, so beware of sites that charge.

Carry your passport at all times; police make random checks and do not accept printed copies. Avoid demonstrations, large gatherings and any political or activist activity; the French government warns of prison, expulsion and a ban on returning. French advice says that in Beijing, unregistered drones may not be used, carried or stored, and every flight of a registered drone needs prior permission. The British government warns of a risk of arbitrary detention, and British and German advice both warn that exit bans can affect visitors, and the British government says they can last months or years. German advice is to refrain from using VPN services, so plan on limited access to some overseas apps and keep offline maps and notes. Air pollution in big cities is often high to very high, especially in winter, so check live readings before the Wall day. Check your own government’s current travel advice before you book.

Meals along the route

Every dinner on this route is a local dish rather than a hotel meal: roast duck near Qianmen after the Wall, lamb soup in the Muslim Quarter after the Terracotta Army, and soup dumplings and pan-fried buns in Shanghai. Tell restaurants about allergies when you order.

What seven days in China cost, all in

About CNY 7,030 a person, CNY 14,070 for two, at mid-range, for seven days and six nights on the ground. Rooms, every meal, both trains, airport and local rides, the sights above, two SIMs and a 10% buffer are all in.

These figures are for two adults sharing one private double for six nights, in an ordinary autumn week outside the national holidays, with prices checked on 25 October 2026, and they assume visa-free entry. Rooms are about CNY 850, 600 and 1,000 a night, close to what the three hotels above listed for a late-November night (about 920, 570 and 1,000). The local rides are based on typical metro and taxi fares. Second-class seats cost about CNY 600 and 750 a person for the two trains, towards the top of the CNY 494 to 618 (Beijing West to Xi’an North) and CNY 652 to 782.5 (Xi’an North to Shanghai Hongqiao) in the same 12306 timetable; first class is CNY 790 to 988 and CNY 1,039 to 1,259.

For two at mid-range: rooms CNY 4,900 (two nights in each city at the rates above); food CNY 2,520 (CNY 180 a person a day: breakfast 30, lunch 60, dinner 70, water and snacks 20); getting around CNY 4,040 (second-class trains 2,700; airport links about 250; four station rides about 240; city rides, the metro and bus to Lintong included, about 690; and the Mutianyu bus 160); sights and tours CNY 1,030; SIMs about CNY 300; and a 10% buffer of CNY 1,280.

For two at budget level: rooms CNY 3,100 (CNY 600, 350 and 600 a night); food CNY 1,400 (CNY 100 a person a day: breakfast 15, lunch 30, dinner 40, water and snacks 15); getting around CNY 3,500 (second-class trains 2,700; airport, station and city rides, the metro and bus to Lintong included, about 640; and the Mutianyu bus 160); sights and tours CNY 1,030; SIMs about CNY 300; and a 10% buffer of CNY 930.

For two at comfort level: rooms CNY 8,200 (CNY 1,300, 1,100 and 1,700 a night); food CNY 4,900 (CNY 350 a person a day: breakfast 60, lunch 110, dinner 140, water and snacks 40); getting around CNY 6,840 (first-class trains 4,300; airport, station and city rides about 1,940; and a private car and driver to Mutianyu, about 600 for the two of you); sights and tours CNY 1,030; SIMs about CNY 300; and a 10% buffer of CNY 2,130.

Sights for two are CNY 160 for the Forbidden City with both galleries at the April to October price (CNY 120 from November), CNY 400 for Mutianyu (CNY 45 admission, CNY 15 for the shuttle and CNY 140 for the cable-car return, each a person), CNY 280 for the Terracotta Army with carts, CNY 108 for the City Wall and CNY 80 for Yu Garden, which adds up to about CNY 1,030.

Flights: a London return to Beijing, flying home from Shanghai, costs about GBP 650 to 850 a person (GBP 1,300 to 1,700 for two). That is an estimate, not a quote for the two-city ticket. With it the week comes to about GBP 1,220 to 1,420 a person at budget, GBP 1,430 to 1,630 at mid-range and GBP 1,950 to 2,150 at comfort (GBP 2,440 to 2,840, GBP 2,870 to 3,270 and GBP 3,910 to 4,310 for two). Conversions use the central parity rate of 23 October 2026 published by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE): USD 1 = CNY 6.7180, EUR 1 = CNY 7.5140 and GBP 1 = CNY 8.9749; your bank or card will give a different rate.