Classic China in 12 days: Beijing, Xi’an, Guilin and Shanghai

Our version adds a fourth stop, and it is the one that turns a city trip into a country trip. Guilin and the Li River give you the landscape that every Chinese painting has been about for a thousand years, and three days of green after six days of concrete change the shape of the holiday.

Twelve days, four hotel changes, one internal flight, four rail legs and three afternoons with nothing scheduled.

Who it suits: first-time visitors to China, couples, and travellers who want the famous things done well rather than a longer list done badly.

Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Beijing partner team on the ground.

A note on who is on the ground. Our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. China is not one of them. We run this route through Chinese partner teams we have worked with for years, and we would rather name them than imply an office we do not have.

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive Beijing. Private transfer from the airport, forty minutes to an hour and a half depending on which airport and what the ring roads are doing. Nothing scheduled. Your consultant and our Beijing team confirm your payment app is working on your phone before you leave the hotel for the first time, because that is the day it matters.

Dinner near the hotel. We put you inside the second ring road, within walking distance of a hutong lane, rather than in the business district.

Day 2: Beijing, the imperial city. Tiananmen and the Forbidden City with a guide, entering as it opens. The palace is 180 acres and the difference between a guided two and a half hours and an unguided four hours is enormous.

Afternoon free, or Jingshan Hill behind the palace for the view back over the roofs, which is the photograph that explains the layout.

Day 3: The Great Wall. The whole day, with a car and guide. We do not use Badaling, which is the closest, the most restored and the most crowded. We use Mutianyu or Jinshanling depending on your dates and your legs: Mutianyu for a restored, walkable, cable-car-served section with real views, Jinshanling for an unrestored ridge walk of two to three hours with almost nobody on it.

Back in the city by late afternoon. Evening at a Peking duck house that our team books, not the one on the tourist list.

Day 4: Beijing, hutongs and the Temple of Heaven. Early morning at the Temple of Heaven park, when the city is in it: tai chi, ballroom dancing, calligraphy on the paving with water brushes, and the retired men with their birds. It is the best hour in Beijing and it is over by nine.

Then a hutong morning on foot around the Drum Tower and Houhai. Afternoon free. Evening train or a quiet night before the early departure.

Day 5: Beijing to Xi’an by high-speed rail. About 700 miles (1,130 km), from roughly four and a half hours, first class. Afternoon in Xi’an: the city walls, which are the most complete in China at nearly nine miles (14 km) around, on a rented bicycle for an hour and a half.

Evening in the Muslim Quarter, which is the best street eating in northern China: lamb skewers, roujiamo, biang biang noodles, persimmon cakes.

Day 6: The Terracotta Army. Out to Lintong in the morning with a guide who can tell you why the pits are numbered the way they are, what the bronze chariots in the museum actually are, and why the site is far from finished. Two and a half to three hours inside.

Afternoon back in the city: the Shaanxi History Museum, or the Great Mosque in the Muslim Quarter, which is a Chinese courtyard temple that happens to be a mosque and is one of the more surprising buildings in the country.

Day 7: Xi’an to Guilin. A short flight, about two and a half hours, and the change of climate is abrupt. Transfer to Yangshuo, about an hour and a quarter, and the karst hills start about twenty minutes out of the airport.

We stay in Yangshuo county rather than Guilin city, and outside the town centre rather than on West Street. Nothing scheduled on arrival.

Day 8: The Li River and the back roads. The classic river run between Guilin and Yangshuo, which we do as a private bamboo raft on the quieter Yulong tributary in the early morning rather than as a four-hour boat with three hundred other people at midday.

Afternoon cycling the lanes between the hills, through the villages and the pomelo orchards. Flat, easy and the best afternoon on this itinerary.

Day 9: Longji or a day off. Two versions. The Longji rice terraces at Ping’an and Dazhai are about two and a half hours north and are genuinely spectacular, and they are a long day with a lot of steps. Or a slow day in Yangshuo: a cooking class, the caves, a hot air balloon at dawn if the weather cooperates.

We ask you which one you are, and we do not pretend the terraces are an easy half day.

Day 10: Guilin to Shanghai. High-speed rail via Guangzhou, or a direct flight, depending on your dates. Afternoon on the Bund and in the former French Concession, which is where Shanghai is actually pleasant to walk.

Day 11: Shanghai. Morning at the Yu Garden and the old town, or the Power Station of Art and the West Bund galleries if that is more your thing. Afternoon in the concession streets: plane trees, lane houses, coffee, and the best independent shopping in China.

Evening on the water. The Huangpu at dusk from the Pudong side is the view that sells the city.

Day 12: Departure. Or a half day in Zhujiajiao water town, an hour out, before an evening flight.

What is included

Accommodation with breakfast throughout, all rail legs in first class with reserved seats, the internal flight, private air-conditioned cars with English-speaking drivers on transfer and excursion days, licensed local guides on five days, Great Wall entry and cable car, Terracotta Army entry, the Forbidden City, a private Yulong River raft, bicycle hire in Xi’an and Yangshuo, a VPN and payment apps set up and tested before departure, a day-by-day document with train numbers and seat classes, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our partner teams for the whole trip, with WeChat alongside it as a local fallback.

What we would change, and when

• Travelling in the first week of May or October? These are the two national holiday weeks and the volumes are extraordinary. We would move your dates. If we cannot, we reverse the route to hit Beijing at the back end and we swap the headline sites for their quieter equivalents.
• Winter dates? Air quality in Beijing and Xi’an is least reliable from November to March. We keep the northern days flexible, build indoor alternatives, and weight more of the trip toward Guilin and Shanghai.
• Ten days rather than twelve? Cut Guilin, not a Beijing night. Beijing needs three full days and Xi’an needs two.
• Done Asia before? Then honestly, this may not be the trip for you. Look at Southwest China in 14 days or Trekking Yunnan instead.

Honest notes

The payment problem is the real one, not the language. Get Alipay or WeChat Pay working with an international card before you fly. We send you a walkthrough and our team checks it on your first morning, and the travellers who ignore this spend day one solving it instead of seeing Beijing.

WhatsApp is blocked on a local Chinese connection, so we set up and test a VPN on your phone before you leave home. Your usual apps then work normally and your travel group runs on WhatsApp as it does anywhere else, with a WeChat group alongside it as a fallback.

Beijing in July and August is hot, around 90F (32C), and humid, and the Forbidden City has almost no shade. If your dates are fixed to summer we start every day at opening time and put the middle of the day indoors.

The Great Wall is the day people remember, and which section you visit changes it completely. We will tell you which one we have chosen and why, and if you want the ridge walk rather than the cable car, say so early.

Built by Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, and checked with our partner teams in China before it goes out.

Related

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