How many days do you need in China?

So the useful question is not how many days you have. It is how many hotel changes those days can absorb.

The number that matters is not days, it is moves

Above one hotel change every two and a half days, a China trip starts to feel like work. That single ratio explains most of what follows, and it is the rule we build to.

A move in China is not a taxi across town. It is packing, a station transfer, a security check, a four hour train, another transfer and a check-in, and it eats the middle of a day even when the train itself is brilliant. Three cities in ten days is comfortable. Five cities in ten days is a train holiday with sightseeing attached.

The corollary is that adding days does not simply add places. Adding days lets you add depth to places you were already visiting, which is almost always the better trade.

Seven or eight days

One region, no more. This is a business trip with a weekend on the end, or a stopover, and it works if you treat it as such.

The two versions that work:

• Beijing and the wall. Four days in Beijing done properly, plus a day trip and a rest day. This is a genuinely good short trip and most people underestimate it.
• Shanghai and Jiangnan. Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, all within ninety minutes of each other by rail, with one hotel change. Gardens, canals, tea hills and the best food in eastern China.

What does not work at this length is Beijing plus Xi’an plus Shanghai. It is physically possible and we build it when someone insists, and it means three hotel changes and two long rail legs inside a week.

Ten to twelve days

The first length at which China feels like a country rather than a city break. Two or three bases, one long rail leg, one internal flight at most.

Ten days: Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai, with three full days in Beijing and two in Xi’an. Twelve days: the same with Guilin and the karst country added, which is the version we prefer and the one set out in classic China in 12 days. Three days of green after six days of concrete changes the shape of the holiday more than any other single decision at this length.

Alternatively, twelve days entirely in the southwest: Chengdu, the pandas and the Sichuan food culture, then Yunnan for Dali, Shaxi and Lijiang. Fewer famous sights, better trip, and we say so.

Fourteen days, and the route we would build

Fourteen is our recommended length and it is where China opens up. Here is the route we build most often, with the reasoning.

Beijing, four nights. Three full days is the minimum: the Forbidden City at opening, a full day at a quiet section of the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven park at dawn and a hutong morning on foot. The fourth night buys you the Summer Palace or 798 without cutting anything. See Beijing in four days.

Xi’an, two nights. Reached in about four and a half hours by rail. The Terracotta Army with a guide who can explain what you are looking at, the city walls by bicycle, and the Muslim Quarter in the evening, which is the best street eating in northern China.

Chengdu, three nights. Three to four hours by rail from Xi’an through the Qinling tunnels. Pandas at opening time when they are actually awake, a teahouse afternoon in People’s Park, a cooking session, and a day out to the Leshan Giant Buddha if you want it. Chengdu is where a China trip relaxes.

Yangshuo, three nights. A short flight south into the karst country. A private raft on the Yulong at first light, a flat day cycling the lanes between the hills, and the Longji terraces if you have the legs for the steps.

Shanghai, two nights. Rail or a flight east. The former concession streets, the Bund at both ends of the day, and a water town on the way out if your flight is late.

That is four moves in fourteen days, one flight, three rail legs and four afternoons with nothing scheduled in them. It is not the shortest possible version of China and that is the point.

The first alternative, and it is a strong one. If you have travelled in Asia before, we would rather send you on the fourteen days that skip the standard circuit altogether: Xi’an, then the Gansu corridor to Dunhuang for the Mogao caves, Turpan and Kashgar. It is set out in China’s Silk Road in 14 days, and the only caution is that Xinjiang travel involves checkpoints, longer journeys than the map suggests, and access that can change at short notice. We confirm the current position before we build it.

The second alternative. Fourteen days in Yunnan, walking. The gorge, the old towns and the tea mountains. Quieter, stranger and, for a second visit to China, better than anything on the classic route.

Eighteen to twenty-one days

Three weeks is where China stops being a series of highlights.

The version we build most often runs Beijing, Pingyao, Xi’an, the Yangtze gorges by river ship, Chengdu and then Yunnan, which is ten hotel changes and needs a traveller who enjoys movement. The gentler version keeps the same first ten days and then stays put in the southwest, adding walking days rather than cities.

Three weeks is also the only length at which we would recommend adding Tibet, which is a separate planning exercise with its own permits, requires a licensed operator and can close to foreign visitors at short notice.

The cut-offs, stated plainly

• Under seven days: one city and its surroundings. Do not add a second.
• Under ten days: two bases, one long rail leg. Beijing and Shanghai, or Beijing and Xi’an.
• Under fourteen days: you can have the classic circuit or the southwest, not both.
• Over eighteen days: you can genuinely combine two Chinas, the famous one and a quiet one.
• Any length: three nights minimum anywhere you actually want to understand rather than photograph.

The season shortens some trips and lengthens others

A winter trip to the north needs slack in it, because air quality and cold both argue for flexible days and indoor alternatives. A summer trip needs early starts and long lunches, which effectively costs you an hour or two a day. A trip in the first week of May or October needs an extra day for the crowds at every headline site, or, better, different sites. That calendar is in China month by month.

What we would do with your dates

Tell us the number of days you actually have, including the two you will lose to flying, and we will tell you plainly which China fits. If the answer is that your fourteen days will not carry the itinerary you have in mind, we say so at the outline stage rather than after you have paid for it. That is usually the most useful thing in the first email.

China runs through long-standing partner teams in Beijing, Chengdu and Kunming, because our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Those teams are also who we ask when a question about a road or a permit needs answering this week rather than in general.

Plan this trip

Tell us how many days you have and we will tell you which China they buy, then build the outline around it. Free, and with no obligation.

Start planning

Keep reading

• China: the complete guide to planning your trip
• What two weeks in China really costs
• Beijing in four days
• What we would skip in China
• China’s Silk Road in 14 days
• All our China trips

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