10-Day China Itinerary for First-Time Visitors
Ten days buys you one more city than the classic route — and which city you add changes the trip more than anything else you decide. Three versions, with the rail legs and booking deadlines.
The honest way to think about ten days in China is that you have eight working days and one intercity move roughly every third morning.
That is enough for four cities if you are disciplined, three if you want to enjoy them. It is not enough for the loop that most people sketch on a first attempt, which usually reads Beijing–Xi'an–Chengdu–Guilin–Shanghai and involves five hotel check-ins, four transport days and no time to sit down.
So the real decision is not "what can I fit." It is "which fourth city." Ten days is the seven-day Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai route plus one addition, and the addition defines the trip.
The three versions
Version A — Chengdu. Beijing 3, Xi'an 2, Chengdu 3, Shanghai 2. Adds pandas, Sichuan food, and a city that runs at half the pace of the other three. The best default.
Version B — Guilin and Yangshuo. Beijing 3, Xi'an 2, Guilin/Yangshuo 3, Shanghai 2. Adds landscape. Higher risk: weather can flatten the reason you went.
Version C — slow. Beijing 4, Xi'an 2, Shanghai 4, with a day trip to Suzhou or Hangzhou. No fourth city. Fewest transfers, most actual looking at things.
Version A is what the rest of this guide covers in detail, with notes on B and C where they diverge.
Version A, day by day
| Days | Where | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Beijing | Arrive |
| 4 | → Xi'an | HSR, ~4.5–6h |
| 5 | Xi'an | — |
| 6 | → Chengdu | HSR, ~3–4.5h |
| 7–8 | Chengdu | — |
| 9 | → Shanghai | Flight, ~2.5h |
| 10 | Shanghai | Depart |
Three moves in ten days. That is the ceiling for a comfortable trip.
Days 1–3: Beijing
Day 1 is arrival and nothing else. Check which Beijing airport you are landing at — Capital (PEK) northeast, Daxing (PKX) south, about 80 km apart with no fast link between them. Stay inside the second ring near Line 1, 2 or 6.
Day 2 is the imperial core: Tiananmen, the Forbidden City, out the north gate and up Jingshan for the view that makes the palace make sense.
The Forbidden City is the single most bookable-in-advance thing on this itinerary and the most likely to be sold out. Tickets release seven days ahead at about 20:00 Beijing time, real-name against your passport. Admission is ¥60 in peak season (1 April – 31 October) and ¥40 off-peak (1 November – 31 March). Closed Mondays except statutory holidays. If your day 2 is a Monday, run days 2 and 3 in reverse.
Day 3 is the Great Wall, and on a ten-day trip you can afford the better version. Mutianyu is the comfortable choice — restored walkway, cable car, about 70 km northeast. Jinshanling is the one people remember: partly unrestored, a genuine two-to-three hour ridge walk, and you will share it with a fraction of the crowd. Jinshanling needs the whole day and a pre-booked return car. On a seven-day trip that is a bad trade. On ten days it is the right one.
If you have an extra half-day appetite, the Temple of Heaven early on day 3 before heading out is doable but tight. Better to trade it for a slow morning.
Day 4: Beijing to Xi'an
Beijing West → Xi'an North. About 1,216 km via Shijiazhuang and Zhengzhou, roughly 4.5–6 hours depending on service, with the fastest G-trains a little over four hours. Around forty departures daily.
Book on 12306, where tickets typically go on sale 15 days ahead. This is the detail that surprises people used to booking European rail months out — you cannot lock this leg in early, so put a calendar reminder on the 15-day mark.
Ticketing is real-name. The passport you book with is the one scanned at the gate.
Take a morning train. Arrive early afternoon, drop bags, and spend the rest of the day on the city wall — 13.7 km, intact, bikeable on top, about two hours for a full circuit. Stay inside the walls near Bell Tower or Nanmen.
Day 5: Xi'an
Morning: the Terracotta Army, 40 km east. Tickets release about seven days ahead, ten around public holidays. Book online. Do the pits in reverse numerical order — Pit 2 and Pit 3 first, Pit 1 last — so the famous one is the payoff rather than the opener.
Watch the transport. The tourist bus from Xi'an railway station is legitimate and cheap, but the surrounding area is a known spot for unofficial buses that detour through a jade showroom. Board only from the marked official stand, or take a DiDi.
Afternoon and evening: the Muslim Quarter for roujiamo and biangbiang noodles, or the Shaanxi History Museum if you would rather have the better museum than the better street. The museum requires its own advance booking.
You can do both if you start at the museum at opening and eat late. Xi'an is compact enough.
Day 6: Xi'an to Chengdu
Xi'an North → Chengdu East. Around 3 to 4.5 hours, with the fastest service just over three hours. Roughly sixty-plus pairs of trains a day, running from early morning to evening. Second class typically runs about ¥210–300.
This is one of the more scenic high-speed rides in China — the line cuts through the Qinling mountains and spends a lot of the run in tunnels punctuated by river valleys. Sit on either side; you get some of it regardless.
Arrive by early afternoon. Chengdu East connects to Metro Lines 2 and 7. Stay near Chunxi Road, Tianfu Square or the Wuhou area.
Spend the first evening doing very little. This is the point of adding Chengdu.
Days 7–8: Chengdu
Day 7, morning: the Panda Base. Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, about 10 km north of the centre. Adult admission is generally around ¥55–60, and online booking in advance is the normal route in — particularly for the early slot.
Go at opening. Pandas are active in the cool of the morning and asleep by 11:00. A 10:30 arrival gets you a view of several motionless grey-and-white heaps, which is not what you came for. If you are jet-lagged eastbound this is one of the few times that helps you.
Day 7, afternoon: People's Park and the Heming teahouse, or Wenshu Monastery. Both are places to sit, which after four days of walking is a feature.
Day 8 is the flexible one, and the choice is between city and out-of-city:
- Leshan Giant Buddha — about an hour by high-speed train from Chengdu East to Leshan, plus a local transfer. A full day, and the queue for the stairway down the side of the Buddha can be long.
- Dujiangyan irrigation system and Mount Qingcheng — an hour out, an easier day, and the Qingcheng walk is genuinely pleasant.
- Stay in Chengdu — Jinli, Kuanzhai Alley, a hotpot dinner, and an evening of Sichuan opera if that appeals.
On a ten-day trip with three moves already booked, staying in Chengdu on day 8 is the defensible choice. The day-trip options are good; they are also the difference between a trip you finish rested and one you finish depleted.
Eat hotpot at least once. If you cannot handle chilli, ask for a yuanyang pot — split, half clear broth. This is completely normal and nobody will think less of you.
Day 9: Chengdu to Shanghai
Fly. The rail alternative is roughly ten to eleven hours and there is no version of this trip where that is worth a day.
Chengdu has two airports: Tianfu (TFU), the newer one to the south, and Shuangliu (CTU), closer to the city. Check which one your ticket uses — this is the Beijing PEK/PKX problem again, and Tianfu is a long way out.
Land at Pudong (PVG) or Hongqiao (SHA) depending on the flight. Get into Puxi, drop bags, and go to the Bund after dark. It is the one sight in Shanghai that fully delivers on the photographs.
Day 10: Shanghai and out
One district, done properly. The former French Concession for plane trees and lane houses, Yu Garden and the old city for density, or the West Bund museums if it is raining.
Then the airport, three hours before an international departure. Confirm Pudong versus Hongqiao — they are about 50 km apart and mistaking them is the single most expensive error available on the last day of this trip.
Version B: swapping Chengdu for Guilin
Same shape, different content. Xi'an North to Guilin West takes roughly seven to nine hours by high-speed train, which is long enough that flying is usually better. Base yourself in Yangshuo rather than Guilin city — the karst landscape is what you came for and Yangshuo sits in the middle of it.
Three days there gives you a Li River cruise or bamboo raft, a cycling day through Yulong River valley, and one weather buffer. That buffer is not optional. Guilin gets substantial rain, and a fogged-out river day with no fallback is how this version goes wrong.
Guilin to Shanghai is best flown.
Version C: fewer cities, more looking
Beijing 4, Xi'an 2, Shanghai 4. Two moves instead of three.
The extra Beijing day buys you the Summer Palace or the 798 art district. The extra Shanghai days buy you a proper day trip: Suzhou is about 25 minutes from Shanghai Hongqiao by high-speed train, and its classical gardens are the best of their kind in China. Hangzhou is about an hour, and West Lake is a full day.
If this is a first trip and you are the kind of traveller who resents rushing, Version C will produce a better ten days than Version A. It just looks less impressive when you list it.
Booking calendar
Work backwards from your arrival date:
- T-15 days: 12306 opens for the Beijing–Xi'an and Xi'an–Chengdu legs. Book both the morning the window opens.
- T-7 days, 20:00 Beijing time: Forbidden City tickets release.
- T-7 days: Terracotta Army tickets release (T-10 around public holidays).
- A few days ahead: Panda Base, Shaanxi History Museum, Great Wall return transport.
- Anytime: domestic flights, hotels.
Everything above is real-name and tied to your passport. Enter the number exactly as printed and travel with the same document.
Entry basis
Ten days is 240 hours exactly, which makes this itinerary a poor fit for 240-hour visa-free transit even if you qualify. The clock is tight, and any delay eats into a hard limit with legal consequences. If you are transiting, use the dedicated transit itineraries built around a shorter stay, or apply for a tourist visa and stop worrying about the clock.
For everyone else: eligibility depends on nationality, passport type, purpose and route. Run the entry checker, then confirm against the National Immigration Administration and the Chinese embassy or consulate responsible for where you live. Do this before you buy non-refundable flights, not after.
Official sources
- China Railway 12306, English site: https://www.12306.cn/en/
- Palace Museum ticketing: https://gugong.ktmtech.cn/
- Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum: https://www.bmy.com.cn/
- Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding: https://www.panda.org.cn/
- National Immigration Administration: https://en.nia.gov.cn/
Prices, release windows and closure days change. Confirm each on the official channel for your dates.
Last reviewed: 30 July 2026.