China RoutesGuide

China, by route

Plan China stop by stop.

Itineraries built from operator timetables and official ticket prices — not from memory. Every opening time, fare and journey length on this site carries the date we checked it.

Start with Chengdu How we check
Source
Operators
Every figure
Dated
What's absent
Trip tales

What a stop looks like here

A summary can tell you to go. It can’t tell you the 07:30 queue.

Search results now answer “what should I do in Chengdu for three days” before you click anything. So that isn’t what we publish. We publish the operational layer underneath: what it costs, when it opens, how far ahead you have to book, and when we last confirmed all three.

  1. 1

    Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

    The single most-booked sight in western China, and the one most often got wrong: there is no ticket window. Entry is by advance reservation only, and the base runs two fixed entry windows rather than one continuous day.

    Ticket
    CNY 55 per person
    Entry windows (Mar–Oct)
    07:30–12:00 morning · 12:00–17:00 afternoon
    Entry windows (Nov–Feb)
    08:00–12:00 morning · 12:00–16:30 afternoon
    Booking
    Opens 14 days ahead · no sales at the gate

    Checked 13 Aug 2026 Price, entry windows and the 14-day booking rule published by the base itself on panda.org.cn. Reservations go through the official WeChat account or mini-programme, or an authorised platform (Trip.com, Meituan, Douyin, Tongcheng).

  2. Metro line 3 to the city centre, then a short walk
  3. 2

    What we deliberately do not publish

    No first-person travel writing. Nobody on this desk has walked these routes, and pretending otherwise would make every other figure on the page suspect. Where we describe queues, crowding or closures, we say which public reports we read and when.

Destinations

Each city is a line. Each line has nine stops.

All destinations
Giant pandas feeding on bamboo at the panda base in Chengdu CTU · Sichuan

Chengdu

成都 · Chéngdū

Guides 9 / 9 Days 3 – 4 Best Mar – Jun · Sep – Nov
Chongqing skyline at dusk from the Yangtze-Jialing confluence, bridges and towers lit up CKG · Chongqing Municipality

Chongqing

重庆 · Chóngqìng

Guides 9 / 9 Days 3 – 4 Best Mar – May · Sep – Nov
The Li River curving below Mashan Mountain at Yangshuo KWL · Guangxi

Guilin & Yangshuo

桂林 · 阳朔

Guides 9 / 9 Days 4 Best Apr – Jun · Sep – Oct
A traditional wooden tour boat on West Lake in Hangzhou, with weeping willow trees along the shore and misty hills in the distance HGH · Zhejiang

Hangzhou

杭州 · Hángzhōu

Guides 9 / 9 Days 3 – 4 Best Apr – May · Sep – Nov
Illuminated ice buildings at night during the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, China HRB · Heilongjiang

Harbin

哈尔滨 · Hā'ěrbīn

Guides 10 / 9 Days 3 – 5 Best Early Jan – mid Feb · Jun – Aug
Humble Administrator's Garden canal-side covered gallery, Suzhou No major airport · Jiangsu

Suzhou

苏州 · Sūzhōu

Guides 9 / 9 Days 2 – 3 Best Mar – May · Sep – Nov

Country guides

The questions that come before a city

How we check

We have not travelled these routes ourselves.

That is why every number on this site is sourced and dated rather than remembered. Where we quote what visitors experience, we say who reported it and when. You should be able to re-check any figure here in under a minute — and tell us when it moves.

Read the full method

  • Operators firstHours, fares and timetables come from the site or booking system that sells them.
  • Dated on the pageEach figure shows the day it was last confirmed, next to the figure itself.
  • Reports, creditedTraveller accounts are summarised and attributed — never retold in the first person.