Three Weeks in China: The Route That Uses the Extra Week Properly

Fourteen days in China holds four bases. Twenty-one holds six, not seven — and the difference between those two numbers is the whole argument of this page.

The temptation with an extra week is to add three more cities. What it actually buys you is the ability to include the landscape country without cutting the classics, and to stop moving every third morning.

If you have two weeks, our three two-week routes are the better starting point. This is what changes when you have three.

The shape

That is 21 nights with nothing left over. There is no slack in it, which is deliberate — the slack is inside the four-night stops rather than between them.

The legs, and what each one costs you

Every connection below is documented on this site with its own timings and fares. That is the point of running the route this way round: the difficult transfer happens once, in the middle, when you are acclimatised.

1. 1

   Beijing — four nights

   Land here rather than Shanghai. The Wall, the Forbidden City, and one day lost to arriving. Four nights is three usable days, which is the minimum this city takes.

2. Beijing to Xi’an — high-speed, most of a morning
3. 2

   Xi’an — two nights

   Two is right. The Terracotta Army is out at Lintong and takes half a day; the walled city and the Muslim Quarter take an evening. A third night here is a night not spent in Chengdu.

4. Xi’an to Chengdu — 3 h 07 through the Qinling
5. 3

   Chengdu — four nights

   Reverse of the usual direction, and better: you arrive in Chengdu having earned the slow day rather than starting with it. Our four-day plan is exactly this — pandas, Leshan, a morning in a teahouse, and Sanxingdui.

   The leg itself is worth staying awake for: 127 km of tunnel under the Qinling, and the reason this journey used to take sixteen hours.

6. Chengdu to Zhangjiajie — fly, direct
7. 4

   Zhangjiajie — four nights

   The only flight in the route, and it is unavoidable. Four nights because the park ticket runs four days, because two days of cloud is a real possibility, and because three nights here is the most common regret people record.

8. Zhangjiajie to Guilin — about 7 h, or change at Changsha
9. 5

   Yangshuo — four nights

   The hard leg of the trip. There is no direct flight and the direct train is not the fastest way — changing at Changsha South is quicker and gives you a civilised departure time.

   Sleep in Yangshuo, not Guilin. Arrival day is written off; the three after it are the river, a bicycle and the terraces.

10. Guilin to Guangzhou 2 h 30 · Guangzhou to Hong Kong 47 min
11. 6

    Hong Kong — three nights

    Two trains and about four hours door to door, with immigration cleared in one stop at West Kowloon. Fly home from here.

    Ending in Hong Kong is not padding. After three weeks on the mainland it is a genuine change of register, and the long-haul options are better.

What we left out, and why

• Shanghai. The most commonly added sixth city, and the one we would drop. It is the least distinctive of the big four for a first trip, and adding it costs you the fourth night somewhere that needs it.
• The Yangtze cruise. Three to four days for a landscape the route already gives you twice, and it locks your dates.
• Tibet. Not a bolt-on. The permit is a separate process and Lhasa needs its own trip.
• A second flight. Every other leg here is rail, which is cheaper, more reliable and starts in the city centre.

If you want to change one thing

Cut Zhangjiajie, not Xi’an. It is the most expensive stop — CNY 593 per adult in entry fees alone — the hardest to reach, and the one most vulnerable to weather. Dropping it gives you 17 days and a much easier route, with the four nights redistributed to Beijing and Yangshuo.

What you should not do is keep it and give it three nights. It is the one stop on this route where the difference between three and four is the difference between seeing it and not.