Overview

A first trip to China usually gets planned as a list. This one is planned as an arc: east, then north, then west, then south, ending in the youngest city in the country. Shanghai opens on the water. Beijing hands you the palace and the wall. Xi'an puts an army in front of you. Chengdu takes an afternoon back. The Li River drops the middle of the trip to the speed of a boat. Shenzhen finishes it in a market where a phone gets built floor by floor. Somewhere around the last morning you'll stop asking which one of them is the real China.

— LyrikTrip travel designers

Every LyrikTrip journey begins with a conversation. Tell us your dates, who is coming and which airport you fly home from, because on this route the way you leave Shenzhen shapes the last two days. First reply within four hours; a clear price for your dates within one business day. On this route we will also tell you plainly where the river passage, the two open nights and stand, before you are asked for anything.

Why you'll love this trip

  • One arc, six stops. The Terracotta Warriors, pandas, the Li River and a market that builds phones, with English-speaking guides city by city.
  • 14 days from the Terracotta Warriors to a market that builds a phone floor by floor. See the whole country.
  • Cross the Huangpu River on the ferry Shanghai takes to work, then stand on the Bund after dark with your guide beside you: one bank is a century older than the other, and the first evening explains the last hundred years without anyone giving a lecture.
  • Ride up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu instead of climbing to it: you reach the watchtowers with your legs still working, and you spend the time up there looking rather than breathing.
  • Stand at the rail above the pits of the Terracotta Warriors and pick a general out from a crossbowman by his armor: you go home able to say what you were actually looking at.
  • Sit a whole afternoon in a People's Park teahouse with a gaiwan that keeps getting refilled as long as you stay: this is the day nobody in your party has anywhere to be next.
  • Come into Yangshuo along the Li River rather than by road: the move between two towns is the day itself, and the karst hills standing up out of flat farmland do all of the entertaining.
  • Walk Huaqiangbei floor by floor with a guide who reads the market out to you: components low down, finished machines higher up, and the four decades that built this city stop being an abstraction.
  • Take four of the five long moves on China's high-speed rail, city center to city center: one internal flight in fourteen days, and the country changes outside the window rather than under a wing.
Tour route mapTour route: Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Guilin, Yangshuo, ShenzhenShanghai · ArrivalsD1–D2BeijingD3–D5Xi'anD6–D7ChengduD8–D9GuilinD10YangshuoD11–D12Shenzhen · DeparturesD13–D14
Things to do
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Itinerary

Shanghai · Day 1 - Day 2

Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai

Day 1 · Land, and stop

Your driver meets your flight, whatever time it comes in. The first day asks nothing of you.

Airport pickup Your driver and vehicle are waiting for the flight number on your confirmation, and the run into the city is yours to sleep through if the flight was long.
Shanghai through the window Elevated roads first, then the plane trees and lit shopfronts of an ordinary street. The country you flew this far for shows up before you have opened a bag.
Evening Nothing is scheduled. Your guide is reachable, and dinner near the hotel is recommended and booked for you if you want it, on your account.

Day 2 · A garden, a collection, two skylines

Shanghai gets introduced oldest first and newest last, in one day. By dark you can date the buildings on both banks yourself.

Yu Garden and the old city Pavilions, rockery, ponds and a path that never runs straight, dropped inside the oldest quarter of the city. Walk the rockery loop rather than around it: the path is built to hide what comes next, and it works every time.
Shanghai Museum Bronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy. Your guide gives you the four or five objects that matter for the rest of the trip rather than the full floor plan, so the visit sits at about two hours instead of a whole afternoon.
The Bund after dark The historic waterfront on one bank, the Pudong towers on the other, about a century apart and facing each other across the Huangpu River. Stand at the rail on the old side and turn around once: behind you the buildings are stone and columns, in front of you they are glass. Your guide stays with you through the evening.
Flight

Beijing · Day 3 - Day 5

Beijing
Beijing
Beijing

Day 3 · Low-rise Shanghai, then north

The morning is the version of this city nobody photographs. The afternoon puts you on a train that leaves one climate and arrives in another.

The former French Concession and Wukang Road Plane trees over the street, historic houses behind low walls, small independent shops at ground level. Walk it in the first half of the morning while the shops are opening and the streets still belong to the people who live on them.
The Huangpu River ferry The commuter crossing, a few minutes on a working boat with people and their scooters, not a sightseeing deck. Stand at the bow rail: the same two skylines you looked at from the ground last night arrive from the water instead.
High-speed rail to Beijing Your guide sees you onto the train and a Beijing guide takes over at the other end. The seat class for your order is written into your quote. Watch the window through the flat wheat country north of the Yangtze: this is the part of China that most first trips fly over.

Day 4 · One axis, then look back at it

A single straight line through five centuries of palace. Then a hill that shows you the line you just walked.

The Forbidden City Your timed slot is booked ahead, so you go in on schedule. Inside, one axis: the ceremonial halls where the court did its business, the living quarters behind them, the imperial garden at the end, then out through the north gate. Stand in the middle of the main courtyard and look back through the gates you came in by, one inside another, all the way out.
Pace The palace is large and guests tell us it is tiring, so the route holds to that single line and stops at the places we know you can sit.
Jingshan Park Straight out of the north gate and up the hill to the pavilion, the only real climb of the day and a short one. From the top the palace roofs lie below you in gold ranks, and the Beijing Central Axis runs out of the frame in both directions.

Day 5 · The wall, without the climb

One thing today, and it takes the whole day. You arrive at the watchtowers with your legs still fresh.

Drive out to Mutianyu The run north out of Beijing takes a good part of the morning, which is exactly why nothing else is scheduled; the vehicle stays with you all day.
Cable car or open chairlift up The ascent is done for you. You step off onto a restored stretch of wall with watchtowers running away along the ridge in both directions.
Walking the towers Your guide reads the wall out to you: which tower is a beacon, where the pass sits below, and why a sightline that works decides where a tower stands. Look along the ridge with the towers stepping down it one after another: that is the fifteen seconds worth filming.
High-speed rail

Xi'an · Day 6 - Day 7

Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an

Day 6 · Three ideas of the state, then a train west

Square, temple, museum, in that order, because that is the order the arguments were made in. By the afternoon you can leave Beijing without a gap in the story.

Tian'anmen Square An early start, because everyone is screened to enter and the queue takes its own block of time, counted separately from your time on the square. Your guide walks you to the nearest screening entrance rather than the busiest one.
The Temple of Heaven Three buildings on one line, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Circular Mound Altar. Once you know that round belongs to heaven and square belongs to earth, the whole compound reads without a single caption. Stand at the center of the Circular Mound and speak once.
The National Museum of China Bronzes, ceramics, Buddhist sculpture and calligraphy, on the east side of the square, with your slot booked ahead. The objects you met in Shanghai four days ago come back here in one chronological line, which is the point of visiting them in this order.
High-speed rail to Xi'an The afternoon train, boarded with time in hand rather than at a run. Your seat class is written into your quote, and a Xi'an guide meets the train.

Day 7 · Eight thousand of them

One site, one morning, and no second stop competing with it. This is the day the scale of Chinese history stops being a number in a book.

Into the pits An estimated eight thousand figures, buried in ranks and excavated where they stood. From the rail above the main pit the front rows read as a crowd; then your guide points at armor and hair knots and the crowd separates into generals, crossbowmen and foot soldiers.
The newer excavation areas Some of the clay here still carries surviving pigment. It is faint and you have to be shown where to look, which is the whole reason a guide is standing next to you.
Timing Crowds run heavy in peak season, so the day is ordered to put you at the main pit before the middle of the day and to leave the smaller pits and the bronze chariots for after.
High-speed rail

Chengdu · Day 8 - Day 9

Chengdu
Chengdu
Chengdu

Day 8 · A pagoda, then a train through the mountains

The other half of Xi'an is not military at all. In the afternoon the window does the work.

The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda The brick pagoda raised to hold the Buddhist texts carried back from India, with the temple grounds and the cultural streets around it. Walk the grounds before the shopping streets: the order matters, because the pagoda explains why the streets are there.
High-speed rail to Chengdu The line runs south through the Qinling mountains, the range that separates the dry north you have been in for six days from the wet basin you are going to. Take a seat on the right and keep the window clear: the landscape changes sides of the country in a couple of hours.
Arrival Your Chengdu guide meets the train, and the evening is left open on purpose after a travel day.

Day 9 · Pandas early, then nowhere to be

The morning is the one everyone pictures before they come. The afternoon is the one they talk about after.

Chengdu panda base You are there in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving: eating, climbing down off a platform, going back to sleep in the fork of a tree. Flat shaded paths and benches throughout. Get to an enclosure early and wait rather than walking the whole park: the animal comes to the fence on its own schedule.
Teahouse sitting in People's Park Bamboo chairs under the trees and a gaiwan each, the lidded cup China brews in, topped up by someone with a long-spouted kettle for as long as you stay. Cards at the next table, the ear cleaner two tables over working with a tuning fork. An hour in, you'll notice you have stopped checking what time the next thing starts.
The point of today This is one of two days in the fourteen with nothing scheduled after the middle of the afternoon. It sits here, at the halfway mark, rather than at the end.
Flight

Guilin · Day 10

Guilin
Guilin
Guilin

Day 10 · Three lanes, one mask, one flight

Chengdu shows you its commercial face and its neighborhood face in the same day. Then the country tilts south.

Kuanzhai Alley and Taikoo Li A historic neighborhood built around three parallel lanes, and the open retail quarter beside it. Both are busy and both are commercial, and we would rather say so than sell them as something else: what they show you is what a Chinese city center does with its old buildings once it has money.
Community Sichuan opera house A neighborhood theater, not a hotel ballroom. You go backstage before it starts and see the paint and the layered masks up close, then watch the change from near enough that you still fail to catch it: one painted face becomes another in the time it takes him to turn his head. Sit close and watch the performer's hands rather than his face.
Flight south to Guilin The single internal flight of the fourteen days. Your guide runs you to the airport with margin rather than to the minute, because this route holds only one flight and it carries the whole southern half of the trip. The cabin class for your order is written into your quote.
High-speed rail

Yangshuo · Day 11 - Day 12

Yangshuo
Yangshuo
Yangshuo

Day 11 · The day is the river

Today the way you travel and the thing you came to see are the same object. You arrive in Yangshuo by water.

Down the Li River Karst hills stand straight up out of flat farmland on both banks: a wall of them, then a gap, then another wall, and buffalo and bamboo at the waterline in between. There is nothing to do on this stretch and that is the design.
Watch from the rail Stand outside rather than sitting inside, on whichever side has the sun behind you. The hills come past in layers, nearest sharp and furthest almost white. Somewhere in the second hour you'll find that you have stopped talking, and so has everyone else.
How the passage is written What is included is the passage from Guilin to Yangshuo and the river scenery along it. November and December are low-water months on this river, so the format of your own passage, a full-length sailing or a shortened sailing with a road sector, is stated in writing in your quote before you book. We do not print a sailing length or a departure time we cannot hold to.

Day 12 · Two nights in one town, and a whole day outdoors

Nothing packs today and nothing moves cities. This is the slowest day of the fourteen, and it is outdoors from morning to tea.

Bamboo rafting on the Yulong River A raft of lashed poles on a quiet tributary, poled along a selected section. You sit low and close to the water, which is a different river entirely from the one you came down yesterday: narrow, shallow, farmland on both banks.
The countryside outing Rice fields, farmhouses, riverside lanes and hills standing over the whole of it, taken by bicycle, by electric bike or by vehicle at your own choice on the day. Choose in the morning rather than in advance, once you have felt what the weather is doing.
Riverside afternoon tea The stop in the middle of the afternoon, at the water, hills on both banks. Sit facing upstream and stay put for a while: this is the last unhurried hour of the trip before the country speeds up again.
Weather All three of today's items are outdoors and this is the longest unsheltered stretch on the route. For a November or December departure, the wet-weather arrangement for your exact dates is written into your quote before you pay.
High-speed rail

Shenzhen · Day 13 - Day 14

Shenzhen
Shenzhen
Shenzhen

Day 13 · Out of the hills, into the market

A morning on the train and an afternoon four decades ahead of it. Today is where the two ends of this trip meet.

High-speed rail to Shenzhen The karst country runs out of the window inside the first hour and the Pearl River delta takes over: factories, towers, elevated roads, all of it built inside one lifetime. Your seat class is written into your quote.
Huaqiangbei The electronics market district, read floor by floor with your guide. Components at the bottom in trays and reels, prototype boards above them, finished machines above those, and a sourcing ecosystem that lets a small team downstairs order what a factory upstairs will build. Walk a whole aisle slowly and look at what is in the trays rather than at the signs.
The afternoon This afternoon holds Huaqiangbei and nothing else. It is a working market rather than an exhibit, and half a day is what it takes to stop looking like a tourist in it.

Day 14 · A walled town inside a new city

Two stops on the last morning, both of them about the same question. Then the airport.

A Shenzhen urban-planning or technology exhibition hall Models, plans and hardware laying out how a city this size got built inside four decades. Which hall you visit is named in writing in your quote. Look at the dated aerial photographs first and then out of the window.
Shekou and Nantou Old Town on foot A walled old-town quarter standing inside the same city limits as everything you saw yesterday. Its whole job on this route is that contrast, and we describe it no further than that until our own material on the site is complete. Standing in the old gateway with the new towers behind it, you'll feel the fourteen days close into a single picture.
Airport drop-off Your driver takes you to the airport with margin against your flight. If your flight leaves too early for both morning stops, your quote states in writing which one comes out and prices your order on that basis, before any deposit.
Departures

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Hotels
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Included / Excluded

What's Included

  • Intercity transportSix movements: Shanghai to Beijing, Beijing to Xi'an and Xi'an to Chengdu by high-speed rail; Chengdu to Guilin by air; Guilin to Yangshuo on the Li River; Yangshuo to Shenzhen by high-speed rail. Seat class on the rail movements and cabin class on the flight are stated in writing in your quote, and no order is taken without it
  • Private vehicleAir-conditioned private vehicle with driver for all listed touring in all six cities, including the full-day Mutianyu round trip and the Yangshuo countryside day; station transfers for the four rail movements, airport transfers for the flight and pier transfers for the river passage; airport pickup on day one in Shanghai and drop-off on day fourteen in Shenzhen
  • Hotels13 nights at the level you choose, four-star, five-star or quality boutique, breakfast included. Hotels named in your written confirmation
  • GuideLicensed English-speaking local guide on every touring day in each of the six cities, including the whole Bund evening in Shanghai and the Huaqiangbei walk in Shenzhen
  • Tickets and experiences, ShanghaiYu Garden with the old city quarter · Shanghai Museum · the Bund and the Pudong skyline in the evening with your guide · the former French Concession and Wukang Road on foot · the Huangpu River commuter ferry crossing
  • Tickets and experiences, BeijingThe Forbidden City · Jingshan Park · Mutianyu Great Wall with the cable car or open chairlift ascent · Tian'anmen Square · the Temple of Heaven · the National Museum of China
  • Tickets and experiences, Xi'anThe Terracotta Warriors · the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda with its surrounding cultural quarter
  • Tickets and experiences, ChengduThe panda base on a morning visit · a gaiwan teahouse sitting in People's Park, seat and refills included on the local practice of refilling for as long as you sit · Kuanzhai Alley with Taikoo Li · a community Sichuan opera house with a backstage visit and close-range face-changing
  • Tickets and experiences, Guilin and YangshuoThe Li River passage from Guilin down to Yangshuo · bamboo rafting on a section of the Yulong River · the Yulong River countryside outing by bicycle, electric bike or vehicle at your own choice, with the hire of the chosen bicycle or electric bike included · a riverside afternoon tea on the same day
  • Tickets and experiences, ShenzhenHuaqiangbei with your guide explaining the components-to-finished-product floors and the sourcing ecosystem · a Shenzhen urban-planning or technology exhibition hall on the last morning, the venue named in your quote · the walking visit to Shekou and Nantou Old Town
  • Meals13 hotel breakfasts, one each morning from day two to day fourteen
  • InsuranceTravel accident insurance

Not Included

  • International flightsFlights into Shanghai and out of Shenzhen, and any connecting sector you need in order to leave from Shenzhen, together with any hub-city night it forces
  • VisasVisa fees and processing for any guest who needs a Chinese visa
  • Lunches and dinnersAll midday and evening meals across the fourteen days. Your guide recommends and books, the bill is your own. This includes the teahouse snacks in People's Park, the food stalls in Kuanzhai Alley and any catering sold on the river passage
  • In-park shuttles and in-museum spendingSite shuttles at the Terracotta Warriors, the panda base, the Temple of Heaven and the river piers are named one by one in your quote, which states whether each is operating on your dates and whether it sits inside your price. Audio guides and hired human guides inside the museums, and photography or refreshments sold on the boats and rafts, are your own
  • Optional add-onsAn extra night in the south, or extra nights in Shenzhen after day fourteen. Priced separately at the time of choosing, never added by default
  • PersonalGratuities to guides and drivers, single-room or extra-room difference, and all personal spending including laundry and shopping

Special Notes

A few things on this route follow the calendar, the season, a supplier's confirmation or a river's water level. Here they are, told straight.

  • Bookings are not open yetthe remaining items have to be settled first. The ground arrangements for the October to December 2026 season, confirmed with our partners. The city of the two open nights. And the departure calendar for October and December. Until those items are settled we take no orders and no deposits. Tell us your dates and we will write to you on the day it opens.
  • The Li River passagethis one segment is both the day's activity and the way you reach Yangshuo. A full-length downstream sailing is the design intent, but November and December are low-water months on this river and a sailing can be shortened or suspended. What is included either way is the passage from Guilin to Yangshuo and the river scenery along it; the format of your own passage is stated in writing in your quote before you book. We publish no sailing length, no sailing duration and no departure time.
  • The Mutianyu ascent in winterthe ascent transport is included, and it is a cableway and an open chairlift, which snow or ice can close. The November and December operating rules are not yet on file with us, so a departure in those two months has the ascent arrangement for that date written into the quote.
  • The outdoor day in Yangshuorafting, the countryside outing and the riverside tea are all outdoors, and it is the longest unsheltered stretch on the route. A November or December departure has the wet-weather arrangement for those exact dates written into the quote.
  • Departure datesno departures from October 1 to 7, the national holiday week, when the Terracotta Warriors site and the Forbidden City both run at their heaviest visitor load. Dates are also set so that day four never falls on a Monday, when the palace closes; if your dates would put it there, days four and five swap and the Great Wall day moves to day four.
  • Two of the thirteen nights 13thirteen nights are inside your price either way, and eleven of them are settled by city. The night after the flight south and the last night before you fly home have their city and hotel named in writing in your quote, and the plan is being settled on our side before bookings open.
  • Timed reservationsShanghai Museum, the Forbidden City and the National Museum of China all require a timed entry, and their booking systems sit poorly with overseas mobile numbers. Admission to all three is included. Who books each one, and how many days ahead, is stated in writing in your quote.
  • Day sixthe square, the temple and the national museum sit on the same day as the afternoon train west. Entry to Tian'anmen Square runs through security screening, so your quote states the day's start time and the screening allowance in writing.
  • Face-changing and the backstage visitthis is a person-to-person arrangement inside your price, and it has not yet been re-confirmed with our ground partner for this selling season. Until it is, we promise no named performer, no fixed duration and no fixed time slot.
  • The last morningthe exhibition hall and the Shekou and Nantou walk both sit before your airport drop-off. We check them against your departure flight when we quote; if the flight leaves too early for both, your quote states which one comes out and prices your order on that basis, before any deposit.
  • Leaving from ShenzhenShanghai is served nonstop from every market we sell this route in. Shenzhen is not. Direct service out of Shenzhen is full for France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece; it is thin for the United Kingdom (London Heathrow), for the Nordic countries, Central Europe and Ireland (Vienna and Budapest), for Canada (Vancouver) and for Australia and New Zealand (Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland). Several of those services are dated restarts, so we verify yours against the current timetable before we take your order. If you are not flying back to one of those airports you leave on a connecting itinerary, and that sector is an international flight outside your price.
  • Visa windowthe 30-day visa-free policy currently runs through December 31, 2026. Because this is a 14-day plan, departures on or before December 18, 2026 finish inside that window; later departures are quoted only after the official renewal is announced. Guests who entered China under the ten-day visa-free transit policy cannot take this trip, because 14 days is longer than that policy allows, and we say so before any payment rather than looking for a workaround.
  • Timetablesthe 2026 fourth-quarter timetables for the six intercity movements have not yet been checked against the operating season. They sit on our standing assumption and are re-checked for your dates before your confirmation is issued. The Chengdu to Guilin flight is the thinnest of the six.
  • Confirmation and changesthe confirmation-time commitment and the change and refund terms are being finalized with our ground partners. Until they are settled, each quote states in writing its own confirmation deadline and its change and refund conditions. This route holds four rail movements, one flight, one water passage and three timed museum reservations, so a date change touches several kinds of inventory at once.

Is Fourteen Days Your Length?

Fewer than fourteen days?

Fewer than fourteen days?

The arc comes apart cleanly at the joints. Shanghai and Beijing stand on their own as the first week; the Chengdu and Yangshuo stretch is the part that slows the trip down; Shenzhen is the closing argument rather than a stop you have to make. Tell us your dates and who is coming, and we cut stops rather than cutting the pace.

Good to Know

Group
Private, just your party. From 1 guest. No fixed maximum party size.
Pace
Six stops in 14 days: Shanghai 2 nights, Beijing 3, Xi'an 2, Chengdu 2, Yangshuo 2, plus two nights whose city is named in your quote. Four rail movements, one flight, one river passage
Effort
Moderate. The heaviest day is the Forbidden City morning followed by the climb to the Jingshan viewpoint. The Great Wall ascent is by cable car or open chairlift, and the Yulong River day can be taken by bicycle, by electric bike or by vehicle
Ports
Shanghai in, Shenzhen out; airport pickup on day one and drop-off on day fourteen. Connections out of Shenzhen are checked for your market before your order is taken
Visas
British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Nordic, Central European, Irish, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports enter visa-free for stays days, checked order by order against your dates
Language
Licensed English-speaking local guides throughout, city by city
Payment
When this route opens for booking: From 1 guest. A 10% deposit (minimum $399) locks your dates. The balance is due 14 days before departure. "Or similar" never means a quiet downgrade
Season
Selling window October to December 2026. No departures October 1 to 7. November and December departures have the river passage, the Great Wall ascent and the Yangshuo outdoor day written into the quote for those exact dates

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LT

Jason Hu

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