Overview

This plan runs west to south, and it holds one idea you can check for yourself: almost nothing here has been retired. The waterworks outside Chengdu still water the fields you drive past. People still ride bikes on top of the Xi'an City Wall. The teahouse chairs in People's Park are filled by neighbors, not visitors. The lion dance in Foshan is danced by people who train in that courtyard. The famous ones arrive in order along the way: pandas, the Terracotta Warriors, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Bund. Somewhere around day four you'll notice you have stopped sorting this country into old and new.

— LyrikTrip travel designers

Every LyrikTrip journey begins with a conversation. Tell us your dates, who is coming and where you are flying from, and we check both ends of this route against your flights before anything else. 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 three museum and palace reservations stand, before you are asked for anything.

Why you'll love this trip

  • Five cities, one working country. Pandas, an irrigation system still watering the fields, the Terracotta Warriors, a wall you ride bikes on, the Bund and a Foshan lion dance, with English-speaking guides city by city.
  • 14 days from a 3rd century BC waterway to the Pearl River skyline. See the whole list.
  • Stand at the Chengdu panda base in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving, then give the whole afternoon to a bamboo chair in People's Park: your first full day in China asks nothing else of you.
  • Watch the Dujiangyan irrigation works split a river the way they were built to in the 3rd century BC, and still do: this is the day the rest of the trip gets its premise.
  • Ride the top of the Xi'an City Wall with the bikes included, old city on one side and the new one on the other: you go around a piece of the city that is still in service, rather than look at it from below.
  • Take the cable car up to Mutianyu Great Wall and the toboggan back down: the whole day belongs to the wall, and none of it belongs to the climb.
  • Cross the Huangpu River on the ferry Shanghai takes to work, then stand on the Bund after dark with your guide beside you: a hundred years of skyline looking straight at itself across the water.
  • Learn the first Wing Chun stance from a Foshan practitioner in the courtyards where the lion dancers train, and close the trip with morning tea at an old-name teahouse: this is the part nobody at your kitchen table is expecting to hear about.
Tour route mapTour route: Chengdu, Xi'an, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Guangzhou, Foshan, FoshanChengdu · ArrivalsD1–D3Xi'anD4–D6BeijingD7–D9ShanghaiD10–D11GuangzhouD12–D11GuangzhouD12–D13FoshanD14–D13Foshan · DeparturesD14
Things to do
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Itinerary

Chengdu · Day 1 - Day 3

Chengdu
Chengdu
Chengdu

Day 1 · Land in Chengdu

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.

TransportYour driver and vehicle wait for the flight number on your confirmation, and the run into the city is yours to sleep through.
SightWide roads, a wall of plane trees, then hotpot signs lit up two floors high. The city you flew this far to reach is outside the glass before you have unpacked anything.
Atour Hotel Chengdu Taikoo Li Chunxi Road Pedestrian StreetAccommodationHotel stay in Chengdu.

Day 2 · Pandas, then a chair

SightYou are there in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving: eating, climbing down off a platform, folding back into a tree fork to sleep. Flat shaded paths, benches, about three hours. Get to an enclosure fence early and wait there: the animal comes over on its own schedule, not on yours.
SightBamboo chairs under the trees, a gaiwan each (the lidded cup China brews in), and a man with a long-spouted kettle who tops you up as long as you stay in the chair. Cards at the next table, an ear cleaner working two tables over with a tuning fork. The whole afternoon is set aside for it. An hour in, you'll notice nobody at your table has asked what happens next.
SightThis is one of the two easy days built into the fourteen. Both stops shorten if jet lag says so.

Day 3 · Water that never stopped

TransportA short run out of Chengdu and back the same evening, so the hotel room stays yours and the bags stay closed. The train itself is the first look at how the country moves now.
SightBegun in the 3rd century BC and never taken out of service. It splits the Min River without a dam: one part onto the plain to be drunk and farmed with, one part on downstream. Stand above the divide and watch the water take both routes at once. That is your fifteen seconds, and the plain it feeds is why Chengdu exists.
SightStone paths under old trees on one of the important Taoist mountains in China. You visit a small working temple rather than the busiest hall, sit down with a Taoist who lives there, with your guide translating, and then take a slow beginners' tai chi session on the temple grounds.
High-speed rail

Xi'an · Day 4 - Day 6

Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an

Day 4 · Three lanes, then a train

SightThree parallel lanes of restored courtyard housing, now shops and teahouses, and a short move to the Taikoo Li blocks, grey tile roofs at street level with the towers standing up behind them. Told straight: the lanes are commercial and busy. Stand where the tiled eaves end and the glass storefronts begin and take the picture; that pair is the point.
SightA neighborhood house, not a hotel ballroom. Backstage first, close enough to see how a face gets painted, then face-changing from a few rows out: the mask becomes another mask in the time it takes the performer to swing his head, and you will not catch it.
TransportThe afternoon train north out of the Sichuan basin, mountains and tunnels for a long stretch of it. Your own vehicle runs both ends, hotel to station and station to hotel, and your Xi'an guide takes over at the door. The cabin class for your order is written into your quote.
Somerset Xindicheng Xi'anAccommodationHotel stay in Xian.

Day 5 · Eight thousand faces

SightThe guard buried with China's first emperor, standing in the pits it was dug out of. An estimated eight thousand figures, no two faces alike. Your guide teaches you to read one: armor tells you rank, the hairstyle tells you unit, the kneeling crossbowmen are at the front and the officers stand behind. In the newer excavation areas, look for the traces of paint still on the clay: all of them were colored once.
SightYou walk them the way they were dug, so the scale arrives in stages rather than all at once at the door. Standing at the rail of the first pit, you'll find you have lowered your voice without deciding to.
SightThis is the busiest site on the route, so the day carries nothing else and the visit is timed against the crowd pattern; departures are not taken in the October 1 to 7 holiday week at all.

Day 6 · On top of the wall

SightYou go up onto one of the most complete surviving city walls in China and ride the top of it. Gray brick under the wheels, the old grid on the inside, the modern city on the outside, and the ramparts running ahead of you until they turn a corner. Admission and bike hire are included; the pace is yours and the guide sets a turnaround point rather than a lap time.
SightThe two towers that mark the center of the old city, floodlit by the time you get there.
SightThe lanes behind the towers, where Xi'an's Muslim community trades and cooks. Hand-pulled noodles slapped against the board, roujiamo (crisp-baked bread packed with slow-braised pork), whole spices in open sacks. Your guide walks it with you and tells you what each thing is; what you eat here is on your own account.
High-speed rail

Beijing · Day 7 - Day 9

Beijing
Beijing
Beijing

Day 7 · A pagoda, then the capital

SightThe brick pagoda over the south of the city, with squares, water and the cultural area laid out around it. The morning is deliberately unhurried, because the train is not until the afternoon and there is nothing to be early for.
TransportYour vehicle takes you station-side, and the train does the rest. Watch the window for the moment the loess gives way to the North China Plain: flat, dry, wide, and it goes on for hours.
SightYour Beijing guide meets you at the station and your driver takes you in. Nothing is scheduled for the evening.
Novotel Beijing PeaceAccommodationHotel stay in Beijing.

Day 8 · One axis, then the view back

SightThe palace the Ming and Qing courts ran the country from, finished in 1420. You walk one axis and only one: 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: they line up, one inside another, all the way out.
SightThe palace is large and guests often tell us it wore them out, so the route is cut to that single line and stops at the seats we know about. The imperial garden at the end is not rushed.
SightStraight out of the north gate and up the steps to the pavilion. From there the roofs you spent the morning under lie below you in one gold sheet, and the Beijing Central Axis runs out of the frame in both directions. That is your fifteen seconds, and it is worth waiting for the light to move.

Day 9 · The wall, and only the wall

TransportThe run north out of the city takes a good part of the morning, which is why nothing else is scheduled today; the vehicle stays with you all day.
SightThe climbing is done for you. You step off onto a restored stretch of wall with watchtowers running away along the ridge in both directions, and your guide reads it: beacon towers, the pass below, why the sightlines run where they do. Look along the ridge with the towers stepping down it. Standing between two towers with the wall going out of sight both ways, you'll feel the fourteen days were worth booking for this alone.
SightThe restored section connects, so you walk from tower to tower and turn back whenever you want. There is no target and no loop to finish.
SightA single seated sled on a fixed metal track through the trees, and you control your own speed the whole way. On a day the toboggan is not running, your guide arranges a permitted alternative way down at no extra charge.
High-speed rail

Shanghai · Day 10 - Day 11

Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai

Day 10 · The ceremonial city, then the train

SightYou cross the ceremonial center of modern China on foot. Everyone is screened to enter and that queue takes half an hour to an hour, so it is budgeted separately rather than taken out of your time on the square; your guide walks you to the nearest screening entrance.
SightThree structures on one line, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the round altar. Your guide gives you the grammar first, round for heaven and square for earth, and then you cannot stop reading it off the buildings. The park around it is where Beijing does its morning exercise.
SightThe indoor hour that puts the last nine days into order, bronzes to ceramics to sculpture to calligraphy, in sequence. You have now seen the objects in the ground at one end of the country and the objects on the shelf at the other.
TransportThe order of the three stops above is set by your guide against your train time on the morning itself, so the day ends at the station without a sprint. Your vehicle runs both ends and your Shanghai guide takes over at the door.
Bellagio by MGM Shanghai on the BundAccommodationHotel stay in Shanghai.

Day 11 · The garden, the shelf, the water

SightPavilions, rockery, ponds and a path that never runs straight, dropped inside the oldest quarter of the city, with the bazaar lanes around it. Flat the whole way.
SightBronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy, and the crafts galleries. Go to the bronzes first: you saw the army at Xi'an, and this is the workshop culture that made casting like that possible.
SightThe row of old trading and bank buildings on one bank and the Pudong towers on the other, a hundred years apart, looking straight at each other across the water. Your guide stays with you for the whole evening, and that is also how we deal with the tea invitation and language practice approaches that work this waterfront.
Flight

Guangzhou · Day 1

Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Flight

Guangzhou · Day 12 - Day 13

Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou

Day 12 · Plane trees, a ferry, a flight

TransportPlane-tree streets, historic houses behind low walls, small independent shops, all of it at walking pace. Sit down for coffee if you want to; nothing today has to be finished.
TransportYou cross the river on the boat Shanghai takes to work, standing at the rail with commuters and their scooters instead of on a sightseeing deck. The fare is included. Film the crossing: the far bank arrives in about the time it takes to hold up your phone.
TransportThe afternoon flight south, with your own vehicle at both ends and the checked-baggage allowance of the operating airline included. The flight number, time and cabin class for your order are written into your quote.
SightThe second of the two easy days. Nothing is scheduled in Guangzhou tonight.
Conrad GuangzhouAccommodationHotel stay in Guangzhou.

Day 13 · A temple that still trains

SightA temple complex tied to Foshan's religious life, its martial arts and its community life, and still used for all three. You walk the courtyards, the decorative architecture and the displays before anything starts.
SightPerformed in the grounds by the people who train there. A lion is two people and a drum: the drum sets the beat, the head decides where the animal is looking, and the whole thing stands or falls on the timing between them. Stand near the drum rather than in front of the lion, and you will hear the cue before you see the jump.
SightA local practitioner takes it, history and principles first, close range and straight lines and no wasted movement, then he puts you into the basic stance and moves your feet, your elbows and your hands until the shape is right. No fitness needed. When he corrects your elbow for the third time, you'll notice you have stopped being a visitor here.
Flight

Foshan · Day 2

Foshan
Foshan
Foshan
Flight

Foshan · Day 14

Foshan
Foshan
Foshan

Day 14 · Tea, then the towers, then home

DiningAt an old-name teahouse: har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, char siu bao and whatever the season brings. Here a morning tea is how a neighborhood spends a morning together rather than a meal you finish and leave, so it gets the whole morning and the trolleys keep coming. This is the only sit-down meal included in the fourteen days.
SightThis is your departure day, so the Foshan morning is checked against your flight time before your dates are confirmed. When the flight is too early for it, the morning tea moves to day thirteen and day fourteen stays inside Guangzhou.
SightThe island stage and the tower district Guangzhou built on the river in the last twenty years. Stand on the axis and look back: the country that dug the channels at Dujiangyan is the same one that poured this, and neither of them has stopped.
TransportYour driver takes you to Guangzhou Baiyun airport with room to spare against your flight.
Departures

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Hotels
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Included / Excluded

What's Included

  • Private vehicleAir-conditioned private vehicle for all listed touring in all five cities, including the Dujiangyan day return on day three and the Foshan day returns on days thirteen and fourteen; airport pickup in Chengdu on day one and drop-off at Guangzhou Baiyun on day fourteen; hotel to station and hotel to airport transfers for all five intercity legs. Fuel, tolls, parking and the driver service allowance are inside the price
  • GuideLicensed English-speaking guide on every touring day in every city, including both day returns, and accompanying the whole Bund evening in Shanghai
  • Intercity transportFive legs: day 3 Chengdu to Dujiangyan and back by high-speed rail · day 4 Chengdu to Xi'an by high-speed rail · day 7 Xi'an to Beijing by high-speed rail · day 10 Beijing to Shanghai by high-speed rail · day 12 Shanghai to Guangzhou by air, with the operating airline's standard checked-baggage allowance. The cabin class of each leg for your order is stated in writing in your quote
  • Hotels13 nights at your chosen level, four-star, five-star or quality boutique, breakfast included with the room: Chengdu 3 · Xi'an 3 · Beijing 3 · Shanghai 2 · Guangzhou 2. Hotels are named in your written confirmation
  • Tickets & experiences, ChengduThe panda base in the morning · the gaiwan teahouse sitting in People's Park · Kuanzhai Alley and Taikoo Li · the community Sichuan opera theater with the backstage look and face-changing up close
  • Tickets & experiences, Dujiangyan day returnDujiangyan irrigation system admission · Mount Qingcheng with the small Taoist temple visit · the conversation with a resident Taoist and the tai chi session
  • Tickets & experiences, Xi'anTerracotta Warriors admission · Xi'an City Wall by bike, admission and bike hire both included · Giant Wild Goose Pagoda · the Bell and Drum Tower area with the Muslim Quarter after dark
  • Tickets & experiences, BeijingForbidden City admission · Jingshan Park · Mutianyu Great Wall admission with the cable car up and the toboggan down · Tian'anmen Square · Temple of Heaven · National Museum of China. When the toboggan is not running on your day, a permitted alternative way down is arranged at no extra charge
  • Tickets & experiences, ShanghaiYu Garden and the old city · Shanghai Museum · former French Concession and Wukang Road · the Huangpu River ferry crossing with the fare included · the Bund and the Pudong skyline after dark, guide accompanied
  • Tickets & experiences, Guangzhou and FoshanFoshan Ancestral Temple admission · the lion dance and martial arts performance at the temple · the Wing Chun session with a local practitioner · Haixinsha and Zhujiang New Town
  • Meals13 hotel breakfasts, days two through fourteen, with the room, plus one sit-down meal: the Cantonese morning tea at an old-name teahouse in Foshan. That morning tea is the only sit-down meal in the fourteen days
  • InsuranceTravel accident insurance

Not Included

  • International flightsFlights into Chengdu and out of Guangzhou, and any international connection at either end. A domestic connecting leg we book for you on request is quoted separately and never folded into the base price
  • VisasVisa fees and processing for guests who need a Chinese visa, including every US guest on this route
  • Timed reservationsBooking of the three timed name-registered reservations on this route, the Forbidden City on day 8, the National Museum of China on day 10 and the Shanghai Museum on day 11. Admission to all three is included; the booking of the slot is not in the base price today. See Special Notes
  • MealsEvery meal other than the 13 hotel breakfasts and the one Foshan morning tea: lunches and dinners are recommended and booked by your guide, on your account
  • Optional itemsThis route carries no optional add-on. Anything you ask for beyond the included list is quoted separately when you choose it and is never added into the base plan
  • PersonalGratuities · single-room or extra-room difference · personal spending · spending inside the listed sites beyond admission and the items named above

Special Notes

A few things on this route follow the calendar, the season or a booking system. Here they are, told straight.

  • Bookings are not open yetthree points on this route take a timed name-registered reservation, and how those slots get booked is not settled. Until that arrangement is in place, written into the included list and priced, we take no orders and no deposits. Tell us your dates and we will write to you on the day it opens.
  • The three timed reservationsthe Forbidden City on day 8, the National Museum of China on day 10 and the Shanghai Museum on day 11. Admission to all three is included in the price. The reservation systems are name-registered and hard to use on an overseas mobile number, and the Shanghai Museum booking pages are only partly in English. Your quote states in writing who books each slot and what it costs. Where a slot cannot be secured for your date, we tell you before you pay and rearrange that day rather than sell you a closed door.
  • Departure daysno Monday departures, because day 8 falls on the same weekday as day 1 and the Forbidden City closes on Mondays. No departures October 1 to 7, the national holiday week, when the Terracotta Warriors site and the Chengdu panda base run at their most crowded.
  • December departures and the two outdoor itemsthe Mutianyu cable car and open chairlift on day 9 and the Xi'an City Wall ride on day 6 are outdoors, and their winter operating rules are being confirmed with the sites. For a December departure your quote states in writing what happens to each of those two items if the site suspends it on your day.
  • GroupPrivate, just your party. From 1 guest. No fixed maximum party size.
  • Cabin classthe cabin class of the four high-speed rail legs and the one domestic flight is being finalized for this route. Until it is fixed, the cabin class of each leg for your order is stated in writing in your quote, and we take no order without it.
  • Day 14 timingthe last day holds the Foshan morning tea, Haixinsha and your flight out of Guangzhou Baiyun. We check it against your departure time before your dates are confirmed; when the flight is too early, the morning tea moves to day 13 and day 14 stays inside Guangzhou.
  • Security screeningeveryone is screened to enter Tian'anmen Square on day 10, and the queue takes half an hour to an hour. It is budgeted separately on that day, on top of your time on the square.
  • Visa windowthe 30-day visa-free policy currently runs through December 31, 2026. This is a 14-day plan, so departures on or before December 18, 2026 finish inside that window; later departures are quoted only after the official renewal is announced.
  • US passportsthe US is not on the 30-day visa-free list, and 14 days is longer than the 10-day visa-free transit policy allows, so every US guest on this route holds a Chinese tourist or business visa, ten-year multiple-entry included. Allow processing time before your departure date. We confirm visa status before any payment.
  • Guests already in China on the transit policyif you entered China under the 10-day visa-free transit policy, this route does not work for you, because 14 days is longer than that policy allows. We say so before payment, with no workaround.
  • 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 legs and one flight, so a date change touches rail and airline inventory as well as hotels.

Is Fourteen Days Your Length?

Fewer than fourteen days?

Fewer than fourteen days?

The five stops come apart cleanly. Chengdu with the Dujiangyan day return stands on its own, Xi'an and Beijing are the pair most first trips keep, and the Shanghai and Guangzhou end can shorten to one city. Tell us your dates and who is coming, and we cut stops rather than cut the pace.

Good to Know

Group
Private, just your party. From 1 guest. No fixed maximum party size.
Pace
Five cities in 14 days: Chengdu 3 nights, Xi'an 3, Beijing 3, Shanghai 2, Guangzhou 2. Two day returns, to Dujiangyan and to Foshan, with no change of hotel. Two easy days, day 2 and day 12
Effort
Moderate. The Great Wall is done by cable car up and toboggan down; the one riding day is flat, on top of the city wall; the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors are long flat walks, cut to one line with places to sit
Ports
Chengdu in, Guangzhou out. Airport pickup on day one and drop-off at Guangzhou Baiyun on day fourteen
Visas
UK, most European, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand passports enter visa-free for stays days, checked order by order against your dates. US passports need a Chinese tourist or business visa for this route
Language
Licensed English-speaking guides throughout, city by city, including both day returns
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 Monday departures and none October 1 to 7. December departures have the two outdoor items confirmed in writing against your dates

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