China Itinerary: 10 Days or 2 Weeks by Train (2026)

Ten days covers Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai comfortably if the railway does the heavy lifting: three full days in Beijing, a sleeper train overnight to Xi’an, two days there, then a morning high-speed train to Shanghai for three nights before you fly home. With two weeks, add two stops along the way: Pingyao, a walled town founded in the 14th century between Beijing and Xi’an, and Hangzhou’s West Lake, about an hour from Shanghai by train.

Every train named here is a real departure on 12306, China Railway’s own booking site, with times and second-class fares read on 3 October 2026 for Tuesday 13 October. The sums turned up a surprise: the two-week route’s four train tickets come to less than the ten-day route’s G351 and G92, because the legs through Pingyao are short and cheap; with the slower G2455 to Xi’an, the ten-day pair comes in ¥19.5 under. That held on those trains on that date, and fares move from train to train, so check yours on 12306 before you commit.

Passports, holidays and the Monday closures

Neither version needs a visa on a British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand or Irish passport, or one from most EU countries: those get up to 30 days in mainland China without one, and fourteen days fits inside that with room to spare. The scheme covers entries until 31 December 2026, and the 30 days are counted from the day after you land (Chinese embassy notices, checked on 3 October 2026). US passports aren’t on the list, and neither are Czech or Lithuanian ones: for a trip like this you’ll need a visa, and our visa guide sets out the options passport by passport, including what the 240-hour transit rule does and doesn’t allow.

China’s three long public holidays fill trains and sights at once. On the 2026 calendar, which the State Council published on 4 November 2025, Spring Festival ran from 15 to 23 February, the Labour Day break from 1 to 5 May and National Day from 1 to 7 October, while the other four holidays got three days each. For a 2027 trip, wait for next year’s calendar and keep clear of those weeks; on a winter trip, that means Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year holiday, which our Chinese New Year 2027 guide tracks, along with what closed in 2026. If a northern winter trip is the plan, the Harbin ice festival guide covers the ice parks, and our China in winter guide has the weather, the daylight and the dates the winter hours start.

Then there’s the weekly rhythm. The Palace Museum, which is what the Forbidden City is today, shuts on Mondays except national holidays, while Shanghai Museum East closes on Tuesdays. Land in Beijing on a Sunday and your first full day is a Monday, so swap days 2 and 3 below and do the Great Wall first. Land on a Tuesday and day 8 falls on a Tuesday too, so swap days 8 and 9 in Shanghai.

Eight trains, timed and priced on 12306

All eight were timetabled for Tuesday 13 October 2026; we read them on 12306 on 3 October 2026.

Three details in that table matter more than they look. Fares belong to the train, not the route: for Tuesday 13 October 2026, the slower G2455 to Xi’an was priced at ¥470 against ¥587 on G351, and Xi’an to Shanghai at ¥652 to ¥783 across 22 G trains. Only two of those are timetabled under six hours, G92 and G96, which leaves Xi’an North at 15:32 and gets in at 21:22; the rest take seven hours or more.

Stations change too. Beijing has several big ones, and both G trains to Pingyao leave from Beijing Fengtai, not Beijing West. In Xi’an, most high-speed trains use Xi’an North, well outside the old city, while the night trains and a few daytime G trains, such as G655 from Beijing West, pull into Xi’an station, the old one on the north side of the walls. Xinhua describes the city wall as the first thing you see when you walk out of it.

And tickets don’t all go on sale at once. 12306 sells 15 days ahead, and each departure station releases its new day at a fixed hour: 08:00 at Beijing West and Beijing Fengtai, 10:30 at Xi’an North, 10:45 at Hangzhou East and 15:00 at Pingyao Gucheng, all Beijing time. In winter, 08:00 in Beijing is midnight in London and 7pm the evening before in New York. Our comparison of booking on 12306 or Trip.com walks through the passport check and payment.

Days 1-4: Beijing, ending on a night train

• Day 1: land and settle in, ideally in Dongcheng, the district that holds the Forbidden City; the Beijing guide weighs it against the other areas worth a bed.
• Day 2: the Temple of Heaven early, then the palace, booked a week out by passport: our Forbidden City tickets guide has the evening release, prices and what to do if your date sells out.
• Day 3: the Great Wall, a full day out of the city; our Mutianyu vs Badaling comparison covers how to get there and which section to pick.
• Day 4: the Summer Palace or the lanes around the Lama Temple. Check out, leave your bags with the hotel and be at Beijing West in good time for the evening train.

The night train is what makes ten days work. D43 leaves Beijing West at 20:29 and reaches Xi’an at 08:23 the next morning, and D41 at 20:03 and D19 at 20:41 run the same way. A berth in second-class sleeper costs ¥300 on D43 and D19 and ¥320 on D41, first-class sleeper ¥458 to ¥488, and whichever you pick, it stands in for a night in a hotel. If you’d rather sleep in a bed that doesn’t move, G351 leaves Beijing West at 07:55 on day 5 and reaches Xi’an North at 12:05, which costs you a morning instead.

Days 5-6: the wall, the museum and the warriors

Off the night train at 08:23, take the south exit of Xi’an station and the wall is in front of you. Leave your bags at a hotel inside it and give day 5 to the city. The Shaanxi History Museum is free but needs a booking made five days ahead, with time slots released at 17:00 each day on the museum’s WeChat account. It opens every day until 14 November 2026; last winter, from 15 November until 14 March 2026, it closed on Mondays except national holidays, so check the hours for a later trip. Keep the late afternoon for the wall itself: tickets, bike hire and the gates to start from are in the Xi’an guide.

Day 6 belongs to the Terracotta Warriors, out in Lintong district. The pits weren’t discovered until 1974, and UNESCO reckons thousands of figures are still underground. The museum runs on real-name bookings through its own website and WeChat account, foreign visitors included, and a passport counts as ID at the gate. From 16 March to 15 November you can enter from 08:30 until 17:00, when ticket checks stop, and the site closes at 18:30.

Day 7 starts early, because G92 leaves Xi’an North at 08:51 and the station is about 13 km north of the Bell Tower as the crow flies. Give yourself an hour to cross town and clear security.

Days 7-10: Shanghai, from Hongqiao to the Bund

G92 pulls into Shanghai Hongqiao at 14:43, early enough to check in and reach the Bund by dusk; the Shanghai guide has the light-up times and which side of the river to sleep on. Give day 8 to Shanghai Museum East, at 1952 Century Avenue in Pudong. It’s closed on Tuesdays; otherwise, while what the museum calls its no-reservation period lasts, individual visitors need only a passport at the B1 East Gate.

Day 9 is yours. Spend it in the old town around Yu Garden, or use it for Hangzhou: on that same Tuesday, 92 G trains were timetabled from Hangzhou East to Hongqiao, the quickest taking 45 minutes. Fly home on day 10.

That last day settles the flights. Book into Beijing and out of Shanghai, an open-jaw ticket, and you won’t spend a day going back to where you started.

Two weeks: Pingyao and Hangzhou on the way

The fourteen-day version keeps the same four days in Beijing, sleeps the fourth night there instead of on the train, and stops on the way to Xi’an.

• Days 5-6, Pingyao. G621 leaves Beijing Fengtai at 07:12 and reaches Pingyao Gucheng at 10:54; G625, the second of the two G trains timetabled that day, leaves at 10:38 and gets in at 14:13. UNESCO calls Pingyao an exceptionally well-preserved Han Chinese city, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was the banking centre for the whole of China. Two nights let you walk the walls at both ends of the day.
• Days 7-9, Xi’an. D2507 leaves Pingyao Gucheng at 08:50 and reaches Xi’an North at 11:25. A third night in Xi’an fits the museum morning in without rushing the warriors.
• Days 10-11, Hangzhou. This is the big travel day: G2238 leaves Xi’an North at 08:18 and arrives at Hangzhou West at 14:49. West Lake has been free to walk round since the city dropped its fees in 2002, and UNESCO dates its two causeways and three islands to dredging between the 9th and 12th centuries. Lingyin Temple has been free too since 1 December 2025, but you book a slot at least a day and up to seven days ahead, with your passport, in the “Hangzhou Lingyin Feilaifeng” mini programme on Alipay or WeChat. Hangzhou Daily reported on 30 September 2026 that same-day bookings aren’t accepted and nothing is sold at the gate.
• Days 12-13, Shanghai. G262 leaves from Hangzhou East, not the West station you arrived at, at 10:48 and reaches Hongqiao at 11:35, so you’re in Shanghai for lunch. Fly out on day 14.

Want more Shanghai? Drop one Hangzhou night and see the lake as a day trip instead.

What to book, and when

• 15 days before each train: 12306 opens sales, at the release hour of the departure station. On the two-week route the last leg goes on sale only a few days before you fly, so expect to book in four sittings, not one.
• 7 days before, at 20:00 Beijing time: the Palace Museum, around lunch in London and breakfast in New York.
• Between 7 days and 1 day before: Lingyin Temple, on the two-week route.
• 5 days before, from 17:00: the Shaanxi History Museum.
• As soon as your Xi’an dates are fixed: the Terracotta Warriors, on the museum’s own site or WeChat account.
• Nothing to book, for now: Shanghai Museum East, except its Curio-City and Digital Gallery, which still take advance bookings.

Paying 12306 and these sites from abroad, with a foreign card or a wallet app, is covered in how to pay in China.

The rail bill, line by line

At the European Central Bank’s rates for 2 October 2026, the daytime ten-day trains come to ¥1,343 (about $200, about £152), the night-train version to ¥1,056 (about $158, about £119) and the two-week route to ¥1,245.5 (about $186, about £141). All three are second-class fares for one adult on Tuesday 13 October 2026.

So with G351 and G92, the two extra stops cost less in train fares than the daytime ten-day plan and a little more than the night-train one; with the slower G2455 to Xi’an (¥470), the daytime ten-day trains come to ¥1,226, just under the two-week route. What they really add is nights: the ten-day plan with the sleeper needs eight hotel nights, and the two-week plan needs thirteen. Hotels, meals and sight tickets aren’t in the table, so next to the night-train plan Pingyao and Hangzhou cost you the fare difference above, plus five more hotel nights, four more days of meals and any tickets for the sights along the way.