5 Best Day Trips From Hangzhou
Hangzhou alone rarely fills more than 4-5 days, so once you’ve covered West Lake and Lingyin Temple, the honest move is to add one of these five trips rather than inventing more in-city sights. The nearest two, Suzhou and Shanghai, are substantial destinations in their own right and reward an overnight if your schedule allows it; the other three are better suited to a single day out and back.
Suzhou: 43 minutes to 1h20 by high-speed rail
Suzhou’s classical gardens, the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lingering Garden among them, are the draw, along with its old canal streets and stone bridges. Trains from Hangzhou East run frequently through the day, so there’s no need to book weeks ahead outside holiday periods. It’s close enough to do in a single day, but the gardens reward a slower pace, so an overnight is worth considering if you have the time. Our 5-day itinerary builds a Suzhou day into a longer Hangzhou trip.
Shanghai: 42-90 minutes by high-speed rail
Shanghai is really its own multi-day trip rather than a simple add-on. The Bund, the old French Concession, and the sheer scale of the city all reward more than a few hours, so treat a single day here as a highlights-only preview rather than a proper visit. Many travelers instead use Hangzhou as the quieter half of a wider Yangtze-Delta circuit, flying into or out of Shanghai and spending the bulk of their time in Hangzhou and Suzhou.
Wuzhen and Xitang water towns: 1.5-2h by car
These are the well-known canal towns near the Zhejiang-Jiangsu border, both with stone bridges, waterside houses on stilts, and old trading-street architecture that dates back centuries. Covering both by public bus in a single day is a stretch given the connections between them, so hiring a private car for the day is worth the cost if you want to see both rather than picking just one. Wuzhen’s west scenic zone runs late into the evening and is worth the extra ticket if you can stay past dark.
Moganshan: 1-1.5h
A bamboo-covered hill retreat that started as a colonial-era summer escape from the Yangtze Delta heat and is now known for boutique guesthouses and walking trails through the bamboo forest. It rewards a slower, overnight visit rather than a rushed day, since the appeal is the quiet and the forest air rather than any single ticketed sight.
The Qiantang River tidal bore: about 1h (Haining/Yanguan)
The famous tidal bore is not visible from central Hangzhou. It’s viewed downriver near Haining or Yanguan, about an hour away, and the biggest surges cluster around the Mid-Autumn Festival (25-27 September 2026 this year), when the tide and the lunar calendar line up. Check the daily tide notice before you commit to the trip, since the timing shifts by the day and only the larger bores are worth the drive out.
Read more: the Hangzhou travel guide covers how many in-city days to budget before adding one of these on top, and our itinerary pages work a Wuzhen/Xitang or Suzhou day directly into a full trip plan.