4 Days: Shanghai and Beyond
Four days is where a gateway trip stops feeling rushed. You get the same Suzhou and Hangzhou day trips as the shorter versions of this itinerary, plus a fourth day that goes deeper into the water towns and gives you a genuine read on how different the rest of the Jiangnan region feels from Shanghai itself.
Book these before you go: train tickets on Trip.com for both Suzhou and Hangzhou, a Shanghai hotel (Agoda) for all four nights, and a Wuzhen water town tour on GetYourGuide if you’d rather not plan Day 4’s transport yourself.
| Day | Focus | Key cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Land, visa/eSIM setup, the Bund | Free (the Bund promenade) |
| 2 | Suzhou day trip by G-train | ¥21-40 second-class fare |
| 3 | Hangzhou West Lake day trip | ¥73 second-class fare |
| 4 | Wuzhen or Tongli water town | Check current transport fares |
Day 1: Arrival and the Doorway City
Land at Pudong (PVG) for international flights, or Hongqiao (SHA) if your routing allows it, since Hongqiao sits right beside the railway station you’ll be using for the next two mornings. Confirm your visa situation before departure: the 240-hour transit covers 55 countries including the US but requires a confirmed onward ticket to a third country, while the separate 30-day unilateral waiver (roughly 50 countries, not the US) drops that requirement entirely. Get an eSIM sized for the full four days and a tested VPN sorted before you fly too, both are far harder to sort out once you’ve landed.
Ease in with an afternoon on the Bund, free, open around the clock, and best at dusk when the concession-era buildings on your bank and Pudong’s towers across the water both light up. It’s worth remembering as you plan the rest of this trip that Shanghai was built as a foreign treaty port after 1842 and is genuinely one of the least typically Chinese major cities in the country, which is exactly why the next three days matter so much. If you want the deeper in-city sightseeing beyond this quick orientation, the Shanghai guide covers it properly.
Day 2: Suzhou
Hongqiao Railway Station to Suzhou runs 23-30 minutes on the fastest G-trains, around ¥21-40 second class, with 350+ departures a day. The Humble Administrator’s Garden, the Lingering Garden, and the Suzhou Museum all sit close to the station, so a full day here covers real ground without the transit tax you’d pay almost anywhere else. Head back to Shanghai in the evening.
Day 3: Hangzhou
About 45 minutes by G-train, roughly ¥73 second class, with Metro Line 1 running direct from Hangzhou East to West Lake in another 30 minutes. A 9:15am departure gets you lakeside by 10:25am, and return trains run until roughly 10:30pm, so there’s no need to rush the day. If you only had time for one of these two trips on a future visit, Suzhou is the easier win, but Hangzhou’s slower pace is exactly what makes it worth the extra hour today.
Day 4: Water Towns and a Different China
Beyond the near option of Zhujiajiao (an easy half-day if you’ve done the in-city Shanghai itinerary already), Wuzhen and Tongli are the deeper-cut Jiangnan water towns worth the extra planning, genuinely quieter than Zhujiajiao gets on weekends and closer in feel to the kind of small-town China that Shanghai’s concession-built skyline doesn’t show you at all. Check current transport schedules before committing, since neither runs the same rapid-transit-style connection Suzhou and Hangzhou do, and treat this as a slower, more observational day than the previous two.
For the logic behind pushing further still, Beijing and Xi’an both become realistic once you’ve got five or more days, and the full gateway guide breaks down travel times and costs for both. The 3-day version of this itinerary works well if you need to trim this trip back down.
Book the Suzhou and Hangzhou tickets as soon as your dates are confirmed, the fastest departures on both routes sell out well before the slower ones do.