Seven days is more than Hangzhou alone usually fills. This itinerary spends days 1-4 on the honest in-city core (West Lake, tea, Lingyin Temple, the Grand Canal, Xixi Wetland) and days 5-7 on the water towns, Suzhou, and Shanghai, since Hangzhou is most sensibly paired with those on a wider Yangtze-Delta circuit rather than stretched thin on its own. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and book Lingyin Temple’s timed-entry reservation online.

Six days covers the full honest Hangzhou core plus two day trips: the Wuzhen/Xitang water towns and Suzhou. Honestly: Hangzhou alone rarely fills more than 4-5 days, so this itinerary leans on those day trips rather than inventing more in-city sights for days 5-6. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and book Lingyin Temple’s timed-entry reservation online.

Five days covers the honest Hangzhou core (West Lake, tea, Lingyin Temple, the Grand Canal, Xixi Wetland) plus one day trip. Honestly: Hangzhou alone rarely fills more than 4-5 days, so this itinerary leans on nearby Suzhou for day 5 rather than inventing more in-city sights. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and book Lingyin Temple’s timed-entry reservation online.

Four days covers the honest 3-day core (West Lake, a tea village, Lingyin Temple, the Grand Canal) plus Xixi Wetland Park. Hangzhou alone rarely fills much beyond this; if you have more time, pair it with Shanghai and Suzhou instead of stretching a Hangzhou-only week. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and book Lingyin Temple’s timed-entry reservation online.

Three days is the sweet spot for Hangzhou: enough time for West Lake, a tea village, Lingyin Temple, and the Grand Canal without padding. Much beyond this, most travelers do better pairing Hangzhou with Shanghai and Suzhou rather than stretching a Hangzhou-only week. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and book Lingyin Temple’s timed-entry reservation online.

Two days is enough to see the honest highlights of Hangzhou: West Lake and Lingyin Temple. It’s not enough time for tea villages, the Grand Canal, or Xixi Wetland, so if those matter to you, look at the 3-day plan instead. Before you fly: set up Alipay (link a foreign card while you still have a home phone number handy), install a VPN, since you can’t download one once you’re inside China, and if Lingyin Temple is on your list, book the timed-entry reservation online, since walk-ups aren’t accepted anymore.

Most of what trips up first-time visitors to Hangzhou isn’t the sightseeing, it’s the payment system, the internet, and the visa rules, all of which need setting up before you leave home, not after you land. Before you go: China in 2026. Set up Alipay and WeChat Pay, and link an international Visa or Mastercard to Alipay, before you fly; both need a passport and a home phone number to register.

Hangzhou is an easy city to get etiquette wrong in without ever being told, since most locals are too polite to correct a visitor directly. A few habits go a long way, especially around temples, tea, and meals. Temples: Lingyin and Feilai Feng Dress modestly, shoulders and knees covered, when visiting Lingyin Temple. Since entry now runs on a timed reservation booked through Alipay or WeChat, you’ll already be committed to a specific slot, so plan your outfit before you book rather than discovering the dress code at the gate.

Where to base yourself in Hangzhou depends mostly on how you’re splitting time between the lake and the rest of the city, or if you’re passing through on a Shanghai-Suzhou circuit. Five areas cover almost everyone’s trip. West Lake shoreline: the splurge If the lake view matters more than the price, this is the area. The Four Seasons Hangzhou at West Lake and the Grand Hyatt Hangzhou on Hubin Road are the two names worth knowing here, both putting you steps from the causeways and the lake’s ticketed sights.

Hangzhou photographs best early or late, when the lake crowds thin out and the light hits the water at an angle. Here’s where to point a camera, in the order a single day would naturally take you there. The Su and Bai causeways, at sunrise Both causeways are free, pedestrian-only, and at their best in the first hour or two after sunrise, before the day-trip crowds arrive. The willow-lined Su Causeway (1074) and the Bai Causeway (822, built roughly 250 years earlier by a different poet) both give long, low sightlines across the water toward the surrounding hills.

Hangzhou’s whole identity is built around one body of water, but the nature worth seeking out extends past the lake into wetlands, tea hills, and a forested temple garden. Here’s where to find it, and when each spot is at its best. West Lake itself The lake, its causeways, and Solitary Hill are free to enter, and the shallower coves fill with lotus in summer. Spring brings blossoms along the shoreline, and the willow-lined Su and Bai Causeways are the classic vantage points for either.

Honestly, Hangzhou isn’t a hiking destination first, it’s a lake and temple city with gentle terraced hills around the edges. That said, there’s genuine walking to be done, and one real hiking day trip if you have the time for it. The Su and Bai causeways around West Lake The flattest, easiest walk in the city, and free. Both causeways, the Su (built 1074) and the Bai (built roughly 250 years earlier, in 822), are pedestrian-only, bikes are banned on both, so it’s one of the few places in Hangzhou where walkers don’t have to share the path with cyclists or scooters.

West Lake, Lingyin Temple, and Hefang Street get the crowds for good reason, but a handful of Hangzhou’s other verified sights sit a short ride away and see a fraction of the foot traffic. None of these are secrets exactly, they’re all on maps and in guidebooks, they’re just easy to skip on a short trip that never leaves the lakeshore. Meijiawu tea village Longjing village gets the name recognition, but Meijiawu, a short taxi or DiDi ride further into the hills, is the quieter of the two tea villages, with the same free wandering and ¥10-80 tastings.

Hangzhou’s calendar runs on two tracks: the national Chinese holidays that pack West Lake shoulder to shoulder, and the natural seasonal highlights, tea harvest, lotus bloom, osmanthus, the tidal bore, that are worth planning around rather than avoiding. Local festival listings for specific weekends change year to year and are best confirmed on Trip.com or a local events calendar closer to your dates rather than locked in months ahead. Early April: the Mingqian tea harvest and Qingming Festival Early April is when the Mingqian grade of Longjing tea, picked before the Qingming festival, comes in, the most prized flush of the year.

Hangzhou cuisine (Hang cai) is milder and sweeter than most Chinese regional cooking, built around lake fish, bamboo shoots, and the local green tea. It’s better to learn the dishes than to chase a list of restaurant names, since menus and vendor lineups turn over fast and most of what gets recommended online is unverifiable by the time you land. Here are the eight dishes actually worth ordering, plus the one restaurant name worth booking.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Hangzhou’s list of things to do centers on one lake, but it splits into distinct halves once you dig in: the free walking and boating around West Lake itself, and the ticketed sights, temples, and tea villages layered around its edges.

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.

Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province, built around West Lake (Xi Hu), the former Southern Song capital known as Lin’an. It’s the home of Longjing (Dragon Well) green tea, Lingyin Temple, the southern terminus of the Grand Canal, and Alibaba. Here’s what to know before you go. Visa: two paths, not a blanket “visa-free” Two separate policies get travelers in without a full visa application, and they’re easy to mix up.