Tool 06
Build your China itinerary on real rails
Pick your passport, days and pace — get a day-by-day route skeleton across 15 cities and 13 verified high-speed corridors, checked against your visa-free day budget. Free, instant, no email — with an optional $9.99 offline dossier once your route is set.
Many nationalities now get 30 visa-free days in China — pick your passport to confirm yours and check this 8-day trip fits.
Routes that actually run on rails (3)
Your 8-day skeleton
Free, and yours to screenshot. Cities, sights and train times all come from our verified, dated data — nothing here is guessed.
Beijing
Day 1–2 · 2 daysSix dynasties of imperial China, walkable in hutong scale
- Forbidden City — The Ming and Qing imperial palace — 72 hectares of vermilion halls along a strict north–south axis.
- Great Wall at Mutianyu — The most traveller-friendly restored wall section near Beijing, with forested ridgelines and watchtower views.
- Temple of Heaven — Round altar, square park — where emperors prayed for harvests; mornings fill with tai chi and chess players.
Eat · Peking duck carved tableside, zhajiang noodles, and breakfast jianbing from street windows.
Lodging · Base inside the old city — around Qianmen, Wangfujing or the Dongcheng hutongs. You walk to the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven, sit on subway lines to both airports, and reach Beijing South for the bullet train in one ride.
- Day 3 morning: 3h 17m by high-speed rail, from ¥445 second class · 60+ trains/day
Nanjing
Day 3–4 · 2 daysSix-dynasty southern capital on the Yangtze, plane trees over everything
- Confucius Temple & Qinhuai River — Lantern-lit riverbanks at the heart of old Nanjing — take an evening cruise past carved balustrades.
- Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum — A monumental stairway of 392 steps climbing Purple Mountain to the tomb of modern China's founding father — white stone and blue tile among the pines.
- Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum — Tomb of the Ming founder on Purple Mountain, approached by a sacred way of stone elephants and camels.
Eat · Salted duck (盐水鸭), duck-blood vermicelli soup, and soup dumplings big enough to need a straw.
Lodging · Stay around the Confucius Temple and Qinhuai River, or near Xinjiekou — central and lantern-lit at night, on metro lines that link Nanjing South station and the Purple Mountain tombs.
- Day 5 morning: 59 min by high-speed rail, from ¥55 second class · 250+ trains/day
Shanghai
Day 5–6 · 2 daysChina's deco-and-skyline metropolis, east meets everything
- The Bund — A riverside mile of 1920s banking palaces facing the Lujiazui skyline — walk it at dusk for both eras at once.
- Lujiazui skyline decks — Shanghai Tower and its neighbours — observation decks above the Huangpu river bend.
- Yu Garden & old town bazaar — A Ming-dynasty scholar's garden of rockeries and zigzag bridges, wrapped in a busy snack bazaar.
Eat · Soup dumplings two ways — steamed xiaolongbao and pan-fried shengjianbao — plus hairy crab in autumn.
Lodging · Stay around the former French Concession or People's Square: central, leafy and walkable to the Bund. Both sit on several metro lines, with a straight run to Hongqiao for high-speed trains and the maglev out to Pudong airport.
- Day 7 morning: 45 min by high-speed rail, from ¥47 second class · 250+ trains/day
Hangzhou
Day 7–8 · 2 daysWest Lake mist, Longjing tea terraces, Song-dynasty grace
- Lingyin Temple & Feilai Feng — One of China's great Chan (Zen) monasteries, beside cliffs carved with hundreds of Buddhist figures.
- West Lake — Causeways, pagodas and willow banks — the landscape that defined Chinese garden aesthetics; walk or boat it.
- Hefang Street — A restored Qing market street at the lake's southeast corner — scissors, fans, herbal apothecaries.
Eat · West Lake vinegar fish, Dongpo pork (named for the poet-governor Su Dongpo), and shrimp stir-fried with Longjing leaves.
Lodging · Stay along the east or south shore of West Lake — you can reach the water at dawn on foot and Hangzhou East station by metro in about 20 minutes. The closer to the lake, the better your mornings.
What the full dossier adds
The skeleton above is the route. The dossier is the trip, ready to run on the ground — the part a free outline can't be.
Every day written out
Not a list of sights — the day itself: what to see first, where to eat between, what not to miss inside each place, paced to your speed.
Reservations to make from home
5 sights on your route sell out — we list exactly what to book before you fly (like Forbidden City), how many days ahead, and the official channel.
Show-the-screen Chinese cards
Every sight and six trip-saving phrases in Chinese characters, plus a landing survival card — show your phone to a driver or to station staff.
In your pocket, offline
The whole thing as a PDF, emailed to you: no app, no signal, no VPN once you land in China.
A sample day · 范例
One day, as it reads in the dossier — yours are written for the exact route, cities and pace you picked above.
Day 2 — Inside the imperial city
Beijing 北京The imperial core
Forbidden City 故宫
half a dayMetro Line 1 to Tiananmen East leaves a short walk to the south gate. Enter only at the Meridian Gate (午门) on the south side; the palace runs one way north, so you can't double back. Your passport and the booking you made from home are the ticket — nothing to collect at the gate.
太和殿 Hall of Supreme Harmony — Come at it head-on early — the largest timber hall in China and the ceremonial heart of the central axis.
珍宝馆 Treasure Gallery — Off the axis to the east: jade carvings, gold seals and phoenix crowns, with the glazed Nine-Dragon Screen out front. (separate ticket)
also inside: 御花园 Imperial Garden (free, on the way to the north exit) · 钟表馆 Clock & Watch Gallery (same extra ticket — skip if rushed)
↓ You can leave only by the north gate, the Gate of Divine Prowess (神武门).
Jingshan Park 景山公园
~1 hrIts south gate faces the Forbidden City's north gate, just across the road.
万春亭 Wanchun Pavilion — Climb to the pavilion at the very top, the high point of the old city's central axis — the Forbidden City's whole golden roofline laid out below.
↓ It sits on the old central axis — the Forbidden City just across the road to the south, the Drum and Bell Towers a short walk north up the axis.
Drum & Bell Towers 钟鼓楼
1–2 hrsMetro Line 8 to Shichahai, or Line 2/8 to Guloudajie. No advance booking — buy the combined Drum-and-Bell ticket at the gate; the climb up the Drum Tower is 69 steep, narrow steps.
鼓楼 Drum Tower climb — Climb for a rooftop sweep over grey hutong courtyards toward Shichahai; time it to catch one of the day's short drum performances.
↓ Yandai Xie Street leads off the foot of the Drum Tower straight down to Houhai lake.
EveningHouhai lake is old Beijing's loveliest evening: after dark the water turns lantern-lit, the lakeside promenade fills with strollers and street food, and the little Silver Ingot Bridge frames the view between the two lakes.
The bold Chinese names are what you'll see on signs and tickets — show your phone to ask staff.
Work north before the crowds thicken — the side halls are where the quiet hides.
The full dossier
The trip, written out and ready to run on the ground
You've got the route above, free. The dossier is the rest of it — yours as an offline PDF, emailed the moment you check out.
Doesn't generate, won't open, or isn't what we describe? Email support@readysetchina.com — we'll fix it or refund.
We plan, you book: the dossier links official and major booking channels but we never sell tickets or make reservations for you.
Why this builder is different
Visa math built in
Your trip is checked against China's current visa-free or transit policy for your passport — the same dated, sourced dataset behind our visa checker.
Trains that exist
Routes only ride city pairs we've verified one by one — durations, frequencies, from-prices. See the data on our train route pages.
Days that flow, not a checklist
Each day is grouped by neighbourhood — sights that sit together, in an order that makes sense — so you spend your time seeing the city, not crossing it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the itinerary builder free?
Yes. The interactive builder — route options, day-by-day skeleton, train durations and from-prices, and the visa-free day check — is completely free, no email required. The optional $9.99 China Travel Dossier is your offline survival kit for landing: an offline PDF by download and email, with practical Chinese-character cards you can show drivers and staff, so it works the moment you touch down — no signal, no VPN. It's built around a personalised day-by-day narrative written to feel like you're already there — paced to a real arrival day and grounded in trains we've verified — not a checklist.
Are the train connections real?
Every route suggestion rides city pairs we have individually verified against two dated railway-information sources — durations, daily frequencies and from-prices included. If we haven't verified a connection, the builder won't suggest it. Exact timetables float, so always confirm departure times when you book.
How does the visa-free day budget work?
Pick your passport and the builder checks your trip length against China's current visa-free or transit policy for your nationality, using the same verified dataset as our visa-free checker. If your plan is longer than your budget, it tells you by how much.
Do you book trains, hotels or tickets?
No — and that's deliberate. Ready Set China is a planning tool, not a travel agency: we never sell, book or procure tickets or reservations. The dossier points you to official channels (China Railway's 12306) and major platforms to book yourself.
What exactly is in the paid dossier?
Your offline survival kit for the trip: an offline PDF — download it or have it emailed — so it works the moment you land, with no VPN needed, and includes station names and practical phrases in Chinese characters you can show to drivers and staff. Inside is a day-by-day narrative written around your interests and pace, grounded in the same verified data as the free skeleton: every leg rides a train we've checked, and the plan is sized to your visa-free day budget. It reads like a friend who has walked the route is beside you — in the moment, on the ground — not a generic checklist.
Is the dossier written by AI?
The narrative is AI-assisted, but every fact in it — sights, trains, stations, prices — comes from our human-verified dataset, and the writer is forbidden from inventing opening hours, prices or booking policies. The deterministic route engine, not the AI, decides your cities, days and trains.
Route sorted? Get the rest of the trip ready: pick an eSIM, set up payments and check when your train tickets go on sale.
Official sources
Every policy on this page was checked against these official pages. Always confirm with the source before booking.
Affiliate disclosure: Train booking links in the dossier may become affiliate links (e.g. Trip.com), meaning we may earn a commission if you book through them — at no extra cost to you. Route suggestions come from verified rail data, never from commission rates.
Disclaimer: This tool provides general trip-planning information, not legal or travel advice. Visa policies, train schedules and prices change — verify with the official sources above before booking. Ready Set China is an independent information site: not a travel agency, not a booking agent — we never sell, book or procure tickets, reservations or any travel service — and we are not affiliated with any government or railway.