The Bund at dawn, art-deco lanes, and Pudong's towers across the river. China's easiest first city — English-friendly, and a metro signed in English reaches almost everything in this guide.
Shanghai is the easiest place in China to land first: a waterfront of 1920s banks facing a skyline built in thirty years, and plane-tree lanes in between. The metro carries more passengers a year than any other in the world, it signs itself in English, and since 2025 a contactless foreign bank card opens the gate. What catches people out is the airports — Pudong and Hongqiao are 60 km apart, and the train between them takes 40 minutes.
Pudong (PVG) takes the long-haul flights. Hongqiao (SHA) sits 13 km from People's Square and handles most domestic ones. The Airport Link Line has run between them since the end of 2024: under 40 minutes, ¥26, about every 15 minutes, first train at six in the morning and last at ten at night. Metro Line 2 also joins them, but it takes about an hour and a half.
Yu Garden and the Shanghai Museum on People's Square shut on Mondays. The Shanghai Museum East, across the river in Pudong, shuts on Tuesdays instead. The Bund and the lanes are open whichever day it is.
Every metro gate has taken contactless Visa, Mastercard, Amex and JCB since June 2025 — tap in, tap out, charged by distance. The card has to allow small contactless payments without a PIN. Most cards issued outside China already do; check with your bank before you fly if yours is strict about fraud.
On Nanjing Road and the approach to the Bund, friendly English-speaking students invite you to a tea ceremony or a student art show. Bills of ¥800–2,500 a person are normal and much larger ones happen. The friendly conversation is part of the scam, so turn down the invitation itself.
Hongqiao branch runs reduced service this weekend — trains every ~10 min. For the airport, leave a buffer or take Line 2.
This weekendIndividuals walk in free on regular days. Weekends, holidays, school breaks and hot special exhibitions still need the official mini-program (passport works); slots release 7 days out.
Official source ✓Riverside art mile open till 21:00 Thursdays through summer. Most shows free; the walk between venues is the best part.
Verified 10 Jun1 DAY · ¥ BUDGET · METRO 17 TO END · CANAL BOAT + LANES
Alipay/WeChat Metro QR works at every gate. Shanghai also accepts contactless foreign Visa/Mastercard straight at the turnstile.
Worked recently × 49
A mile of 1920s bank and shipping houses facing the Pudong towers across the water. Free, never closed, and best at either end of the day — before eight it is nearly empty, and a weekday evening is far quieter than a Saturday. East Nanjing Road station on Lines 2 and 10 leaves you a five to ten minute walk east of the promenade.
Shanghai Tower, the Jin Mao and the World Financial Center stand in one group across the river. The observation deck on the 118th floor of Shanghai Tower is the highest, around ¥180, timed entry — check the haze before you pay for a view. The cheapest crossing is the ¥2 Jinling Road ferry from the Bund, five minutes over.
A Ming garden of rockeries and covered walks, walled inside a bazaar that costs nothing to wander. The garden is open daily (全年无休, special events excepted) and costs ¥30–40 depending on the season. Tickets are sold under a real-name system, so bring your passport — you can buy at the gate or book ahead online. Go at nine when it opens; by eleven the zigzag bridge outside is packed.
The pedestrian street running west from the Bund to People's Square, neon end to end after dark and full of shops you have at home. Walk it once as the link between those two, then get off it. This is where the touts work, so keep going past the friendly student with the good English.
The best block of the former French Concession: plane trees, 1920s villas, and Hudec's wedge-shaped Wukang Mansion at the Huaihai Road corner, finished in 1924. The mansion is flats, so you look at it from outside, and police hold the crowd back at that corner on weekends. Come on a weekday morning.
A block of 1930s shikumen lane houses turned into a warren of small shops, studios and bars — free, open late, and smaller than it sounds. An hour is enough, and weekends are the worst of it. Dapuqiao on Line 9 is at the door, a short ride from the Wukang Road end of the Concession.
Free, and one of the world's most complete collections of ancient Chinese art, across two buildings. The People's Square branch sits off Nanjing Road and hosts the 16-month 'Ancient Civilizations of the Americas' blockbuster (July 2026–Nov 2027), but closes for installation from 6 May 2026 and reopens in July; the East branch in Pudong needs no reservation, just your physical passport. The classic trap: they close on different days — People's Square Mondays, East Tuesdays.
China's most-visited theme park — 14.7 million guests in 2024, fifth worldwide — and home to the only Zootopia land on earth, which about a quarter of visitors say they came for alone. Budget a full day: metro line 11 takes roughly an hour from downtown each way. For couples or solo travellers without kids the value is weak, so treat it as an optional full day rather than squeezing it between half-day sights.
Shanghai's most international-ready water town, an hour-plus from downtown on metro line 17 — it drew 2.27 million inbound visitors in 2025. The lanes are free; only three garden sights share a ¥60 combo ticket. Four-language signage, foreign-card POS and instant tax refunds make it the easiest Jiangnan water town to add to a Shanghai stay. Weekends are packed and North Street is heavily commercial — come early on a weekday.
Two tickets, two different views. Shanghai Tower's 118th-floor deck (546 m, ¥180) is reached by an 18 m/s lift in 55 seconds and is the only spot that looks down on all three Lujiazui towers at once; the Pearl's ¥199 two-sphere ticket is the only angle that frames the Bund without the Pearl itself in shot. Note that Shanghai Tower's 125th and 126th floors are currently closed for renovation.
The 1927 Ohel Moshe synagogue and the most intact record of the roughly 20,000 European Jews Shanghai sheltered when it was one of the last visa-free ports on earth — many visitors find their own family names on the survivors' wall. ¥20, five minutes from Tilanqiao station (line 12), two hours is enough. Closed Mondays; displays are Chinese-first, so rent the audio guide. It's in Hongkou, off the Bund axis — give it a dedicated half-day.
The clearest single lesson in how Shanghai became Shanghai: a 2001 restoration that kept the shikumen brick shells — weathered grey walls, even old residents' chalk marks — while rebuilding the interiors with glass atriums and steel. Free, open all day, on metro lines 1/13, with the Site of the First CPC Congress across the street. Expect polished, high-end dining rather than old-Shanghai prices; the architecture is the point.
The plane-tree district is far bigger than Wukang Road: a 775-hectare historic zone of 46 tree-lined streets — Sinan Mansions' 51 garden villas, Hengshan, Anfu and Fenyang roads, the Rong Zhai mansion. Wukang Road–Anfu Road alone sees 30–40,000 people a day past just 180 shopfronts. There's no ticket and no gate, so treat it as a wandering route rather than a sight; the official name is Hengfu, and locals don't call it the Concession.
Soup dumplings, thin-skinned, eaten off a spoon in one careful bite. The Yu Garden original has had a queue since 1900 — the upstairs dining rooms move faster than the street window.
Nanxiang Mantou Dian, Yu Garden
Thicker dough than a xiaolongbao and fried crisp on the bottom. Shanghai argues about the rest: the old shops use a fully risen dough with almost no soup inside, the newer chains a thinner skin and a mouthful of it. If you get the soupy kind, bite a corner off first or it will scald you. Breakfast food — the good ones sell out by mid-morning.
Da Hu Chun (the dry kind) · Yang's Fry Dumpling (the soupy kind)
Shanghai's home cooking in one dish: pork belly cooked down in soy and sugar until it is dark and sticky. Sweeter than the same dish anywhere else in China, and that is the point.
Lao Zhengxing, Fuzhou Road
Hairy-crab roe stirred through noodles, tofu or dumplings — orange, rich, faintly sweet. It is a season rather than a menu item: the crab is at its best from October into December.
Wang Bao He, Fuzhou Road
Noodles tossed in oil that has had spring onions fried slowly black in it, with soy and a few dried shrimp. Four ingredients, about ¥15, and one of the best things in the city.
A fried pork chop served with slabs of chewy rice cake and a sweet-savoury sauce over both. It sounds wrong and it works. Shanghai street food for roughly a century.
Xian De Lai
You can walk to the river at any hour, which is the whole reason to pay here. It is also the loudest and most touristed part of the city, and the view is priced accordingly.
¥600–2,500 a night
Plane trees, lanes and the best small restaurants, mostly in converted villas and boutique hotels. Fewer big-brand rooms, and the metro stations are further apart than they look on the map.
¥450–2,000 a night
The practical compromise: Line 2 runs from here to both airports and the Bund, the streets are lived-in, and rooms cost less than Huangpu. Less atmosphere than the Concession.
¥400–1,500 a night
High floors, big rooms, and the view back at the Bund rather than from it. The district empties after office hours and most of what you want to eat is on the other side of the river.
¥700–3,000 a night
Since 2024 hotels are not supposed to turn away foreign guests for lack of a special licence, but some still do, mostly cheaper places away from the centre. Book somewhere that states it accepts foreign passports, and avoid arriving after midnight on the first night.
Maglev from Pudong (PVG)
¥50 one way, ¥40 on a same-day boarding pass · 8 minutes to Longyang Road, then Line 2 into town
Metro Line 2 from Pudong (PVG)
about ¥8 and 75–90 minutes to People's Square — slow, but cheap and there is never a queue. Some trains terminate at Guanglan Road; if yours does, you change to the train waiting across the same platform. Check the terminus on the front of the train.
Hongqiao (SHA) by metro
Lines 2 and 10 leave from under the terminals · about ¥5 and 30 minutes to People's Square
Pudong and Hongqiao are about 60 km apart. The Airport Link Line covers it in under 40 minutes for ¥26; Metro Line 2 takes about an hour and a half. Check which airport your ticket actually says before you pick a hotel or book a connection — the names are easy to skim past.
Metro
Twenty lines, ¥3–10 by distance, every station signed and announced in English. Tap a contactless Visa, Mastercard, Amex or JCB straight at the gate.
Taxi & DiDi
¥14–16 for the first 3 km, more between 23:00 and 05:00. DiDi has an English app, which solves the problem of saying an address.
Huangpu ferry
¥2 from Jinling Road to Dongchang Road, about five minutes across. First boat around 7:15, last around 18:30 — a daytime crossing, not a way home from the Bund after dark. The cheapest view in Shanghai.
Last metro trains go between roughly 22:30 and 23:30 depending on the line. That is earlier than the city feels, so if you are out on the Bund for the lights, check the time back or plan on a taxi.
THU
FREE · THU TILL 21:00
DLY
PUDONG · BOOK 7 DAYS OUT
SEP 20–NOV 1
Riverside music, markets & family shows
OCT 16–NOV 1
146 free shows across the carnival
The classic
China's easiest first city: three days is the Bund and the old town, a day walking the plane-tree lanes of the former French Concession, and a last day of museums on the Pudong side. All of it on the metro, most of it free.
History
Three cities and no flight between them: Shanghai to Hangzhou is about 45 minutes, Hangzhou to Suzhou an hour or two, Suzhou back to Shanghai about 21. One is a port that dressed itself in 1920s stone, one is a lake that has been written about for a thousand years, one is the garden the other two copied.
The classic, plus a water town
The three-day classic plus the day most first-timers wish they had: the Bund and the old town, a Pudong tower and the museum, the plane-tree streets of the former Concession, and a last day among the canals of Zhujiajiao. All of it on the metro — including the water town.
Late March to May, and October to November. Spring is mild as the plane trees come out; autumn gives the Hengfu district — Wukang Road and its neighbours — its best light and the city its most walkable weather. High summer is hot, sticky and busy with domestic school holidays, and winter is grey and damp-cold but quieter. The Bund works in every month, and it is best at either end of the day.
Two to three days covers the core: the Bund and Lujiazui, Yu Garden and the old town, and the lanes of the former French Concession. Add a full day for Disneyland or half a day for Zhujiajiao and three to four days is comfortable — this city’s own itineraries are built at three days and at four. Five is the length that also takes in Hangzhou and Suzhou by train.
Almost always: twenty lines, ¥3–10 by distance, and every station signed and announced in English. Tap a contactless Visa, Mastercard, Amex or JCB straight at the gate — there is no ticket to buy. Last trains run between roughly 22:30 and 23:30 depending on the line, earlier than the city feels, so if you are out on the Bund for the lights check the way back or plan on a taxi (¥14–16 for the first 3 km, more after 23:00). The ¥2 Jinling Road ferry is the cheapest crossing, but it stops around 18:30.
Either end of the day. It is free and never closed, and before eight in the morning it is nearly empty — 1920s facades in flat light and the promenade almost to yourself. Come back at dusk for the moment the Pudong towers come on, and stay for the skyline. A weekday evening is far quieter than a Saturday. East Nanjing Road on Lines 2 and 10 leaves you a five to ten minute walk from the water.
Budget the whole day, not an afternoon: metro Line 11 takes about an hour each way from downtown. It is China’s most-visited park — 14.7 million guests in 2024, fifth in the world — and the only one with a Zootopia land. Go on a weekday rather than a weekend. If you are travelling as a couple or alone without children, treat it as an optional extra: the same day spent in Puxi buys more of what you came to Shanghai for.
Nanxiang Mantou Dian in Yu Garden is the original, and the queue has been there since 1900; the upstairs dining rooms move much faster than the street window. Eat them off a spoon: lift one gently, bite a small opening at the top, sip the soup, then dip in ginger vinegar — the soup is scalding and a whole dumpling is a mistake. For the same soup without the wait, shengjian buns are the breakfast version (the good shops sell out by mid-morning), and benbang braised pork is the sit-down order.
Nanjing Road for the spectacle — walk the pedestrian street once between the Bund and People’s Square, then leave it to the crowds. For browsing worth the time: Xintiandi (Lines 1 and 13) and Tianzifang (Line 9), 1930s shikumen lanes turned into shops, studios and bars; both are free, open late, and an hour is enough in each. The Hengfu plane-tree district is where the small independent shops are. Zhujiajiao, an hour-plus out on Line 17, is the water town set up for foreign cards and instant tax refunds.
The Bund and East Nanjing Road if you want to walk to the river at any hour — ¥600–2,500 a night, and the loudest, most touristed part of the city. The former French Concession (Xuhui and Huaihai Road) for the lanes and small restaurants, ¥450–2,000, though the metro stations sit further apart than the map suggests. Jing’an is the practical compromise — Line 2 runs from here to both airports and to the Bund — at ¥400–1,500. Lujiazui (¥700–3,000) buys a high floor and the view back at the Bund, but the district empties after office hours. Since 2024 hotels are not supposed to refuse foreign guests for lack of a licence, but some cheaper places still do: book somewhere that states it takes foreign passports.
Where you sleep decides it. Rooms run ¥400–1,500 in Jing’an, ¥450–2,000 in the former French Concession, ¥600–2,500 at the Bund and ¥700–3,000 in Lujiazui. Everything else is small: metro ¥3–10, a taxi ¥14–16 for the first 3 km, the Jinling Road ferry ¥2, a bowl of scallion-oil noodles about ¥15. Sightseeing is the cheapest part of the day — the Bund and the Shanghai Museum are free, Yu Garden is ¥30–40 and the Shanghai Tower observation deck ¥180.
More easily than almost anywhere else in China. Every metro station is signed and announced in English, and lines 2, 10 and 11 between them reach nearly everything a visitor wants to see. Younger staff in hotels, cafés and shops generally speak some English. DiDi’s English app solves the one genuinely hard task, which is telling a driver an address. Nothing here depends on Shanghainese — locals speak Mandarin to visitors, and the dialect is a language of its own rather than an accent.
The Huangpu River splits the city into Puxi, the west bank, and Pudong, the east. Puxi holds the Bund, Yu Garden, Nanjing Road, Xintiandi, Tianzifang and the Hengfu plane-tree district — the 1920s stone and shikumen lanes that people mean by old Shanghai. Pudong holds Lujiazui, where Shanghai Tower, the Jin Mao and the World Financial Center stand in one group, plus the East branch of the Shanghai Museum and Disneyland further out. Cross both ways at least once — the ¥2 Jinling Road ferry costs less than any observation deck — and the two halves stop feeling like separate cities.
Suzhou, about 21 minutes by train, for the classical gardens — book the Humble Administrator’s Garden online, one to seven days ahead, in the name on your passport, and note the Suzhou Museum is free but capped and closed on Mondays. Hangzhou is roughly 45 minutes, for West Lake and the hills behind it. Zhujiajiao, an hour-plus on metro Line 17, is the closest water town and half a day at most. One day out of the city is the best single addition to a Shanghai trip.
The Maglev: 8 minutes to Longyang Road for ¥50, or ¥40 on a same-day boarding pass, and it connects to Metro Line 2. Line 2 the whole way to People’s Square is about ¥8 and 75–90 minutes; some trains terminate at Guanglan Road, where you change to the train waiting across the same platform — check the terminus on the front of the train. A DiDi is around ¥160. If your ticket says Hongqiao instead, Lines 2 and 10 leave from under the terminals and reach People’s Square in about 30 minutes for ¥5. The two airports are 60 km apart, so check the name on the ticket first.