Hangzhou 4 Day Itinerary (No Tourist Traps)
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Four days is the 3-day sweet spot plus Xixi Wetland, a genuine change of pace from the lake and temple circuit rather than a filler day. Short on time, the 3-day plan (and the shorter 2-day version) covers the core alone. More time, the 5 through 7-day plans add museums, the Six Harmonies Pagoda, and day trips.
Book these before you go
- A timed Lingyin Temple + Feilai Feng slot, via the Alipay or WeChat mini-program, 1-7 days ahead, daily caps apply.
- Alipay set up before you fly, with a foreign card linked, and a VPN installed before you leave home.
- A West Lake-area hotel, compare rates on Booking.com .
Day 1: West Lake and a Longjing tea village
Walk the free West Lake causeways: the Su Causeway (1074, built by poet-official Su Dongpo) and the Bai Causeway (822, built by poet Bai Juyi, a different person roughly 250 years earlier). Take the boat to Three Pools Mirroring the Moon (¥55-70). In the afternoon, head to Meijiawu or Longjing tea village, both free to wander, for a tasting of real West Lake Longjing straight from the growers, ¥10-80 a cup, Mingqian grade if you’re here in early spring. Close at Leifeng Pagoda (¥40), honest that the current structure is a 2002 rebuild over the 975 CE original, which collapsed in 1924.
Day 2: Lingyin Temple and Feilai Feng
Lingyin Temple and Feilai Feng have been free since 1 December 2025, but only with a mandatory timed reservation through the Alipay or WeChat mini-program, booked 1 to 7 days ahead, daily cap in place, so book this before you land. The temple dates to 328 CE; Feilai Feng carries more than 300 Buddhist rock carvings, including the well-known laughing Maitreya. Give it a full half-day.
Day 3: Hefang Street and the Grand Canal
Hefang Street, a free pedestrian stretch, is the place for Dongpo Pork, Beggar’s Chicken, and West Lake Vinegar Fish; Louwailou, on the lakeside since 1848, is the one restaurant name here worth booking. In the afternoon or evening, a Grand Canal night cruise from Gongchen Bridge (around ¥100). Hangzhou is the canal’s southern terminus, and it carries its own UNESCO listing from 2014, a separate site and year from West Lake’s 2011 designation.
Day 4: Xixi Wetland
Xixi National Wetland Park is Hangzhou’s other side entirely: an 11 sq km urban marsh of waterways and old fish ponds. The central zone is free to walk; the quieter east and west zones run about ¥80 and are worth it if you want fewer people around you. It’s a genuinely different pace from the temple-and-lake circuit of the first three days, and a good place to end a trip rather than squeeze in a fourth museum.
Know before you fly
China sits at US State Department Level 2, driven mainly by exit-ban and arbitrary-detention risk tied to business or legal disputes, not street crime, which is low; ordinary sightseeing carries very little of it. Day-to-day, the language barrier is the more common friction, a translation app earns its keep, along with the near-cashless Alipay/WeChat Pay system and the Great Firewall blocking Google, Maps, and WhatsApp, so a VPN installed before you leave home matters more here than in most cities.
Is 4 days enough for Hangzhou?
Yes, comfortably. Four days covers the full honest core, West Lake, a tea village, Lingyin Temple, Hefang Street, the Grand Canal, plus Xixi Wetland, without rushing any of them. Past day 4 or 5, most travelers get more out of a day trip or a Shanghai/Suzhou pairing than another Hangzhou-only day.
| Day | Focus | Rough cost per person (¥, excl. hotel) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Lake causeways, Three Pools boat, tea village, Leifeng Pagoda | 150-200 |
| 2 | Lingyin Temple + Feilai Feng (free, reserved) | 20-40 |
| 3 | Hefang Street, Grand Canal night cruise | 130-180 |
| 4 | Xixi Wetland (central zone free, east/west zones ~¥80) | 0-80 |
One concrete tip: set up Alipay and install a VPN before you fly, and reserve the Lingyin Temple slot the moment your dates are fixed. Both take five minutes at home and can cost half a lost day if left for arrival.