Shanghai: 17 Things Worth Doing
Shanghai is not China’s capital. Beijing is, and if you only remember one fact before you land, make it that one, because the confusion is so common that locals have stopped bothering to correct it. Shanghai is bigger, richer, and more fun to walk around than the capital, which is presumably why the myth persists: it feels like it should be in charge.
Here is a second correction, since the first one is easy: the Shanghai Maglev does not run at 431 km/h anymore. That top speed was suspended back in 2021, and the train you will actually ride tops out somewhere in the 300-380 km/h range depending on which source you believe on a given week. It is still the fastest way to look faintly ridiculous grinning at a speed readout on public transport, and it is still worth doing once. Just don’t repeat the old number to anyone.
| Essentials | |
|---|---|
| Time needed | 3 days for the core loop; 5 adds both museums and a water town; 7 adds Suzhou and Hangzhou |
| Best months | April-May and September-November |
| Daily budget | 300-500 RMB budget, 800-1,600 RMB mid-range, 3,000+ RMB luxury |
| Booking warning | Skip the Shanghai World Financial Center deck - closed for renovation since 2023 |
How Many Days Do You Need in Shanghai?
Three days covers the core loop: the Bund, one Pudong tower, Yu Garden, and the French Concession, with room for a proper xiaolongbao lunch in between. Five days adds both Shanghai Museums and a half-day in Zhujiajiao. Push to a week and Suzhou and Hangzhou fit as day trips, though at that point you’re really planning the gateway-to-China trip instead.
Orientation: Puxi and Pudong
The Huangpu River splits the city into two halves that look like they belong to different centuries. Puxi, the west bank, is “old” Shanghai: the Bund, the former concessions, Nanjing Road, Yu Garden, most of the first-time sightseeing. Pudong, the east bank, was farmland as recently as 1990 and is now the financial skyline everyone photographs - built in three decades flat. Three days covers the essentials; five gets you both museums and a water town; a week lets you add Suzhou and Hangzhou as day trips, which is a different guide (see the Shanghai-as-gateway-to-China guide if that is the trip you are actually planning - this one stays inside the city limits).
Getting In and Sorting Your Visa
From Pudong Airport (PVG), the Maglev covers the hop to Longyang Road station in about seven minutes (roughly 50 RMB, or 40 RMB with a same-day boarding pass), then you transfer to Metro Line 2 for the rest of the way in. Skipping the Maglev and riding Line 2 the whole way costs 7-8 RMB and takes 60-70 minutes - genuinely fine if you are not chasing the novelty. A taxi runs 60-80 minutes depending on traffic and costs several times either transit option, or book an airport transfer ahead of time if you’d rather not haggle after a long flight. From Hongqiao Airport (SHA), which handles mostly domestic and regional flights, Metro Lines 2 and 10 reach the city centre in 20-30 minutes; it is the more convenient airport by distance if you have a choice of flights.
Visa rules trip up more visitors than any single attraction on this list, mostly because there are two different schemes and people conflate them. The 240-hour (10-day) transit is available to around 55 nationalities, requires a confirmed onward ticket to a third country, and starts counting at midnight the day after you clear immigration - it is a transit allowance, not a tourist visa, so no work and staff will check that onward ticket. The 30-day unilateral visa waiver is a separate, more generous scheme covering roughly 50 countries (the UK and Canada were added in February 2026), with no onward-ticket requirement, extended through the end of 2026. Here is the part that catches Americans out specifically: the US is not on the 30-day waiver list. US passport holders get the 240-hour transit only, and need an actual tourist visa for anything longer or less structured. Check your own nationality against the current transit-waiver list before you assume either applies.
Set This Up Before You Fly, Not After
Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube are all blocked inside the mainland. VPN provider websites are themselves blocked once you’re behind the firewall, which means you cannot discover this problem and fix it from inside the country - install and test a VPN on your home network before departure. Alternatively, a China-focused travel eSIM that routes through overseas servers sidesteps the firewall automatically with zero VPN setup, but you generally cannot top it up once you land, so buy enough data for the whole trip up front.
The other pre-flight task is payments. Alipay and WeChat Pay run this country - both have let foreign cardholders link a Visa, Mastercard, or Amex via passport and an international phone number since 2023, and cash is now the exception rather than the norm at most small vendors. Since June 2025 you can also skip the apps entirely and tap a foreign contactless card directly at Metro turnstiles, which is the simplest option if you are only here a few days and don’t want to configure a wallet app mid-trip.
Getting Around the City
The Metro is, as of January 2026, the longest network on Earth by route length - 20 lines, 930+ km, over 12 million daily riders - and it is clean, English-signed, and genuinely easy to use; the city’s official visitor portal is worth a bookmark before your first day out. Tap a foreign contactless card at the gate, or set up the Alipay/WeChat “Transport QR code” once and scan it for the rest of your trip. DiDi is the ride-hailing app of choice; link your card through Alipay or WeChat first, since cards added directly inside DiDi often get blocked by the home bank. The historic core - the Bund, French Concession, Old Town, Nanjing Road - is dense and walkable; Pudong is spread out and effectively metro-only between sights.
The Bund and the Pudong Towers
The Bund is 1.5 km of Beaux-Arts, Neoclassical, and Art Deco facades built by the foreign banks and trading houses that got rich here after the 1843 Treaty of Nanking forced the city open as a treaty port. It costs nothing, never closes, and is the one view that actually earns the hype - arrive 30-45 minutes before sunset so you catch the Bund floodlit and the Pudong skyline lighting up across the water in the same visit.
Three supertall towers cluster in Pudong and every visitor asks which one to pay for. Shanghai Tower is the tallest (632 m, ~180 RMB) and has the fastest elevator - book tickets ahead to skip the door queue - but here is the actual opinion: Jin Mao Tower’s 88th-floor deck (~120 RMB) is the better value, because from Jin Mao you get a dramatic view of the OTHER two towers - something you literally cannot see from the top of Shanghai Tower, since you’re standing on it - for two-thirds the price. The Shanghai World Financial Center, the “bottle opener” building, has had its own observation deck closed for renovation since 2023 with no confirmed reopening; skip it from your plan entirely rather than building an itinerary around a closed attraction. The Oriental Pearl Tower - the pink-and-purple one that was Shanghai’s original icon before the supertalls went up - has a glass skywalk and a genuinely good, under-visited history museum in its base that almost everyone skips in favour of just riding the elevator. Don’t skip it.
An evening walk on the Bund, then a look back at it from any Pudong rooftop bar, is the real photo most tourists think they’re getting when they photograph the Bund itself.
Yu Garden, the Bazaar, and the Old Town
Yu Garden is a Ming-dynasty private garden from 1577 - halls, rockeries, ponds, a zigzag bridge, entry around 30-40 RMB depending on season - closed Mondays, last entry 4pm. The bazaar surrounding it is a separate thing entirely: free to enter, open every day including the garden’s closed day, and most content online muddles the two together as if “Yu Garden” and “Yuyuan Bazaar” were interchangeable. They are not. Go early, before 09:00, for the garden itself with no crowds; the bazaar gets loud and crowded by mid-morning regardless of the day.
One block off the bazaar, at the Penglai Lu/Ninghe Lu intersection, sits a proper wet market with fresh produce and street food stalls and almost no English or tourists - the most unfiltered food scene within walking distance of the entire tourist zone, and almost nobody bothers to find it.
The French Concession, Tianzifang, and Xintiandi
The former French Concession is the most walkable, leafiest part of the city - plane-tree canopies along Wukang Road, Anfu Road, and Julu Road, with 1920s Art Deco apartment blocks converted into cafes and boutiques. The Wukang Mansion, a flatiron-shaped 1924 building at the Wukang/Huaihai Road junction, is the most photographed building in the district; shoot it from the small plaza directly across the intersection, not from the crowded pavement in front of it.
Tianzifang and Xintiandi are both converted shikumen-lane districts and get compared constantly, so here’s the actual take: Tianzifang wins. Xintiandi has been polished into something closer to an upscale mall with old bones - fine for a nice dinner, unconvincing as an “authentic” experience. Tianzifang, despite the tourist foot traffic, still functions like a lived-in lane neighbourhood, especially on a weekday morning before the weekend crowds arrive.
Nanjing Road connects the Bund to People’s Square and looks like every other flagship shopping street on Earth. Walk it as a connector, not a destination - Huaihai Road serves shopping with a better quality-to-crowd ratio.
Jing’an Temple
A heavily gilded, fully rebuilt Buddhist temple sitting directly beneath Jing’an District’s office towers - the contrast between ancient roofline and glass curtain wall is the entire point of visiting. Around 50 RMB, free on the 1st and 15th of the lunar month (“incense days”). Metro Line 2 or 7 to Jing’an Temple station.
Museums Worth Your Time
Both Shanghai Museum locations - the original round-topped building on People’s Square and the newer Shanghai Museum East branch in Pudong - are free, and as of policy changes in August and September 2025 respectively, neither requires an advance reservation anymore for a standard walk-in visit. If you read otherwise, that content is out of date; just bring your passport. The People’s Square location covers ancient Chinese bronzes, ceramics, and calligraphy and needs 2-3 hours; it’s closed Mondays.
Power Station of Art , a converted 1980s coal-fired plant on the riverfront, is China’s first state-run contemporary art museum and free for the permanent collection - the industrial architecture is worth the trip on its own.
The Propaganda Poster Art Centre is the best hour in the city that almost nobody finds on purpose. It’s a private collection of Mao-era propaganda posters hidden on the 7th floor of an ordinary residential apartment complex on Yan’an West Road - look for the entrance between two banks, take the lift, follow the signage to Section K. About 25 RMB, no photography allowed inside. Nowhere else in Shanghai delivers this specific, unfiltered slice of 20th-century political history, and the fact that it looks like an apartment lobby from the street is exactly why it stays uncrowded.
Hidden Gems
M50 on Moganshan Road is a former textile-mill complex turned contemporary art district, free to wander and genuinely under-visited given the quality of the galleries inside. Duolun Road in Hongkou is a quieter 1920s-30s literary street, a calmer alternative to the French Concession for the same architectural period. 1933 Old Millfun, also Hongkou, is a former British-designed slaughterhouse whose raw concrete ramps and light-wells now hold shops and events - most visitors never find it. Longhua Temple, Shanghai’s oldest and largest (founded 977 AD), sits in the southern outskirts and gets a fraction of Jing’an Temple’s foot traffic despite arguably outranking it historically; the adjoining pagoda is exterior-viewing only.
Zhujiajiao: The Water Town That Fits Inside a Day
Zhujiajiao is a Ming/Qing-era canal town about 70 minutes door-to-door by Metro Line 2/10 to Hongqiao Railway Station, then Line 17 - roughly 8 RMB in fares, or book a Zhujiajiao day tour if you’d rather skip the transfers. The town itself is free; individual gardens charge 8-30 RMB each or a combined ticket around 80 RMB, and gondola rides run 80-150 RMB per boat. This is the one out-of-town add that belongs in an in-city Shanghai trip rather than a full China itinerary - go on a weekday, early or late, because it is Shanghai’s single most crowd-sensitive attraction on weekends. If you want Suzhou, Hangzhou, or the longer rail hops to Beijing and Xi’an, that’s the Shanghai-as-gateway-to-China trip, not this one.
Where to Eat
Xiaolongbao: get the correction out of the way first - Din Tai Fung did not invent soup dumplings. It’s a Taiwanese chain, founded in Taipei in the 1970s, that popularised the dish internationally; xiaolongbao itself traces to Nanxiang, now a Shanghai suburb. Jia Jia Tang Bao on Huanghe Road near People’s Square is the actual local answer - cheaper, punchier, no queue theater, and arguably better on flavour than the polished international version. Both are legitimate; only one of them is honest about where the dish came from.
Shengjianbao (pan-fried pork buns, not the same dish as xiaolongbao) is the city’s own specialty: Yang’s on Huanghe Road is the best-known chain, Da Hu Chun dates to 1932 and holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
Rooftops: FLAIR, on the 58th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Shanghai Pudong, is the highest bar in the city with Bund panoramas. Roosevelt Sky Bar and the newly revamped Spago at the St. Regis both sit inside historic Bund buildings. Expect smart-casual dress codes and cocktails around 100-200 RMB.
Tipping is not customary in Shanghai - it isn’t expected in restaurants, many of which already add a service charge, and offering it for a taxi ride can be awkwardly refused. Do not import the American 15-20% instinct here.
Where to Stay
The Bund is the classic-view, heritage-luxury choice - the Fairmont Peace Hotel is the 1929 Art Deco original, and it comes at a corresponding price. The French Concession is the best mid-range and boutique base for atmosphere and walkability, particularly around Shaanxi South Road station. Xintiandi and Jing’an suit a polished, central first stay with strong dining on the doorstep. Pudong gets you the skyline view from your window but puts a river crossing between you and most historic sightseeing - fine for business travellers, less convenient for sightseeing on foot. Whichever district you pick, check rates on Agoda before you commit; Shanghai hotel pricing swings hard between shoulder season and Golden Week.
Costs, Weather, and the Rest
Budget travellers can run 300-500 RMB a day all-in; mid-range sits around 800-1,600 RMB; luxury starts at 3,000 RMB and climbs from there. March-May and September-November are the comfortable months; June-August is hot, humid, and brings both plum rain season and typhoon risk; winter is cold, damp, and rarely snowy. Avoid planning a first trip into Golden Week (Oct 1-7) - it floods the entire country with domestic travellers, Shanghai included.
Tap water is not drinkable here - stock up on bottled water like you would anywhere else in mainland China. Shanghai is broadly very safe; the real risk is the tea-ceremony scam, where friendly, fluent-English strangers near the Bund, Nanjing Road East, or the Yu Garden bazaar invite you to a “traditional tea ceremony” that ends in a bill for several thousand RMB. Never follow a stranger to a second location for tea, drinks, or “art” - choose the venue yourself, every time.
For the rest of the trip logic - which days go where - the 2-day , 3-day , 5-day , and 7-day itineraries all nest inside each other, longest to shortest.