Visit Shanghai: 1-day Itinerary of the Megapolis

When planning to travel in the Shanghai area, I was sure I wasn’t interested in spending too much time in Shanghai itself, as I am not that interested in modern cities with numerous skyscrapers, as much as the historical cities. While Shanghai does have historical areas (due to becoming a major trade port during the Qing dynasty since 17th century), it falls short compared to China’s numerous cities. Therefore, I planned to spend only 1 day here, giving the rest of the time in the region to Suzhou and Hangzhou, which interested me more than Shanghai itself.

Practical Details for Visiting Shanghai

Below are Shanghai specific tips. For general tips for visiting China, please, see my relevant post here.

Accommodation in Shanghai

As in most big cities, accommodation in Shanghai is very expensive. If you do decide to stay in the city, I recommend to find a place outside major central areas, near a metro station. Given the well-developed public transport, it will be easy to get around.

I decided to stay in a hotel in Suzhou instead and do a day trip from there to Shanghai, which was the best decision. We loved Suzhou far more, accommodation there was cheaper, and it was very easy to commute by train between the two cities. It took us about 30 minutes (see below).

In Suzhou we stayed at the PACE Hotel Suzhou Renmin Road and absolutely loved it. It was our favourite hotel not only in China. I 100% recommend it to anyone.

Transport in Shanghai

Shanghai has 4 major railway stations and is served by 2 airports. If you, like us stay in Suzou, you can arrive to the Shanghai Railway Station from Suzhou North station in less than half an hour. Keep in mind that the trains from Suzhou also go to Shanghai Hongqiao, which is far from the city center, while the Shanghai station is quite central and you will end up at People’s square really fast by metro.

Trip.com was the most convenient option for me to book all railway tickets, while in China.

Shanghai metro has a huge network and it in itself is a sightseeing destination. I have seen metro systems in a number of cities, but this really was another level. The People’s Square station had an underground square with people swarming in different directions. That also was the longest change between the lines ever, it took us ten minutes to walk 🙂 That said, the metro is very well-organized and convenient. You can rely on it.

Buses in Shanghai: We never tried buses, as like in other cities, here they also have signs only in Mandarin, while the transport apps don’t help significantly. Either way, metro is so well-developed that buses were absolutely unnecessary.

How to travel from/to the Shanghai main Railway Station: Three metro lines (1, 3 and 4) link to the stop Shanghai railway station. With the red line 1 you can get to the People’s square easily. There are also a number of buses.

How to travel from/to the Shanghai Pudong Airport: The fastest way is the Maglev train, which connects to the Longyang Road. Maglev is an attraction in itself. Alternatively, you can travel with metro line 2 to a number of locations in the city.

Important information: Do you have one day layover in Shanghai? You can actually take advantage of this free tour offered by the trip.com. You may be surprised, but it is a fully legitimate tour directed at supporting tourism.  Besides, if you have an overnight layover in Shanghai, some airlines offer free accommodation – check with your airline.

Shanghai Transport Tickets

There are several options for purchasing Shanghai metro and bus tickets:

• Easiest way is to use your bank card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, etc.) to tap at the gates. However, not all stations have that option.
• You can get single entry metro tickets or 1-day or 3-day metro pass at the machines of some stations. The machines are easy to use, they have English language option. You will have to indicate, which stations are you traveling between and pay relevantly 3-10 Yuan. You can pay by cash or card. Most of the machines don’t accept paper bills of less than 5 Yuan. They also have the coin part. As far as I know, most of them give change, but we tried to have exact amount, while buying tickets.
• You can use a Shanghai metro app DADUHUI (download this, when you arrive to China) and link your foreign bank card to it.
• You can download Alipay or WeChat. Once you link your card, you can generate QR code to enter with.
• If you are staying at least a few days, you should get the Shanghai transportation card, which costs 20 Yuan and can be charged to be used on all transport in the city. The transport card doesn’t offer any discounts, therefore getting it for a day trip would not be a good idea.

If you wish to use taxis instead, you can download the DiDi app, hail them or find the designated taxi stands at the train stations, airports and other locations.

Here is the general information and tips about transport in China

Finally, even though I personally preferred to DIY my travel around Shanghai, you may not want a hassle of finding your way around. In that case, there are a number of 1-day tours you can take. Check via Klook, GetYourGuide, Trip.com. Of course, this option is more expensive than using public transport, but can be convenient, when you don’t speak the language.

Things to Book in Advance when Visiting Shanghai

You don’t need to book most of the Shanghai attractions in advance, unless you wish to do so. However, there are several places you either must (only museums, like Shanghai museum) or better reserve:

• Shanghai Museum: Reservations are required through the official channels. No resellers are authorized to sell these tickets.
• Oriental Pearl Tower: This is not needed to book in advance, if you are visiting in a low season and a weekday. However, you may want to reserve, if you are visiting in high season and on the weekends. You can do so via their official Wechat channel, but Wechat can be quite slow and annoying (at least it is for me :)). So you also have an option of third party websites, like Booking or Klook.
• Shanghai Tower Observatory: Similar to Oriental Pearl Tower, you don’t have to prebook but may prefer to do so in high season. You can’t book via official website, it only lists official resellers, including trip.com.
• Shanghai Disneyland: This does not apply for 1-day itinerary but if you are in Shanghai for longer and plan to visit, you can avoid huge queues by booking in advance. Here is the official website for reserving your Disney tickets or you can use trip.com and Klook for ease.

We somehow expected to find more people speaking some English in Shanghai, due to its business status. However, that wasn’t really the case. But as everywhere else in China, translation apps helped 🙂

Use E-sim or Consider Using VPN

Given restrictions on social media and communications sites, you may need to do either of the two options: Using e-sim (like Airalo or Saily) will allow you more freedom and access everything without VPN. Alternatively, you can use a VPN to be able to access the restricted websites.

Shanghai 1-Day Itinerary

The following itinerary considers only visiting the sites in Shanghai proper. While there are a lot of beautiful towns and cities within half an hour to an hour distance, you may want to consider visiting them on separate days.

Shanghai Old City

If you haven’t visited a number of lovely cities in China already, start your day by exploring the old city area of Shanghai. For this take subway line 1 from the Shanghai Railway Station and transfer to line 14 to Yuyuan garden.

You can arrive at the Yu Garden (High season price: 30 Yuan) first thing in the morning. The garden was built during the Ming dynasty period and has typical features of traditional Chinese gardens. However, it doesn’t come close to any garden in Suzhou. So if you have enough time, do go there instead.

You can buy Yu Garden tickets on the spot easily. Just bring your passport with you. If you want to book them in advance, you can do so using WeChat. For me WeChat was not easy to navigate, so there’s an option to book via Trip.com, Klook or other agencies.

After Yu Garden, explore the City God Temple (Price: 10 Yuan). It is best for you to purchase tickets of the Temple on the spot. Alternatively, you can book with WeChat, but it’s unnecessary.

While wandering around the narrow streets of the old city, you can also make a stop at the oldest teahouse in Shanghai – Huxinting.

Overall, Shanghai’s old town is cute. However, if you have a short time in the city and have already explored Beijing, Pingyao with its cute narrow historical streets, Suzhou with its gorgeous gardens and other cities of China, this area of Shanghai doesn’t offer much to you. Therefore, you can actually skip it.

People’s Square

If you are coming from the old city, you can either walk here, take subway line 14 to Dashijie station (it will be 1 stop). Alternatively, if you skipped visiting the old city, you can come here from Shanghai railway station by taking line 1 and transferring to line 14 to Dashijie.

Once you arrive to the the People’s Square, just walk around to soak in the atmosphere. Obviously, the sheer size of the buildings, streets, the number of people here is dumbfounding. We passed the Concert Hall and the Shanghai Museum. If you are in the city for longer time, you should definitely see this museum, which is I believe largest in China.

Note: For visiting Shanghai Museum, you may wish to book your tickets in advance, given the huge queues and the limited tickets. Keep in mind that according to the Museum’s official website there are no authorized “online platforms, organizations, or individuals to sell tickets or reserve entry other than the Museum’s official channels”. So if you wish to book, you should do so through their official website, WeChat official account or the mini-app. You can book no earlier than 14 days in advance.

The square has nice green areas with birds flying around. People are relaxing or exercising. We found many just strolling and enjoying the nice weather.

Shanghai Marriage Market

If you are at the People’s Square on the weekend, you will also be able to witness the most fascinating thing I have seen in a while – the marriage market.

When I read about it in the guides for Shanghai, I was simply amazed. I thought it would be just at a small corner of the People’s Square, several old people quietly talking to each other, so I didn’t pay much attention to it and didn’t search for detailed information about it. But apparently I was wrong. I definitely didn’t expect what I saw.

Walking around the square, we stumbled upon the rows of colorful umbrellas with papers on them. First, we had no idea what it was about. Then we saw the papers, although in Chinese, you could see the numbers, like 81, 165, etc. People were checking the signs thoroughly and stopping and talking to each other.  Some young people were smiling, while looking at the papers on umbrellas, that made us even more interested to understand what was going on.

I am not sure how long passed before we realized that we were seeing the marriage market. This actually is a very lively “market”. The sheets pinned on the umbrellas provide information about the age, height, weight, education and income of the people of “marriageable age”. People exchange phone numbers, arrange meetings, look for matches.

You find older people – parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles trying to make a match for their daughters, sons and relatives, who may or may not even be willing to be the objects of this. But you rarely see any young people here and if you do, they are either tourists or the curious, who seem to be amazed by all of this.

Interesting fact: This tradition started only in 2004, which in the age of internet is rather surprising.

It was a truly strange experience walking around this place. Some of the people standing at the umbrellas pointed at us and then started talking to us. Not speaking any Chinese, we obviously didn’t understand anything. We hurried along in fear that they might wanna make matches for us 😊

East Nanjing Road

Passing the market, we walked to the pedestrian road – East Nanjing Road. This street is full of malls and shops the size of the malls. Crazy numbers of people move about with their shopping bags. If you need to buy something, I was told this is a good area, while West Nanjing Road is more high-end and expensive. We didn’t buy anything, that wasn’t in our plans. We just wanted to watch people in this huge megapolis.

The Bund

By following East Nanjing Road, you can reach the Bund, which is considered the heart of Shanghai and has truly beautiful views. If you want a clear view of the Pudong and want to get pictures without at least a dozen other people in them, walk along the Bund to the left side. Views are the best from here and compared to the intersection with East Nanjing Road, there are less people. After that, you can walk southwards to enjoy the views and see the 20^th century buildings lining the street. Here you will find buildings from the 1920s and 1950s, the banks, old hotels, etc. This map from ChinaHighlights is the most comprehensive:

Walking down the Bund and enjoying the views is of course a must. We enjoyed it a lot and took dozens of photos of course.

Ferry across Huangpu River

Price: 2 Yuan.

From the Bund, you can take a river cruise. You will find tour boats at several spots, while walking on the Bund. Actually there is also a public ferry crossing over from Bund to Pudong. I had to look for the ferry stops for a while to find any information online. Here are the stops on both sides:

This ferry is the most convenient way to go across the river quickly, however, it doesn’t give the feel of a boat ride. It is a closed space and the little windows don’t allow you to see much of anything during the short ride. So if you want to get the feel of a cruise, you don’t have another choice, but to find the tour boats.

If you have more time and wish to experience the river tour, you can consider booking a Huangpu River Cruise. In the low season, you can grab tickets directly at the pier, however you may need to book in advance in the high season. You can do so via Trip.com, Klook or GetYourGuide. They offer a number of options, from night cruises to dinners to day sightseeing.

Pudong and Shanghai Skyscrapers

When you go across the river, walk around Pudong and just marvel at the skyscrapers. I am normally not a huge fan of them, but well, when in Shanghai … 🙂

As you may have heard, the Shanghai Tower is a 128-story skyscraper, which is the world’s third highest building after Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the new Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur. It also has the world’s second fastest elevator. You can buy tickets on the spot, however, if you don’t wish to queue, then you can buy them on either Trip.com or Klook.

The other high buildings are Jin Mao Tower (online tickets on Klook and Trip.com) and Shanghai Financial Center (online tickets on Klook and Trip.com).

The Oriental Pearl tower is somewhat away from these three skyscrapers and stands closer to the river.

While walking around Pudong, we wandered into the fanciest mall I have seen. You wouldn’t be able to find any mid-range shops here, I guess Dolce&Gabanna would be the cheapest among all the shiny shops 😀

After passing these towers, you will find elevated walkways leading towards the Oriental Pearl Tower. This is not only the most convenient way to walk to the tower, but also very picturesque with great views of the surrounding skyscrapers.

It was a tough choice to decide which of the towers to climb. We opted for going up the observation deck of the Oriental Pearl Tower. You might prefer another one, depending on your preferences.

Find out about your choices and our experience at the Oriental Pearl Tower here.

We ended our day with an evening stroll on East Nanjing Road. You have several options for this, to walk across Bund again to take in the night views and the lights or to walk on East Nanjing Road and do some shopping or watch people.

Day Trips from Shanghai

Many people may like Shanghai’s modern feel and decide to stay in the city for a few days. Here are a few recommendations:

• Longhua Temple
• Centry Park
• Jing’an Temple
• Jade Buddha Temple

However, I do suggest to instead explore its nearby areas, which are numerous and lovely:

Suzhou: A cute city with lovely gardens and canals you can explore for 1 or 2 days.

Hangzhou: Lovely city located next to the lake.

Nanjing: Former capital throughout many dynasties.

Cute canal towns:

• Zhouzhiajio
• Nanxiang
• Wuzhen
• Zhouzhuang
• Tongli

If you don’t want a hassle of figuring out public transportation to these smaller towns near Shanghai, you have an option to book group or individual tours according to your preference via Klook, GetYourGuide, Viator, or Tripadvisor.

See also:

Useful tips for planning your trip to China.

Tips on taking public transport in China.

A detailed 4-day itinerary of Beijing.

2-day itinerary of Xi’An.