Type freely — no preset options. Separate multiple destinations with commas.
Set the total days freely; you can add or remove days anytime after.
The China Trip Planner is a free itinerary builder for anyone visiting China for the first time. Tell it where you are going and how many days you have, and it lays out a day-by-day plan you can reshape by hand — reorder the stops, add places, and group each day the way you actually want to travel.
It runs entirely in your browser. There is no account and no email wall, and you can build as many plans as you like. Your itinerary is saved on your own device, so you can keep editing it on the plane or the train with no signal.
When the plan looks right, export it as a PDF or a plain-text file, or turn the whole thing into a single link you can send to whoever you are travelling with.
A good itinerary is only half the trip. Most first-time visitors run into the same few questions in the weeks before departure: whether they need a visa, how to fill in the arrival card, how to pay without a local bank account, whether their usual apps will work, and how to get around without speaking Mandarin. These tools walk you through each one.
If you would rather not begin with a blank page, these guides give you the shape of a trip you can then rebuild in the planner, stop by stop.
A first trip usually works best at around 7 to 12 days — enough for two or three cities without spending the whole time in transit. With only a week, stay inside one region, such as Beijing with Xi'an, or Shanghai with a nearby water town. You can set any length in the planner and change it later.
It depends on your passport. Several nationalities can now enter China visa-free for short stays, and the rules have changed often in recent years, so confirm the current policy for your own passport before you book. Our visa checker walks through the main visa types and the visa-free options, and links to the official source to verify.
China is large enough that the answer depends on where you are going. Spring and autumn are comfortable across most of the country, while summers are hot and wet in the south and winters are cold in the north. If your dates are flexible, plan around the region rather than the country as a whole, and check the public holiday calendar, because travel gets busier around the big national holidays.
Alipay and WeChat Pay are accepted almost everywhere, and both let you link an overseas card. Setting them up before you fly, with the card already verified, removes most of the friction on arrival. Cash still works, but many small vendors prefer a QR payment.
Several services you rely on at home do not work in mainland China without preparation. The practical checklist is to sort out an eSIM or roaming plan that covers China, install the apps you will actually need for maps, payments and translation, and know what a VPN can and cannot do before you depend on it. Our connectivity guide covers each step.
Long distances are easiest by high-speed rail, which is fast, punctual and bookable in English. Inside cities the metro is cheap and clearly signed, and ride-hailing apps include a translation layer. Download offline maps before you go so a weak signal does not leave you stuck.
Two to three months ahead is a comfortable window: enough time to sort out the visa or visa-free paperwork, book high-speed rail and hotels before popular dates fill up, and set up payments and connectivity without rushing. You can sketch the whole itinerary in the planner in a few minutes, then refine it as your bookings come together.