Do I need a visa to visit Shanghai?

It depends on your passport. China offers 144-hour visa-free transit for citizens of 54 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and most EU nations, if you're transiting through Shanghai to a third country. Since late 2023, this has been expanded and the rules loosened further, so check the latest policy from the Chinese embassy for your nationality. For stays beyond 144 hours or non-transit visits, a standard tourist visa (L visa) is required and must be arranged before departure. Processing typically takes 4 to 7 business days.

Is Shanghai expensive compared to other Chinese cities?

Shanghai is the most expensive city in mainland China, but it's still significantly cheaper than Tokyo, Singapore, or Hong Kong for most categories. A bowl of noodles at a neighborhood shop runs 15 to 30 yuan. A meal for two at a mid-range restaurant might be 200 to 400 yuan. Metro rides cost 3 to 9 yuan. A decent hotel in the French Concession or Jing'an starts around 500 to 800 yuan per night. Street food, local restaurants, and public transport are genuinely cheap. International restaurants, cocktail bars, and luxury hotels approach or exceed Western prices.

How many days do I need in Shanghai?

Three full days covers the core. Day one for the Bund, Yuyuan Garden, and the Old City. Day two for the French Concession, Tianzifang, and a museum or two. Day three for Pudong (Shanghai Tower observation deck), the West Bund art corridor, or a water town day trip. Five days lets you slow down, explore neighborhood restaurants, visit Zhujiajiao, and spend an afternoon at the Shanghai Museum without rushing. Most first-time visitors feel satisfied with 4 days.

Can I drink the tap water?

No. Tap water in Shanghai is treated but not considered safe to drink without boiling. Hotels provide electric kettles and bottled water. Bottled water is cheap and available everywhere, typically 2 to 3 yuan for a 500 ml bottle at convenience stores like FamilyMart or Lawson, which are on nearly every block.

What's the best way to get from Pudong Airport to the city center?

The Maglev train to Longyang Road takes 7 minutes and costs 50 yuan (40 yuan if you show a boarding pass). From Longyang Road you transfer to Metro Line 2, which reaches People's Square in about 20 minutes. The total door-to-door time to central hotels is roughly 60 to 75 minutes. A taxi to the Bund or French Concession takes 45 to 70 minutes depending on traffic and costs around 150 to 200 yuan. Metro Line 2 runs the full distance from the airport to central Shanghai for about 7 yuan, but takes over an hour with many stops.

Is Shanghai walkable?

Partially. The French Concession, the Bund, and the area around People's Square are genuinely pleasant on foot, with sidewalks, shade trees, and manageable distances. Pudong is sprawling and car-oriented. The distances between Lujiazui towers that look close together from across the river are 15 to 20 minutes apart on foot with little shade. In summer, the heat and humidity limit comfortable walking to early morning or evening. The metro fills the gaps efficiently.

Do people tip in Shanghai?

Tipping is not customary and not expected in restaurants, taxis, or hotels. Some international hotel chains have adopted a tipping culture for bellhops and concierge, but it is not a local norm. Leaving change on a restaurant table might confuse your server. Service charges are occasionally added at high-end international restaurants, typically 10 to 15%, and will be noted on the menu.

What apps should I download before arriving?

Alipay (for payments, link your international card before arrival), WeChat (messaging and payments), Baidu Maps or Amap (navigation, far more accurate than Google Maps in China), Pleco (offline Chinese-English dictionary), DiDi (ride-hailing), and a VPN of your choice (install before entering China, as VPN websites are blocked). Metro Man is a useful app for navigating the Shanghai metro system with English station names.

Things to Do in Shanghai: A Complete Guide

Local 01:59

Weather 17° clear

Feels 17° · 85% · 7 km/h

Air 126 unhealthy-sensitive

PM2.5 42.6 · PM10 49.8

Sun 06:05 → 17:09

1 USD 6.67 CNY

Shanghai sits where the Huangpu River bends toward the Yangtze Delta, a city of nearly twenty-five million people built on silt and commercial ambition in roughly equal measure. The skyline you recognize from photographs: the Oriental Pearl Tower, the bottle-opener silhouette of the World Financial Center, the spiraling Shanghai Tower at 632 metres: occupies Pudong, a district that was farmland until 1990. Cross the river westward and you are standing on the Bund, a kilometre of Edwardian banking halls and art deco towers that speak to the treaty-port decades when foreign capital reshaped a fishing settlement into Asia's busiest commercial hub. That layering defines the visitor's experience here: you move between eras by crossing a street. In the former French Concession, now split between Xuhui and the southern edge of Jing'an, London plane trees arch over low-rise lane houses built in the shikumen style: stone-framed doorways opening onto shared courtyards that once held entire extended families. A fifteen-minute metro ride north deposits you in Hongkou, where the brick-and-tile neighbourhoods feel more like a mid-sized Chinese city than anything on the Bund. Mornings tend to start late here; breakfast is a paper bag of shengjianbao from a sidewalk window, the pan-fried buns crisp on the bottom and scalding inside. Afternoons stretch. The heat between June and September is serious: subtropical, close, the kind that sends locals into air-conditioned malls for hours, so the rhythm of the day shifts toward evening, when the riverside promenades fill and the Pudong towers cycle through their light programmes. Shanghai rewards the visitor who treats it as a living city rather than a monument: its best details are ordinary ones, repeating every morning at the same noodle counter, the same quiet park where retired men set up their card tables under the same old camphor trees.