Shanghai in 3 Days: The Bund, the French Concession & Pudong
Who this is for: First-time visitors with ~3 full days who want the historic waterfront, the low-rise neighbourhoods that make Shanghai more than a skyline, and one look at the towers — without losing half a day to river crossings or to Beijing, which is a separate trip rather than an excursion.
Timing assumptions: Assumes you are based on the west bank (the Bund, People’s Square, the former French Concession or Jing’an), moving by Metro and on foot, with arrival and departure handled separately. Day 1 is Huangpu — the Bund, Yu Garden and People’s Square. Day 2 is the former French Concession, Xintiandi and Jing’an. Day 3 crosses to Pudong and then flexes into art, a water town or Disney. It also assumes you have a payment app working and have booked timed tickets under your passport name in advance, because in Shanghai that is a precondition, not a convenience.
Getting around: The Metro does almost all the work and is signed and announced in English. Fares start at ¥3 for the first 6 km and add ¥1 for every further 10 km; a one-day pass is ¥18 and a three-day pass ¥45, so the passes only repay a heavy day of long hops. Pay with a Shanghai Public Transportation Card, the Metro Daduhui or Suishenxing (SH MaaS) apps, or tap a contactless UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard, American Express or JCB card straight at the gate — one of the few places in the city a foreign card works without an app in front of it. Didi is the ride-hailing default and its international app takes overseas cards; street taxis are metered and cheap, but have your destination written in Chinese characters. From Pudong (PVG), about 30 km out, Metro Line 2 reaches People’s Square in roughly an hour for around ¥7, a taxi runs about ¥180 in about 50 minutes, and the maglev covers the first leg to Longyang Road. Hongqiao (SHA) is 13 km from the centre on Lines 2 and 10, or ¥100–150 by taxi. The Airport Link Line joins the two airports in about 40 minutes for ¥4–26. Walking works inside a district and not between them — the blocks are long and the arterial roads are hard to cross on foot.
When to go: Late March to May and October into early November are the two comfortable windows — daytime highs in the high teens to mid-20s°C, and October is the driest month of the year here. June is the plum-rain month (meiyu), the wettest stretch on the calendar, when a walking day can be washed out entirely. July and August are hot and humid with highs around 32–33°C, and typhoons remain possible into September. Winter is cool and damp rather than snowy, with highs near 10°C in January and February, and it is the cheapest time to come — though Shanghai sits south of China’s central-heating line, so indoor warmth depends on the room’s own air conditioning. Two dates to plan around whatever the weather: Golden Week (October 1–7) and Chinese New Year, when the whole country travels at once.
When to go — month by month
Average daytime high (bars) and rainy days per month, from 5-year climate normals. Greener months are the most comfortable to visit.
Best months to visit: Mar–May
Daylight by month
Hours of daylight through the year in Shanghai — it swings from about 9h 59m in midwinter to 14h 1m at midsummer, which decides how many stops realistically fit in a day.
Day 1 — The Bund, Yu Garden & People’s Square
Cover the west-bank historic core on foot and one metro line, and come back for the lit skyline after dark.
- ~1.3hThe Bund (Waitan) promenade walk-upWalk the 1.5 km protected riverfront of 1920s and 1930s banking and trading houses. Morning is for the buildings behind you; you will return tonight for the towers in front.
- ~1.5hYu Garden & the City God Temple bazaar timed entryThe ticketed Ming-dynasty garden is a separate thing from the free, heavily commercial bazaar wrapped around it — a distinction people discover at the gate. Go at opening or spend the visit in a crowd.
- ~45mNanjing Road East pedestrian street walk-upThe connective walk from the Old City up to People’s Square. Better as a way of getting there than as a shopping stop.
- ~2hShanghai Museum, People’s Square timed entryPermanent galleries are free. The People’s Square campus runs 9:00–17:00 with last entry at 15:00 and closes Mondays — arrive before 15:00 or you are not getting in at all.
- Route logic:
- A tight loop through one district — the river while the morning light is on the facades, the Old City before it fills, the museum through the afternoon, then back to the Bund after dark for the version of the view everyone came for.
- Getting between stops:
- Everything today sits inside Huangpu district. The Bund to Yu Garden is a 15-minute walk; Metro Lines 2 and 10 link Nanjing Road East to People’s Square in a single stop.
- Meals:
- Breakfast: shengjianbao or wonton soup in the lanes near the Old City. Lunch: xiaolongbao around Yu Garden. Dinner: back toward the Bund, where the restored waterfront buildings hide restaurants on their upper floors.
- Rain / limited mobility:
- Monday: the People’s Square campus is closed, so swap in the Shanghai Museum East across the river (closed Tuesdays instead) or move a Huangpu River cruise into the afternoon. Heavy rain: the museum plus the Bund’s indoor arcades absorb the day comfortably.
Day 2 — Former French Concession, Xintiandi & Jing’an
Spend a whole day on foot in the low-rise streets where Shanghai reads as a neighbourhood rather than a skyline.
- ~1.3hWukang Road & Wukang Mansion walk-upThe wedge-shaped 1924 apartment block and the plane-tree streets radiating from it are the concession’s signature. Weekend mornings draw serious crowds of photographers — a weekday start is a different place.
- ~1hAnfu Road cafés & the surrounding lanes walk-upA short walk east into independent coffee, small boutiques and the closest thing Shanghai has to a sit-outside-and-watch culture.
- ~1.5hTianzifang or Xintiandi walk-upTwo opposite restorations of the same shikumen lane-house architecture: Tianzifang a warren of narrow alleys and small shops, Xintiandi a polished open-air retail block. Pick one — visiting both is repetitive.
- ~1.3hJing’an Temple & Zhangyuan (evening) walk-upFinish north in Jing’an, where the gilded temple sits directly under the office towers and the restored Zhangyuan lane quarter shows how the city builds new around old.
- Route logic:
- West to east across the low-rise districts, with a train at each end of the day rather than in the middle of it — the concession only works if you actually walk it.
- Getting between stops:
- Metro Line 10 or 11 to the Shanghai Library or Jiaotong University area for Wukang Road, then walk east. Line 10 carries on to Xintiandi; Lines 2, 7 and 14 all reach Jing’an Temple for the evening.
- Meals:
- Lunch: a concession café or a small Shanghainese place off Anfu Road. Dinner: Xintiandi or Jing’an — between them the densest restaurant belt in the city.
- Rain / limited mobility:
- More interested in art than shopping: swap Tianzifang for the West Bund museum strip in southern Xuhui, or M50 on Suzhou Creek. Hot or wet: shorten the walking and use the Xintiandi and Jing’an malls as air-conditioned staging posts.
Day 3 — Pudong’s skyline, then your choice
Cross to the east bank for the towers and the museums built around them, then give the afternoon to whichever Shanghai you have not seen yet.
- ~2hOne Lujiazui observation deck book aheadShanghai Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Oriental Pearl sell versions of the same view from the same square kilometre. Pick one. Tickets are dated, timed and sold under your passport name — book before you cross the river.
- ~2hShanghai Museum East timed entryThe Pudong campus on Century Avenue runs 10:00–18:00 with last entry at 17:00 and closes Tuesdays — the opposite day to People’s Square, which is exactly how you rescue a Monday.
- ~3hAlternative: the West Bund museum strip walk-upA riverside run of contemporary-art institutions in southern Xuhui, linked by a park path along the water — the counterweight to a morning spent looking at towers.
- ~5hAlternative: Zhujiajiao water town or Suzhou book aheadZhujiajiao, a canal town on the city’s western edge, is the end of Metro Line 17 and works as a half-day with no booking. Suzhou’s classical gardens are about half an hour away by high-speed rail — a full day, and the better trade if you have the energy.
- Route logic:
- One river crossing, not three. The morning stays inside Lujiazui’s pedestrian ring, and the afternoon commits to a single direction instead of bouncing back and forth across the Huangpu.
- Getting between stops:
- Metro Line 2 crosses from People’s Square to Lujiazui in a few minutes; the public ferries and the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel are slower, cheaper and more interesting. Zhujiajiao is the terminus of Line 17; Suzhou trains leave from Hongqiao Railway Station.
- Meals:
- Lunch: the Lujiazui mall food halls are functional rather than good — if you care about the meal, eat before you cross. Dinner: back in Puxi, or on a river dinner cruise if you want the skyline a second time.
- Rain / limited mobility:
- Travelling with kids: give the whole day to Shanghai Disney Resort out on Metro Line 11 — it needs a full day and a dated ticket, and does not combine with anything. Low on energy: skip the deck entirely. The towers look better from the Bund than they do from inside one of them.
⚠︎ Before you book
- Most Shanghai attractions use real-name, timed ticketing tied to your passport, usually inside a WeChat or Alipay mini-program or on the venue’s own site. Get a payment app working with a linked foreign card before you fly, or you are limited to whatever an international reseller happens to list.
- The Shanghai Museum’s two campuses close on different days — People’s Square on Mondays, Pudong East on Tuesdays — and both stop admitting visitors well before closing (15:00 and 17:00 respectively). Check which one is open for the day you are planning.
- Observation-deck and Shanghai Disney tickets are dated and sell out on weekends and public holidays. Buy before you travel rather than on the morning.
- Golden Week (October 1–7) and Chinese New Year are the domestic travel peak: hotel rates, queues and intercity rail all move against you. Book months ahead or plan around those dates.
- High-speed rail seats to Suzhou or Hangzhou are sold against your passport number and can be booked online in advance — do that instead of queueing at Hongqiao Railway Station.
Weather & mobility: Shanghai is a walking city inside each district and a metro city between them: blocks are long, arterial roads are genuinely hard to cross on foot, and Pudong’s superblocks and elevated walkways make short map distances into real treks — budget more transit time than the map suggests. June is the plum-rain month and the wettest of the year, so carry rain gear and keep an indoor fallback for every outdoor plan. July and August are hot and humid with highs around 32–33°C and typhoon risk running into September: start early, retreat indoors mid-afternoon. Winter is cool and damp rather than snowy, and because the city sits south of China’s central-heating line there is no building-wide heating — warmth indoors comes from the room’s own air conditioning, which is worth checking in older converted buildings.
Budget: Shanghai is cheaper on the ground than its skyline suggests. Confirmed figures: Metro fares start at ¥3 for the first 6 km and add ¥1 per further 10 km, with a one-day pass at ¥18 and a three-day pass at ¥45; Metro Line 2 from Pudong Airport to People’s Square is around ¥7, against roughly ¥180 for the same trip by taxi; the permanent galleries at both Shanghai Museum campuses are free. Approximate and worth verifying before you go: a plate of shengjianbao or a bowl of noodles ¥15–35; a neighbourhood sit-down dinner for one ¥60–150; a Western-style café coffee ¥30–45; a Huangpu River cruise ¥120–180; a Pudong observation deck ¥150–200. Golden Week (October 1–7), Chinese New Year and the big November convention weeks push hotel rates well above baseline.
Optional swaps
- Arriving on a Monday? Run Day 3 first — the Shanghai Museum East in Pudong is open when the People’s Square campus is not, and the two swap cleanly.
- Travelling with kids? Trade Day 3’s Lujiazui morning for a full day at Shanghai Disney Resort on Metro Line 11, and drop the observation deck.
- More interested in art than in the skyline? Give Day 3 entirely to the West Bund museums in southern Xuhui and M50 on Suzhou Creek, and see the towers from the Bund on Day 1 instead.
What this plan intentionally leaves out
- Beijing as a side trip: High-speed rail covers it in roughly four and a half hours each way. That is a second destination with its own hotel nights, not an excursion from a three-day Shanghai plan.
- A second observation deck: The Shanghai Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center and the Oriental Pearl sell variations of one view from one square kilometre. The first is a highlight; the second is buying the same photograph twice.
- Named restaurants and bars: Shanghai’s dining scene turns over fast enough that the best lane-shop xiaolongbao changes address more often than any guide can track. This plan points you at the districts and lets you choose on the day.
- Shanghai Disney as a half-day: It sits out on Metro Line 11 and consumes a full day with a dated ticket. Treated as an add-on it ruins both it and whatever else you planned — so it appears here as a whole-day swap, not a stop.
Planning notes & sources
The day-by-day routing here — one west-bank historic day, one concession walking day, and an east-bank day that flexes into art, a water town or Disney — and the time estimates are our own, built around a simple rule: keep each day on one side of the Huangpu, because the crossings are what quietly eat a short trip. Because prices, opening days, ticketing rules and visa-free policies all shift, confirm current details with Meet in Shanghai, the venues themselves and the National Immigration Administration before you set out — the entry and registration rules in particular are the ones worth checking again close to your travel date.
- Meet in Shanghai — official Shanghai tourism
- Shanghai Municipal Government — international services portal
- Shanghai International Services — transport & metro fares
- National Immigration Administration — visa & entry policies
- National Immigration Administration — accommodation registration for foreigners
- Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration (Public Security Bureau)
- Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission — metro, buses & fares
- Shanghai Museum — official