Ten days in China is doable as independent travel, not a packaged group. For 57 passports including the US, that window is the 240-hour visa-free clock: it starts at 00:00 the day after you land, and stay is limited to 24 provincial-level areas. This is not the 30-day unilateral visa-free. The United States is not on that list. I am Frank Zhang. I live in Suzhou.
The visa clock, not a tour clock
240-hour transit is a stay rule, not a product. Ordinary passports from 57 countries, including the United States, can use it. The NIA English policy is the page to print. The English NIA interpretation still shows 55; NIA announcement No. 4 (20 August 2026) is the current count. The clock starts at 00:00 the day after you land. Land at 14:30 on a Monday and the ten days run from 00:00 on Tuesday. Stay is the permitted areas of 24 provincial-level regions, not the whole country. Cross-province travel inside those areas is allowed. Shanxi, Jiangxi, and Guangxi are city-limited. Tibet, Xinjiang, and any city off the permitted list are out.
You need a confirmed onward ticket to a third country or region, with your name and a seat. Hong Kong and Macao usually count. A return to the city you left does not. Airline staff at the departure city may ask for that ticket before they issue a boarding pass. Have it printed.
Read the stay-area list and the onward-ticket rule on the 240-hour visa-free guide. Do not add a city because a blog called it a must-see.
If your ordinary passport is on the 30-day unilateral visa-free list — 50 countries, not the United States — you have a different stamp. Thirty calendar days. No third-country ticket. You are not locked to the 24 transit areas. Use that page. US travelers stay on 240-hour transit, or they apply for a visa.
If you only have five days, use the 5-day first-time options. Do not compress this page into that one.
If you searched a 10-day China group tour
LocalKey does not sell group tours. No coach. No locked departure. No tour leader talking to forty seats. People who type "10 day China tour" usually want the hotels and trains booked, and a person to message when a ticket fails. That is independent travel with logistics done. It is not a group.
We run two lanes only. Self-Guided: we book flights, hotels, trains, and transfers; you get an app roadbook and WhatsApp or WeChat support. Tailor-Made: the same plan, plus a private car and an optional private guide on the days you want one. Cost is 丰俭由人 — metro and high-speed rail, or a car that waits. If the search you typed was the group query, read group tours or a custom trip and then stay here for the route.
Two independent routes that fit the 24 stay areas
Both samples sit on the 240-hour map. Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Beijing, and Xi'an are named on the 240-hour guide as inside those areas. Anhui is a whole-province stay area, so Huangshan can replace Nanjing if you want a mountain day. A 12306 seat does not make an off-list city legal.
These are samples you bend, not departures you join.
1. East China slower loop
Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, plus one extra. Photography, tea, and gardens. Not a tourist checklist.
You land in Shanghai and you stay in the east. The city is for a neighborhood walk and a tea house, not a skyline scorecard. Suzhou is a short high-speed hop: one garden, then the streets that still use it. Hangzhou is the tea hills, Longjing in the morning, West Lake at an hour when the path is not a queue. The extra is Nanjing — a wall, a museum, or one street — or Huangshan if you want stairs and weather more than a city. You do not try to "do China." You walk, you sit, you take the train when the light is used up.
This is the route I give people who want pictures they will keep, and a cup they can talk about, more than a list they can post.
2. North-to-east HSR
Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai. One deep day in each city, not twelve attractions. The trains are the spine.
Beijing is hutongs and one palace morning, not a flag-and-bus circuit. Xi'an is the wall at a quiet hour, or one museum you actually finish — not a terracotta-and-out dash. Shanghai is streets and a river evening, not a Bund pose list. You will skip more than you see. That is the point of ten days on a transit clock. The high-speed legs eat half a day each. Plan the trains as rest, not as a race.
Use this route if you already know you want north and east in one stamp. Do not add Chengdu or a fourth city to "get more China." You will lose the deep day.
East China, day by day
This table is a sample, not a package. Swap Hangzhou for a second Suzhou day if you want less moving. Swap Nanjing for Huangshan if the weather holds and you accept an early start.
| Day | Base | The day |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shanghai | Land. Hotel. One evening walk by the river. Sleep. |
| 2 | Shanghai | One neighborhood on foot. A tea house. Photograph streets, not a skyline list. |
| 3 | Suzhou | Morning high-speed rail. One garden, then the lanes around it. |
| 4 | Suzhou | Canal morning, or a silk or tea session. Stay put. |
| 5 | Hangzhou | High-speed rail. West Lake at a quiet hour. |
| 6 | Hangzhou | Longjing hills. Walk, taste, sit. |
| 7 | Nanjing | High-speed rail. One wall, one museum, or one street. Not all three as a race. |
| 8 | Nanjing | A slower second day, or start back toward Shanghai. |
| 9 | Shanghai | Buffer. Last photographs. Recheck the onward ticket and the clock. |
| 10 | Exit | Leave for the third country or region inside the 240 hours. |
Day 9 exists so a delayed train does not eat the onward flight. Do not book a tight domestic hop on the last morning.
Trains and a wallet, a week out
Buy the intercity legs on official 12306, with the same passport you will carry to the gate. Foreigners can register on the English site. Identity verification can take days. Do it before the 15-day sales window opens for a busy date. Station names matter: Shanghai Hongqiao is not Shanghai Station; Suzhou North is not Suzhou. The how-to sits on 12306 train tickets for foreigners.
Set up Alipay and WeChat Pay a week before you fly. Alipay first. WeChat Pay often needs one to three business days after the passport check. Street stalls and metro gates take a QR, not a chip card. Do not start this on airport Wi-Fi.
What LocalKey will book, and what we will not
We book customized independent travel. Self-Guided: flights, hotels, trains, transfers, an app roadbook, and a WhatsApp or WeChat thread. You walk the city. You ride the metro. You choose the restaurant. Tailor-Made: the same plan, plus a private car and an optional private guide on the days that need one. A guide for a museum morning is useful. A guide for a train day is not.
We will not put you on a coach. We will not sell a first-timer Shanghai-plus-Suzhou toolkit as if it were the whole country. We will not turn the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army, and the Bund into the pitch. Depth first. Checklist last.
LocalKey is the visitor brand of Guangdong Xingcheng International Travel Agency, established in 2009. Budget is 丰俭由人. Public transport and mid-range hotels, or a car and the room you actually want. There is no group rate hiding in the middle.
Send the passport country, the entry port, the onward city, and which of the two routes you want to bend. We design from there.