China TravelStarter guideFirst trip

Meet · Live · Plan · Walk

Cities

Start with what made each city itself, then understand how it lives now. Practical planning belongs beside history—not in place of it.

First city desk · Beijing

Do not reduce Beijing to a checklist of sights.

Meet the capital at two scales: its monumental north-south order and the ordinary life unfolding in the lanes beside it. Then plan a first visit with enough room to notice both.

Open the Beijing desk

City desk 02 · Shanghai

Cross the river. Then enter the streets.

Read the Bund and Pudong together without reducing them to old versus new. Then slow down among garden residences, lane housing, shops, trees, and lived boundaries.

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City desk 03 · Guangzhou

The Flower City that trades with the world.

Begin with the upward-sweeping roof ridges and layered craft of Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, then move through arcaded streets, shared tea tables, the Pearl River, and a contemporary southern city.

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City desk 04 · Shenzhen

Watch a city being made—and remade.

Follow a product through Huaqiangbei, a painting through Dafen, and an old boundary through Nantou. Shenzhen becomes legible through the joins, not just the skyline.

Open the Shenzhen desk