The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is legitimately unmissable. One of the more culturally interesting cities in Asia right now, a major tech hub: Intel, Foxconn, a genuinely thriving startup scene, the food here deserves its own standing ovation.
China's largest municipality, built across steep hills at intersection of two rivers, metro passing through a residential tower block. At night, the whole thing lights up and fogs over, you genuinely cannot tell where the city ends and sky begins.
The Terracotta Army is one of those rare attractions that actually exceeds its reputation, Pit 1 alone is the size of an aircraft hangar, filled with 8,000 individually sculpted soldiers who have been standing in formation since 210 BC.
The Bailong Elevator is a 326-metre outdoor lift attached to the side of a cliff. It carries you from the valley floor to the ridge in under two minutes. Foreign arrivals jumped 166 percent in 2024. This is still, just barely, a place you can visit without fighting crowds. And it’s truly worth the trip.
The Bund-to-Pudong skyline view across the Huangpu is one of those genuinely earned spectacles. The French Concession still remains genuinely good. And the food: xiaolongbao, red-braised pork, scallion oil noodles, drunken chicken: is its own cuisine entirely.