How many cities should I visit on a first trip to China?

For 10-14 days, three to four cities maximum. Each city-to-city transfer on a first trip costs most of a day door to door, so every extra city deletes a full day of actually seeing anything.

Should I take a night train or a flight between cities?

Night sleeper trains save a hotel night and arrival time, but cost sleep quality. Flights are for genuinely long legs (e.g. Chengdu to Shanghai). For 4-5 hour legs, the daytime high-speed train beats both.

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First Trip to China: The Itinerary Review Framework

Distilled from 189 "Thoughts on my itinerary?" Threads

Almost every itinerary thread follows the same template: "First time in China, X nights, here are my six cities, thoughts?" And almost every reply is some version of "cut two cities". Instead of another fixed route, here is the review framework the experienced repliers are actually applying — run your own plan against it.

1. The Transit Math (Where Itineraries Die)

A city-to-city move in China costs half to a full day door to door: hotel checkout, station time, buffer for finding the manual passport gate, arrival, metro to the next hotel, re-check-in. A "3 nights each × 5 cities" plan is really 2 sightseeing days × 5 minus 4 travel days. The rules the threads converge on:

10 days → 3 cities. 14 days → 4 cities. Maximum.
Cluster geographically: north loop (Beijing–Xi'an–Pingyao/Datong), or south loop (Shanghai–Chongqing/Chengdu–Zhangjiajie). Never one north + one south in under 12 days.
Enter and exit from different cities (open-jaw flights) to avoid backtracking — e.g. into Shanghai, out of Beijing.
Check museum closing days BEFORE locking dates: the Forbidden City and most major Chinese museums close every Monday (except public holidays). A Beijing plan that puts the palace on a Monday is dead on arrival.

2. The Classic Overpacking Traps

Zhangjiajie + Guilin in one 10-day trip. The #1 flagged mistake: no direct high-speed link, 7–9 hours of transfers between them. Pick one mountain landscape.
Chongqing AND Chengdu AND Xi'an AND Beijing in 12 days. Each pair is a 3–5 hour train apart; four stops leaves no full day anywhere.
August anywhere in the Yangtze basin. Chongqing/Wuhan/Nanjing at 42°C humid is a furnace; shift the trip or shift the day schedule (out early, indoors midday).
Zero buffer days. Every veteran report includes one thing that broke: a sold-out train, a museum needing a Chinese-number booking. One empty half-day per week absorbs it.

3. Night Trains vs Flights

Night sleeper trains (soft sleeper, 4 berths) save a hotel night and roll you into town at 7 AM — good for the long Beijing–Xi'an or Xi'an–Chongqing legs if you sleep easily on trains. Flights make sense only for genuinely long hops (Chengdu–Shanghai, anything to/from Kashgar). Everything in the 2–5 hour band belongs to the daytime high-speed train: city-center to city-center, no airport trek, power at your seat.

4. Three Vetted Skeletons

10 days, first-timer: Beijing (4) → Xi'an (3) → Shanghai (3). The Golden Triangle logistics page has the day-by-day, including the Mutianyu wall run. Book Forbidden City tickets the moment they drop — 7 days ahead, 20:00 Beijing time, passport-linked, and the palace is closed Mondays.
12 days, scenery: Shanghai (3) → Chongqing (3) → Chengdu (3) → Zhangjiajie (3). See the Chongqing guide for the middle leg.
12 days, slow culture: Beijing (4) → Datong (2) → Pingyao (2) → Xi'an (4). The heritage corridor from the Keep-or-Skip threads.

Whatever you build, run it against the transit math first. If the reply to "thoughts on my itinerary?" would be "cut two cities", cut them now.