Shanghai

Shanghai has two airports and they're not interchangeable. Pudong International (PVG) is the one you'll almost certainly fly into from Europe or further afield — it handles nearly all of the city's long-haul international traffic, including the major hub connections (Helsinki, Doha, Istanbul, Frankfurt and Amsterdam all have workable one-stop routings from Scandinavia, since there's no current direct flight from Stockholm). Hongqiao (SHA), by contrast, is much closer to downtown but handles mostly domestic flights plus a handful of regional international routes to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan — useful if you're arriving from elsewhere in Asia, not from home.

From PVG, Metro Line 2 runs straight into the city (about 60-75 minutes to People's Square, ¥7-9) and is the option most people should just take. The Maglev train to Longyang Road station is worth doing once purely for the novelty — 8 minutes, ¥50, tops 300 km/h — but you'll still need to transfer to the metro from there, so it doesn't actually save time over the direct Line 2 ride. Hongqiao sits directly on metro Lines 2 and 10, a straightforward 30-40 minute ride into central Shanghai.

If you're combining Shanghai with other Chinese cities, the high-speed rail network makes arriving or leaving overland easy: Hongqiao Railway Station has frequent connections to Suzhou (as little as 25 minutes), Hangzhou (45 minutes to 1.5 hours), and Beijing (as fast as 4.5-6 hours on the quickest G-series trains). Book through Trip.com rather than the Chinese-only 12306 system if you don't have a Chinese ID.

One more thing worth knowing before you book anything: as of November 2025, Swedish passport holders can enter mainland China visa-free for stays of up to 30 days, a policy currently confirmed through the end of 2026 — a genuinely new and welcome change, though worth reconfirming closer to your travel dates given how often entry rules have shifted in recent years.

The metro is your best friend here — 20 lines, trains every few minutes even off-peak, and English signage and stop announcements throughout, so most visitors barely need a taxi once they're in the city. Fares run about ¥3-9 depending on distance; skip the ticket-machine queue entirely and tap in with Alipay or WeChat Pay linked to a foreign card, or buy a rechargeable Shanghai Public Transportation Card if you'd rather not fumble with your phone at the gate. Trains get properly packed during rush hour (roughly 7:30-9:30am and 5:30-7:30pm) — shift your sightseeing outside those windows if you can.

Taxis are metered and honest, but drivers rarely speak English and street-hailing means explaining your destination in Chinese, so use Didi instead — set your destination in English, pay in-app, no cash or awkward conversation required, and it's noticeably cheaper than a hotel-arranged car. For crossing the river between the Bund and Pudong, skip the gimmicky, overpriced Bund Sightseeing Tunnel and take the Jin Jiang ferry instead — a couple of yuan, five minutes, and you get the skyline view for free instead of a laser-light tunnel ride.

Shared bikes (Hellobike, and the yellow and blue Meituan/Didi bikes stacked on every corner) are brilliant for cutting across flat, low-traffic neighborhoods like the French Concession or Jing'an — scan the QR code with Alipay and go, no docking station needed, just leave it curbside when you're done. Just know the city is more spread out than it looks on a map: the Bund to the French Concession is a 35-40 minute walk, easy on a bike or three metro stops, less fun in July's heat and humidity.

Didi is the one to have — it's essentially China's Uber (it bought Uber's China business back in 2016), works fine in English, and takes foreign cards via Alipay or WeChat Pay, so you never need cash for a ride. Alipay is close to a universal remote for the city: set up its international "Tour Pass" version before you land (it links directly to a Visa or Mastercard) and you can pay for metro rides, taxis, meals and convenience-store snacks with one QR code — cash is a backup here, not the default, and plenty of smaller vendors genuinely don't carry change for it anymore. WeChat Pay is the other big wallet and worth setting up too, since some smaller vendors, especially older ones, only take one or the other.

Skip Google Maps, which is blocked and unreliable in China anyway, and use Amap (Gaode Maps) instead — it has a solid English mode and is far more accurate for transit, walking directions and real-time traffic. For booking train tickets between cities, Trip.com is much easier for foreign passport holders than the official 12306 app or site, which can be finicky about non-Chinese ID numbers; Trip.com lets you book, hold your ticket as a QR code, and skip the ticket counter entirely. Meituan and Ele.me are the food-delivery apps everyone uses, handy even just for browsing what's good and highly-rated nearby when you're standing on an unfamiliar street. And download a translation app with offline or camera capability — Pleco for menus and signs, or DeepL — before you land, since data can be patchy underground on the metro.

As of November 2025, Swedish passport holders can enter mainland China visa-free for stays of up to 30 days for tourism — a genuinely new and welcome change, and one currently confirmed through the end of 2026 (worth double-checking it's still active closer to your travel dates, since Chinese entry policy has shifted more than once in recent years). You'll still want a VPN installed and tested before you land, though — Google, Gmail, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook are all blocked by the Great Firewall regardless of your visa status, and it's much easier to sort out at home than once you're there.

Tipping isn't part of the culture in restaurants, taxis or hotels; leaving one can genuinely puzzle staff, so don't feel obligated to. Cash has basically disappeared from daily life since locals pay for everything by scanning a QR code, so get Alipay or WeChat Pay linked to a card early rather than counting on cash or foreign cards, which smaller places often won't take at all. Pack for genuine seasons: summer (June-August) is hot, humid and prone to sudden thunderstorms, spring and autumn are the sweet spots weather-wise (autumn, specifically October-November, is also hairy crab season, worth timing a trip around if you're a food traveler), and winter is damp and chilly rather than snowy. One classic tourist trap worth knowing: near the Bund and Yuyuan, friendly strangers (often young women "wanting to practice English") may invite you to a nearby teahouse or art gallery — it's a well-worn scam that ends in a wildly inflated bill, so politely decline invitations like that from strangers on the street. Shanghai itself is otherwise very safe, day or night, including for solo travelers.

The Bund / People's Square — the classic first-timer's base, walking distance to the riverfront skyline views, Nanjing Road and Yuyuan Garden; touristy and a little short on local character, but you're never far from a metro station and it's the easiest launchpad for a short trip. French Concession (Xuhui/Jing'an border) — the area locals and expats actually love living in, all plane-tree-lined streets, converted lane houses, and third-wave coffee shops; the best pick if you want a few days that feel like living here rather than just visiting, and it puts you within walking distance of Anfu Road's bars and Tianzifang's alleys. Jing'an — sits just north of the French Concession and offers a slightly grittier, more local version of the same charm: longtang alleyway life alongside the thousand-year-old Jing'an Temple and its bell tower, plus genuinely good restaurants that haven't been discovered by tour groups yet. Xintiandi — sits inside the French Concession's broader orbit, polished and pricier, but unbeatable for walking straight out to dinner at one of the city's best restaurant clusters. Pudong — across the river and essentially the skyline itself, home to Shanghai Tower, the financial district, and hotels like the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Shanghai - Pudong that trade neighborhood charm for knockout views; better suited to a shorter stay, a business trip, or splitting your nights — a couple in Pudong for the view, the rest in Puxi for the walkability.

Yunnan Road, just off People's Square, is where locals go for old-school Shanghainese standards — braised dishes and noodle soups lined up stall after stall at the Yunnan Road Traditional Brand Delicacy Street, cheap and unfussy. For the city's defining dish, xiaolongbao, join the queue at Jia Jia Tang Bao near People's Square (a family-run spot since 1986 with a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a pork-crab basket for about ¥39) or head to the original Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant by Yuyuan Garden, making the same recipe since 1900; Din Tai Fung in Pudong is the reliable, slightly more polished fallback if the queues elsewhere are too long. Around Yuyuan Garden and the City God Temple the wider snack game is strong too: expect soup dumplings and scallion pancakes at spots like Chenghuang Temple Tradition Snack, plus juicy pork baozi at Laoshengchang Baozi worth the detour. If you can get out to Qibao, the old water town on the city's edge, do it — Qibao Old Street is lined with century-old snack shops, and something like Qibao Old Street Tangyuan (sweet rice-ball soup) is the kind of stop you build a whole afternoon around.

For a proper sit-down dinner, Xintiandi's North and South Blocks pack in some of the city's best upscale dining — Shanghainese, Japanese, French, Yunnan (Lost Heaven is a reliable go-to) — while neighboring Tianzifang is the laid-back, lane-house version, with cheaper and more experimental kitchens tucked into converted shikumen houses. Julu Road and Anfu Road in the French Concession are where the newer wave of chef-led restaurants and natural wine bars have clustered, worth a wander if you want to eat like the city's young professionals do. And if you're visiting between October and November, hairy crab season is a genuine event here — Wang Bao He near the Bund has been serving it since 1744 and is the classic choice, though you'll want to book ahead.

Shanghainese cuisine (本帮菜, benbang cai) runs sweeter and richer than most Chinese regional food, built on soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine and rock sugar rather than chili — expect braised, glazed dishes rather than fiery ones. The dish that defines the city is xiaolongbao, soup dumplings hand-pleated (traditionally around 18 folds) around a pork-and-jelly filling that melts into broth as they steam; order them at Jia Jia Tang Bao or the century-plus-old Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant by Yuyuan Garden, and eat them the local way — a small bite through the wrapper to sip the broth first, then the rest with black vinegar and ginger. Their pan-fried cousin, shengjianbao, has a crisp, sesame-and-scallion-dusted bottom and the same soup-filled center; Yang's Fry Dumpling is the reliable chain to know if you see the queue.

Beyond dumplings, look for hongshao rou (red-braised pork belly, glazed dark and sweet in soy and sugar), cong you ban mian (scallion oil noodles, deceptively simple and one of the city's great cheap eats), xunyu (cold smoked fish, a classic benbang starter), and zuiji (drunken chicken, poached and steeped in Shaoxing wine). For breakfast, do it like a local with the "Four Warriors" (si da jin gang): youtiao (fried dough sticks), doujiang (soy milk — try the savory version with dried shrimp, pickles and chili oil if you're feeling adventurous), cifan (a rice roll wrapped around youtiao), and dabing (a sesame flatbread), best found at unmarked stalls before 8am rather than at a restaurant.

If you're visiting between October and November, build a meal around hairy crab (dazha xie) — the season's must-eat, prized for its roe, either cracked and eaten whole with a ginger-vinegar dipping sauce or as xiefen, a rich crabmeat-and-roe mixture stirred through egg, noodles or tofu; Wang Bao He near the Bund has specialized in it since 1744. To drink, the French Concession's Julu and Anfu Road bars are doing interesting things with local ingredients — an osmanthus whisky sour or a Shaoxing mojito shows up on more than one menu — and M50's Tap That is a solid stop for craft beer if you want a break from baijiu.

Nanjing Road is the big one — a six-kilometer pedestrian strip split into East (mass-market, department stores, souvenir shops, always crowded) and West (the luxury end, flagship stores for Cartier and Dior, plus malls like HKRI Taikoo Hui). Tianzifang is the antidote to all that: a warren of shikumen alleys packed with independent design studios and craft shops where you can actually find something one-of-a-kind. Xintiandi covers the fashionable middle ground, boutique fashion and lifestyle stores woven between restored lane houses and a modern mall, while Julu Road and Anfu Road, both in the French Concession, are the pick for homegrown Chinese fashion labels, vintage racks and art bookshops rather than international chains. If you're after art rather than clothes, M50 (50 Moganshan Road) is a former wool factory turned into 140-plus galleries and studios — worth a couple of hours even if you're not buying, and a good spot to pick up something original instead of a Nanjing Road souvenir. Over in Pudong, IFC Mall is the pick for a glass-ceilinged, high-end mall crawl with skyline views thrown in for free.

Walk the Bund at dusk — it's genuinely one of the great city views anywhere, the colonial-era buildings on your side lighting up as the Pudong skyline goes full neon across the river; worth doing once in daylight and once after dark, and worth a second look from a Huangpu River night cruise if you want the skyline from the water instead of the embankment. Head up Shanghai Tower's observation deck, or just its elevated walkway, for the view looking back the other way.

Yuyuan Garden is worth the crowds — a genuine Ming-dynasty garden of ponds, rockeries and pavilions right next to the snack-filled Yuyuan Old Street and City God Temple, so you can do culture and dumplings in the same hour. Spend an unhurried afternoon wandering the French Concession's tree-lined side streets with no agenda — it's a neighborhood built for getting pleasantly lost in — then follow it into evening on Anfu Road, where small live-music rooms like JZ Club (jazz) and Yuyintang (indie bands) keep the strip going past midnight alongside bars mixing local ingredients into their cocktails.

For a different, artier side of the city, spend a morning at M50's galleries and studios in a converted 1930s wool factory, then head south to the West Bund, a stretch of former industrial riverfront now lined with contemporary art museums, promenades and craft-beer spots like Paulaner Wirtshaus — a good, less-touristed alternative to a Bund afternoon. And if you have a spare day, the water town of Qibao is an easy metro-accessible escape — canals, old stone bridges, and Qibao Old Street's snack stalls make it feel like a mini-Suzhou without leaving the city limits; with a full extra day, the real Suzhou (canals, classical gardens) or Hangzhou (West Lake) are both under an hour away by high-speed train and make for one of the best day trips in China.