Nice Places to Visit in China: The Great Wall, Xi'an, and Zhangjiajie
This isn't an exhaustive list of nice places to visit in China — it's three stops with enough current, sourced documentation to build an itinerary around with confidence: the Great Wall near Beijing, the Terracotta Army at Xi'an, and the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie. Every figure below is linked to its source, including the 2024 visa-free transit expansion that most competing guides still haven't updated for.
Most of Cusco's points of interest run on one bundled ticket system, not pay-as-you-go gates. Here's what the Boleto Turístico covers, what it leaves out, and how to pace the altitude.
Resonance ranks London first, Time Out ranks Porto second, Travel + Leisure's readers pick Florence. None of them are wrong — they're measuring different things. Here's how to build a shortlist from all three, plus what July actually costs in heat and crowds.
By Daniel Reyes — travel writer and researcher covering China's heritage sites, with a graduate certificate in Asian Studies from the University of Washington and eight years of on-the-ground reporting from Beijing, Xi'an, and Hunan province. Last verified October 13, 2026.
China has far more than three nice places to visit. This piece covers three: the Great Wall near Beijing, the Terracotta Army at Xi'an, and Zhangjiajie's Avatar Mountains, because all three are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, all three have had ticketing or access rules change recently, and all three have current, checkable sources behind every number quoted below.
Quick Answers Before You Book
Question
Short Answer
Which Great Wall section?
Mutianyu for restored sections and lower weekday crowds; Badaling if you need direct transit access and plan to arrive before 9am.
Which Zhangjiajie viewpoint?
Yuanjiajie, inside Wulingyuan park — not Tianmen Mountain, which is a separate site with its own ticket.
China holds 61 properties on the UNESCO World Heritage List — 42 cultural, 15 natural, 4 mixed — according to UNESCO's own country page. Articles still circulating from 2024 quote 57 or 59, a sign they haven't been updated since the most recent inscriptions. The Great Wall, the Qin Shihuang mausoleum complex, and Wulingyuan (the park containing Zhangjiajie's famous pillars) all carry that designation, which is part of why they anchor most serious shortlists rather than appearing by general consensus.
UNESCO status describes protected scope and physical boundaries. It says nothing about which entrance to use, how crowded a given day will be, or whether a ticket needs to be booked in advance. That distinction matters once you're choosing between Mutianyu and Badaling, or Wulingyuan and the separately ticketed Tianmen Mountain.
The Great Wall: Mutianyu or Badaling
The wall was UNESCO-listed in 1987. That listing covers multiple sections across northern China, not just the two most visited by day-trippers out of Beijing, which is worth remembering if a guide claims to be describing "the" Great Wall rather than one specific stretch of it.
Mutianyu
Mutianyu sits about two hours by road from central Beijing, has a cable car up and a toboggan run down, and draws fewer tour buses than Badaling on weekdays. Its restored crenellations and watchtowers make it the more photogenic option without requiring an early start.
Badaling
Badaling is the section closest to central Beijing's transit network and by far the most visited. If Badaling is the plan, arriving before 9am or after 3pm matters more here than it does at Mutianyu, where crowd pressure is lower to begin with.
Best season to visit
April–May and September–October give clear light and manageable heat. July and August bring both the largest crowds and humidity thick enough to haze out the long-distance views most people are hoping to photograph.
Xi'an and the Terracotta Army
The site most people call the Terracotta Army is officially the Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shihuang, UNESCO-listed in December 1987. The burial complex spans approximately 56 square kilometers — the excavated pits open to visitors are one part of a much larger, mostly unexcavated necropolis.
Per People's Daily's 50th-anniversary excavation report, the three pits hold an estimated 8,000 figures and 40,000 weapons spread across more than 20,000 square meters, with only around 2,000 warriors unearthed and on view so far. That last figure is easy to miss: most of what's documented to exist at the site has not yet been dug up.
Pit 1 is the one in every photograph — rows of infantry standing in formation, the image most people have in mind before they arrive. Pit 2 and Pit 3 show excavation-in-progress and command formations respectively, and skipping them means missing most of what's actually on display, since Pit 1 alone isn't the whole exhibit.
Xi'an connects to Beijing by high-speed rail in under five hours, which is why a Beijing–Xi'an–onward route is the standard backbone of a China itinerary rather than a flight-only trip between the two.
Zhangjiajie's Avatar Mountains: Wulingyuan, Not Tianmen
Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area has been UNESCO-listed since 1992 and contains more than 3,000 quartz-sandstone pillars. Yuanjiajie, a viewpoint inside the park, is the specific spot that inspired the floating mountains in Avatar — not the park generally, and not Tianmen Mountain.
Tianmen Mountain is a separate peak with its own ticketing system run by the city of Zhangjiajie, entirely outside Wulingyuan. Competing roundups routinely blur this distinction, which leads travelers to buy a ticket for the wrong site and discover the mistake only once they're there.
Since 2025, Wulingyuan has required advance real-name, timed-entry reservation. Walk-up tickets are no longer reliable. The pricing and visitor-cap figures below come from an operator guide rather than Wulingyuan's official ticketing portal directly — treat them as third-party estimates pending official confirmation, not settled numbers, and verify the exact figures at the point of booking.
Item
Cost / Limit
Notes
4-day Wulingyuan park pass
¥225-236 (third-party estimate)
Price varies by season and source; covers internal shuttle buses only
Cable car
Ticketed separately
Not included in the park pass
Bailong Elevator
Ticketed separately
Not included in the park pass
Daily visitor cap
Approximately 53,000 (unconfirmed by official park authority)
Advance real-name, timed-entry reservation required since 2025
Two full days covers Yuanjiajie and a Bailong Elevator descent without rushing. One day is possible, but it means choosing between the elevator and the cable car rather than doing both.
Visa-Free Transit: What Changed in December 2024
A State Council policy effective December 2024 extended visa-free transit stays from the older 72/144-hour rule to 240 hours — ten days — for 54 eligible nationalities, across 60 ports in 24 provinces. Many articles still ranking in search results cite the old 72/144-hour figure; if a source doesn't mention the December 2024 expansion, its visa information is out of date.
The covered zones include Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang, which matters directly if Beijing and Xi'an bookend a trip, plus an expanded Yunnan zone covering Kunming, Lijiang, Dali, and Xishuangbanna for anyone extending west afterward. Eligibility depends on nationality and entry port, not a blanket national rule, so check the current list on the National Immigration Administration site before building a route around it.
Building the Route: How Many Days Each Stop Needs
Stop
Minimum Days
Why
Beijing (incl. Great Wall day trip)
3-4
City sites plus a full day at Mutianyu or Badaling
Xi'an
2
Full mausoleum complex (all three pits) plus the old city wall
Zhangjiajie (Wulingyuan)
2-3
Reservation system, park size, Yuanjiajie plus Bailong Elevator
A Beijing–Xi'an–Zhangjiajie loop by high-speed rail with one domestic flight runs about 10-12 days total without rushing any single stop — which lines up conveniently with the new 10-day visa-free transit window for eligible nationalities, though it leaves little slack if a connection runs late. Before locking dates, running the stop sequence through an itinerary validator is worth it to check that transit times and reservation windows actually line up, since a missed Wulingyuan booking slot can cost a full day.
Shoulder-season timing — April-May or September-October — works for all three stops simultaneously, which simplifies planning compared to chasing separate best-seasons for each destination individually.
What This List Leaves Out For Now
Guilin and the Li River, Shanghai's neighborhoods, and Chengdu's panda base appear on nearly every competing roundup of China's best places, and they belong on a longer list than this one. They're not here because their current ticket prices and reservation rules weren't independently confirmed for this piece — the same sourcing standard applied to the Great Wall, Xi'an, and Zhangjiajie above. Fortrip has a companion piece covering Guilin, Shanghai, and Chengdu with the same standard in progress; check the blog for when it posts.
In the meantime, if those destinations fit your route, apply the same scrutiny here that you'd apply to any travel guide: check the publish date, check the current ticket policy directly against the operator's site, and check whether a reservation requirement has been added since 2025.
Share
Frequently asked questions
Which Great Wall section should I visit — Mutianyu or Badaling?+
Mutianyu for restored sections and lower weekday crowds; Badaling if you need direct transit access from central Beijing and can arrive before 9am or after 3pm.
Which Zhangjiajie viewpoint inspired the floating mountains in Avatar?+
Yuanjiajie, a viewpoint inside Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area — not Tianmen Mountain, which is a separate peak with its own ticketing system run by the city of Zhangjiajie.
How many UNESCO World Heritage Sites does China have?+
61 — 42 cultural, 15 natural, and 4 mixed, according to UNESCO's country page for China. Articles citing 57 or 59 haven't been updated since the most recent inscriptions.
Does the 10-day visa-free transit policy apply to all travelers?+
No. It applies to 54 eligible nationalities entering through specific ports among 60 covered across 24 provinces. Check the current list on the National Immigration Administration site before relying on it.
Do I need a reservation to visit Zhangjiajie's Wulingyuan park?+
Yes. Since 2025, Wulingyuan has required advance real-name, timed-entry reservation, and walk-up tickets are no longer reliable.
Start a trip Fortrip can actually defend.
Sketch a brief. We come back with an itinerary that reads like a recommendation, not a checklist — and tell you what we’d change about it.
