A little planning. More time exploring.

Register on the museum's international portal (intl.dpm.org.cn) with your exact passport details, then be logged in and ready at 20:00 Beijing time exactly 7 days before your date. Pay by Alipay or, on the international portal, a foreign Visa/Mastercard. No paper ticket — you scan the passport you booked with at Meridian Gate.

Peak-season morning slots go in seconds. Unpaid orders drop back into inventory around 20:05–20:30, which is the realistic second chance. Entry is one-way — in at Wumen in the south, out at Shenwumen in the north; arriving at the north gate is the most common foreign-visitor mistake. There is effectively no on-site ticket window.

Free, but a real-name reservation is mandatory for everyone including foreigners. Individual slots are released at 12:00 Beijing time for the date exactly 7 days out, across four time slots a day. There is no same-day booking.

Carry the physical passport you booked with to the security checkpoint — a photocopy or a photo on your phone will be refused, and the name must match exactly as printed. People routinely assume a public square needs no ticket and are turned away at the perimeter.

What we could not confirm: The 7-day/12:00 release and the four daily slots come from recent booking guides rather than an official notice, and the square's exact opening window varies by season. Confirm before building a day around it.

Free, but reservation-only. Slots are released at 17:00 Beijing time 7 days ahead across three time bands. The official channels are the Chinese-language website, the museum app and the WeChat mini-program — in practice foreigners use the mini-program. One phone number can book up to 5 people; one document number is one booking per day. Enter at the west side of the North Gate with the QR code and your physical passport.

The English site's booking link is defunct, and the Chinese flow regularly rejects foreign passport formats or fails to send SMS codes to non-Chinese numbers. That is a documented barrier, not your mistake. Workarounds: use a Chinese mobile number, ask your hotel concierge to book, or take a guided tour that includes the reservation. Nobody can legitimately sell you a ticket — resellers are selling the booking service.

Mutianyu runs its own English site with e-tickets up to 15 days ahead; Trip.com and Klook resell the same inventory with international cards. Booking is real-name — name, mobile and document number. No voucher exchange: scan the document you booked with at the gate. Cable car, chairlift and toboggan are separate purchases. Sales stop an hour before closing.

A passport is required: the site is real-name ticketed and each document gets one ticket per day, so a family needs every passport number at booking. The real trap is transport, not tickets — it is ~70 km out with no direct subway, and the cheap bus combination takes over three hours, so most people end up on a private car or day tour. Same-day walk-up normally works on non-holiday weekdays; avoid Golden Week and Labour Day entirely.

Tickets go on sale at 00:00 Beijing time exactly 7 days before your date. Since March 2024 the museum runs an overseas booking platform for foreigners covering 24 languages, 34 currencies and cards from 39 countries. ¥120. Real-name: ticket, document and person must match at the gate — your passport is your ticket.

Unlike most headline sites, walk-up is explicitly allowed — you can buy same-day at the window or a machine with your passport, subject to remaining quota, so a missed booking is not fatal. Summer mornings do run out. Watch for fake 'official' ticket sites and the touts at the car park; the ¥120 ticket already includes the shuttle to the mausoleum mound, which is a second site on the same ticket.

Free, but a timed ticket is still required. Tickets are released 5 days ahead at 17:00 Beijing time through the museum's WeChat mini-program, capped at around 6,000 visitors a day, and typically gone within seconds. Official booking wants a mainland Chinese mobile number and a Chinese payment method, which blocks most foreigners from booking directly — Trip.com, Klook or a local guide are the realistic route.

Reportedly one of the hardest museum reservations in China, and it is free, so the only cost is the difficulty. Afternoon sessions have a noticeably better success rate and thinner crowds. Entry is by passport scan, so bring the physical passport you booked with. The two special halls are separately ticketed.

What we could not confirm: The 5-day/17:00 release, the daily cap and the Monday closure come from recent guides and a government services page rather than the museum's own current notice, which refused a direct request. Session times and special-hall prices are unconfirmed for 2026.

¥54 at the gate, no advance booking needed except on public holidays. Bike rental on the wall is about ¥45 for two hours (¥90 tandem) plus a refundable deposit. The main South Gate (Yongningmen) runs roughly 08:00–22:00; some other gates close around 20:00.

The wall is a closed 13.74 km loop and the standard two-hour rental is only just enough to cycle it with photo stops — overtime is charged. The surface is uneven brick. If you only want a taste, walk a kilometre or two from South Gate instead of committing to the circuit.

What we could not confirm: Prices, hours and rental terms come from recent travel guides rather than the scenic area's own current notice. Gate-by-gate closing times vary and were not confirmed.

Admission is about ¥160 in peak season (March–November) and ¥100 off-season, with cable cars around ¥80 one way or ¥150 return; a combined ticket is roughly ¥300. Cable-car tickets are timed, so book the slot as well as the entry. From Xi'an, take the high-speed train from Xi'an North to Huashan North (about 30 minutes), then a shuttle to the visitor centre.

Book several days ahead in peak season and treat it as essential around national holidays. The in-park shuttle buses to the cable-car bases are an extra charge on top, and the famous Changkong plank walk has its own separate fee on site — neither is included in any headline price.

What we could not confirm: Prices, cable-car hours and the shuttle and plank-walk fees come from travel guides and an activity listing rather than the scenic area's own schedule. Confirm current-season pricing before booking.

Watch the official rolling calendar from about 30 days out and buy as soon as your date appears. Demand-tiered pricing: ¥475 on a regular day up to ¥799 at special peak, with an early-bird rate around ¥425 if you buy 10+ days ahead. Enter the exact passport name and number you will travel with, link the ticket in the resort app, then present the original passport at the turnstile.

The window is shorter than people assume — inventory appears on a rolling ~30-day calendar, so buying for an arbitrary date three months out generally isn't possible. The ticket is bound to one passport number and is non-transferable: a photo or photocopy will be refused at the gate. Chinese New Year and Golden Week sell out about three weeks ahead. Refunds are full 7+ days out, minus ¥80 per ticket at 1–6 days, and nothing on the day.

On a normal day just turn up with your passport and buy at the gate. Pricing is seasonal: ¥40 in peak season (April–June and September–November) and ¥30 off-peak (July–August and December–March), ¥20 student or senior. Or pre-book at face value through the Yuyuan WeChat mini-program, Trip.com or Klook; resellers release stock about two weeks out and want your passport name, number, date of birth and nationality. Last entry is 16:00 — arrive early, because tour groups fill the garden by 10:00.

Closed every Monday — but the surrounding Yuyuan Bazaar stays open, so visitors routinely arrive on a Monday, see the crowds and never realise the actual classical garden is shut. The ¥40 garden and the free bazaar are different things; most 'Yu Garden' tour products are really bazaar walking tours. The one time a passport at the gate won't work is the Spring Festival lantern season, when the garden switches to paid timed-slot reservations with afternoon and evening admission only.

What we could not confirm: Two verification passes disagree on the opening time: one gives 09:00, the other 08:30 Tuesday–Sunday. Both agree on 16:30 closing and 16:00 last entry, so arrive mid-morning rather than at opening if it matters. The seasonal price bands and the timed morning/afternoon sessions come from guides rather than the garden's own current notice, which could not be reached.

Two different products. The full 'A' ticket — two films plus 8 caves with a guide, about 6,000 a day in peak season — opens 30 days ahead with the daily release around 07:00 Beijing time, and popular slots go in 3–10 minutes. The 'B' emergency ticket — 4 caves, no films, about 12,000 a day — opens only 7 days ahead and is the realistic option for most summer visitors. Arrive at the Digital Exhibition Center 30 minutes before your slot.

Two products, two windows: people assume 'sold out' means no entry when the 7-day emergency ticket is still open. Which caves you see is assigned, not chosen. The booking flow is Chinese-only with real-name verification, which is where foreign passports stall — many visitors end up booking through a Dunhuang agency or their hotel. No photography inside, and visits can be cancelled outright in heavy rain.

Online only, up to 7 days ahead, ¥55. The official channel is the base's WeChat mini-program, but its own English pages tell foreigners without a Chinese mobile number to book through Trip.com instead — which is the practical route. Scan your original passport to enter.

Pandas are active early: the first morning slot is the only reliable time to see them outdoors in summer, and it sells out first. The base says all visitors must book online, yet an English-language cash-and-cards window exists for leftover inventory — do not rely on it in July–August or Golden Week. The internal sightseeing bus is a separate ¥10. Don't confuse this base with Dujiangyan or Wolong, which are different tickets an hour or more away.

Since 15 June 2025 every entry needs a real-name reservation for a specific date, time block and entrance gate — there is no walk-up window. The official channel is a Chinese WeChat mini-program; for foreigners the realistic route is Trip.com or Klook, which issue the real ticket in English. The park ticket is about ¥228–239 and valid 4 consecutive days, including the eco-buses but NOT the Bailong Elevator (¥65 one-way, ¥72 in peak season) or any cable car.

The killer detail: the 4-day pass does not guarantee you can get back in. Every re-entry day needs its own slot, so book days 2, 3 and 4 at the same time as day 1 rather than the night before — in high season they run out. Arriving outside your time block or at the wrong gate gets you turned away with no ticket office to fix it. Tianmen Mountain is a completely different park on the edge of the city with its own ticket, which does include its cableway and shuttle — and note that its East Line Glass Walkway has been shut for maintenance since 12 May 2026 with no reopening date announced. The Coiling Dragon and West Line walkways are open.

What we could not confirm: Sources disagree on the booking window — most recent guides say 7 days, one says 30 — and no authoritative source confirms a fixed daily release time. The claim that first-time visitors get priority over day 2–4 re-entries rests on a single agency page and is contradicted elsewhere, so treat it as reported rather than established. The official ticketing platform refuses automated requests, so this all needs a human with a browser.

About ¥288 for the combined ticket, which already includes the 7,455 m cableway from Zhangjiajie city centre, the shuttle buses, the through-mountain escalators and the glass skywalks. A separate park from Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, on a separate day, booked AM or PM — your forest park ticket does not cover it.

The glass walkways are included, so do not pay a separate skywalk entry — the only charge there is a few yuan for shoe covers. The 999-step Stairway to Heaven up to the natural arch is entirely optional, because the included escalator system connects the cave to the summit. Morning cable-car slots sell out from May to October.

What we could not confirm: The ¥288 figure comes from a late-2025 third-party listing rather than the operator's current tariff, and shuttle and escalator extras are quoted inconsistently. Confirm the current price and what it includes before booking.

Grand Canyon plus Glass Bridge is about ¥178 in high season and ¥128 from November to February. The bridge — roughly 430 m long and 300 m above the canyon floor — is a one-way crossing on a timed slot, so book the slot rather than just the entry.

This is a separate scenic area again: your national forest park ticket does not cover it, and it is a 40–60 minute drive from Wulingyuan. Large bags, tripods and selfie sticks are refused at the bridge, so travel light that day.

What we could not confirm: Prices come from travel guides rather than the operator's own tariff page, which could not be reached. Seasonal bands and concession rates are quoted inconsistently across sources.

The lake, both causeways, the shoreline paths and the lakeside parks are free and unticketed — no reservation, no gate, no passport. Paid extras are bought on the spot: the public boats (about ¥55–70, including landing at Three Pools Mirroring the Moon) at the lakeside jetties, and Leifeng Pagoda at ¥40.

The risk is crowds, not tickets: on weekends and holidays the Su Causeway is shoulder-to-shoulder and the boat queues run an hour, so go before 09:00. Use the official public jetties and ignore touts offering 'private' boats. Leifeng Pagoda is still ¥40. Lingyin Temple and Feilai Feng became free on 1 December 2025, but now need a compulsory free timed reservation through a Chinese mini-program — and the temple warns about counterfeit apps charging for it.

Tickets for the tourist ferry go on sale 15 days ahead and are released daily at 09:00 Beijing time, bought real-name through the official 屿见厦门 (Yujian Xiamen) WeChat or Alipay mini-program. The return fare is ¥35 and is valid for one round trip within 20 days of the date you booked. The island itself is free to enter; the ferry is the thing that sells out.

There are no walk-up tickets at the pier. This is one of the very few places in China where turning up on the day genuinely does not work, and it changed on 1 February 2026, so older guidebooks and blog posts are actively wrong. Daytime visitors must also sail from the Cruise Centre terminal (邮轮中心厦鼓码头), not the downtown Lundu pier, which is reserved for residents — people routinely travel to the wrong terminal. The island is capped at roughly 50,000 visitors a day.

What we could not confirm: The 1 February 2026 rule change, the 09:00 daily release and the 15-day window come from Chinese news and travel coverage rather than the operator's own English notice, which we could not reach. The ¥35 return fare and 20-day validity are consistent across sources. Confirm the terminal and release time in the mini-program before you plan a day around it.

Free, but entry needs a timed reservation made 1–7 days ahead through the memorial's own WeChat official account, with photo ID. Tickets are released daily at 08:00 Beijing time. Book with the passport you will carry: the number must match at the door.

The passport you book with is the passport you must present — a booking in a tour guide's name will not admit you. No large bags, and no eating inside. This is a memorial to roughly 300,000 dead, not a sightseeing stop; dress and behave accordingly, and expect to need an hour or two afterwards before you do anything else.

What we could not confirm: The 08:00 release time and the 1–7 day window come from Chinese press coverage rather than the memorial's current notice. Opening hours are around 08:30–17:30 with last entry 17:00 and vary seasonally; confirm before travelling.

Free to enter, but a real-name timed reservation is compulsory and weekend slots do sell out. Book through the WeChat mini-program with your passport. The ¥100 Zhongshan combination ticket adds Ming Xiaoling, Meiling Palace, the Music Platform and Linggu Temple — the mausoleum itself stays free, and still needs its own booking either way.

Free does not mean walk-in. Visitors arrive expecting an open park, because that is what it looks like, and are turned back at the barrier without a booking. There are 392 steps to the top and no lift.

What we could not confirm: The booking window length and whether the Monday closure applies to the grounds as well as the memorial hall are not confirmed against the mausoleum's own notice. Check the mini-program before you go.