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The most rewarding places to visit near Shanghai are the ones where daily life still follows an older rhythm. You step out of the city and find yourself walking beside quiet canals in Zhujiajiao, passing tea farmers in Hangzhou, or watching boats glide past stone bridges in Xitang. These towns and cities are not tourist versions of the past. They’re still lived in, still layered with history, and close enough to reach without much effort. What they offer is not escape, but contrast. You leave behind glass towers and arrive somewhere textured, slower, and rooted in its way of life.
Top 10 Places To Visit Near Shanghai
These places to visit near Shanghai bring together water towns, heritage cities, and scenic countryside, all within reach for a short escape that feels far removed from the city.
1. Suzhou
Among the most historically layered places to visit near Shanghai, Suzhou stands out for its classical design and living traditions. The old town is structured around a network of narrow canals where wooden boats still drift between stone bridges. Beyond the surface, Suzhou’s identity is deeply rooted in its layout of residential alleys that merge into private gardens, and artisan studios continue to produce fine silk, embroidery, and fans that have shaped the city’s reputation for centuries. You can spend the day walking from one garden to another, noticing how each uses water, space, and pavilions to tell a different story.
Distance From Shanghai: 111 km
Cost: ¥70 – 90 / ₹800 – 1000
Major Attractions: Humble Administrator’s Garden, Lingering Garden, Suzhou Museum, Shantang Street, Panmen Gate
2. Hangzhou
Photo: David Veksler / Unsplash
Among the most scenic places to see near Shanghai, Hangzhou offers a landscape that has inspired centuries of poets, painters, and emperors. The entire city is framed around West Lake, a natural focal point that pulls you in the moment you arrive. You can walk or cycle along its perimeter, stopping at causeways, willow-lined paths, and small stone bridges that lead to islets with ancient pagodas. Every section of the lake reveals something new, with Leifeng Pagoda on one side, the curved roofs of temples on another, and boatmen quietly paddling beneath arched pavilions. In the hills beyond the lake, the Longjing tea fields stretch into the distance.
Distance From Shanghai: 176 km
Cost: ¥30 – 70 / ₹350 – 850
Major Attractions: West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda, Qinghefang Ancient Street, Longjing Tea Fields, Xixi Wetlands
3. Zhujiajiao Water Town
Photo: Lloyd Tudor / Wikimedia Commons
Zhujiajiao is one of the most beautiful tourist attractions near Shanghai if you want to step into a slower, older rhythm without going far. This town grew around water, and the canals still shape how everything moves. Boats carry goods, wooden bridges connect lanes, and homes sit right at the water’s edge. The heart of the town is a web of stone paths, each one leading to tucked-away temples, courtyards, or shaded archways with small shops that haven’t changed much in decades. You can wander into Kezhi Garden, where painted eaves and quiet ponds create a world of balance and symmetry.
Distance From Shanghai: 47.1 km
Cost: ¥60 / ₹700
Major Attractions: Kezhi Garden, Fangsheng Bridge, ancient alleys, boat rides, Qing Dynasty post office
4. Wuzhen
Wuzhen holds a rare balance, which is beautifully preserved. As one of the most atmospheric attractions near Shanghai, this water town has long wooden buildings leaning over still canals, stone bridges softened by age, and narrow lanes that lead straight into scenes of daily life. You’ll find families steaming rice buns behind blue-and-white cloth stalls, craftsmen carving wood under small lanterns, and ferrymen guiding boats with single oars down quiet waterways. See open-air stages with local opera, dye houses showing centuries-old textile techniques, and shadow puppet shows performed just after dusk. The East and West Scenic Areas are both walkable, but the West is where you’ll want to linger.
Distance From Shanghai: 131 km
Cost: ¥100 / ₹1150
Major Attractions: Ancient stage, shadow puppet shows, wooden boat ride, folk museums, night canal views
5. Nanjing
As one of the most historically layered places to visit near Shanghai, this former capital is built on memory, conflict, and resilience. The architecture is heavy with meaning, from the vast steps leading to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum to the silent gravity of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. The city flows with an everyday rhythm along the Qinhuai River, where traditional boats drift past glowing lanterns and streets fill with the smell of salted duck and sesame pastries. In the southern parts of the city, you can walk stretches of the Ming Dynasty walls, still intact after centuries, or pause at Confucius Temple and watch students tie red ribbons for luck.
Distance From Shanghai: 305 km
Cost: ¥30 – 80 / ₹350 – 950
Major Attractions: Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, Nanjing Massacre Memorial, Qinhuai River, Ming City Wall
6. Tongli Water Town
Photo: Jonathan Suh / Wikimedia Commons
Tongli is quieter than most other places to visit near Shanghai, but that silence carries weight. The canals here are narrow and still, running between alleyways where locals still hang herbs to dry and speak in hushed Suzhou dialect. You can move slowly from one arched bridge to another, then turn into the Retreat and Reflection Garden, a UNESCO-listed site built with striking asymmetry and precise layers of water, rock, and corridors. As you walk, you notice small things like ceramic tiles aged to grey, lantern hooks worn from decades of use, and doorways opening into courtyards that have not changed in generations.
Distance From Shanghai: 92 km
Cost: ¥100 / ₹1150
Major Attractions: Retreat and Reflection Garden, Three Bridges, canal cruise, traditional Suzhou houses
7. Moganshan
Photo: Jakub Hałun / Wikimedia Commons
Moganshan has long been one of the most distinctive places to visit near Shanghai for its natural setting and quiet hillside atmosphere. Located in Zhejiang Province, this former summer retreat is surrounded by bamboo-covered slopes and narrow stone paths once used by tea farmers. Today, it’s known for its mix of historic villas and low-rise inns, many restored by families who live on the mountain. You can walk shaded forest trails, stop at hidden shrines, and visit local workshops that still process wild tea leaves by hand. The views across the hills are especially clear in the early hours when the light catches the rooftops and treetops without a sound.
Distance From Shanghai: 207.9 km
Cost: ¥80 / ₹950
Major Attractions: Bamboo forests, old villas, Mogan Waterfall, hiking trails, secluded guesthouses
8. Shaoxing
If you are drawn to literary history, local traditions, and quietly working river towns, Shaoxing is one of the most overlooked places to visit near Shanghai. Known as the hometown of Lu Xun, China’s most influential modern writer, Shaoxing’s streets still carry the same rhythm he once wrote about. You can explore the preserved courtyard of his family home, walk the alley he described in his essays, and visit a nearby academy where calligraphy is still taught in sunlit stone halls. The East Lake area blends natural limestone cliffs with still water, and you can take a black-awning boat along narrow routes cut through rock..
Distance From Shanghai: 198.8 km
Cost: ¥20 – 50 / ₹250 – 600
Major Attractions: Lu Xun’s Residence, East Lake, rice wine cellars, Bazi Bridge, Anchang Ancient Town
9. Xitang Water Town
Among the many places to visit near Shanghai, Xitang stands out for its layout, which feels almost accidental. Low stone bridges link narrow walkways, many of them roofed with wooden beams so you can walk through the town even during summer rain. These covered corridors are not reconstructed; they’ve been here for generations, worn smooth by local feet. You’ll pass a tailor working by a window, a family playing cards just inside a shopfront, and boats gliding down the canals without ceremony. The riverside homes, most still occupied, have courtyards hidden behind wooden doors and lanterns strung across the front.
Distance From Shanghai: 83.2 km
Cost: ¥95 / ₹1100
Major Attractions: Canal walkways, ceilinged corridors, Ming and Qing architecture, scenic night lights
10. Ningbo
Ningbo may not draw the same attention as other places to visit near Shanghai, but it offers a strong regional identity shaped by trade, tradition, and quiet resilience. At the center of the city is the Tianyi Pavilion, one of China’s oldest surviving private libraries, where ink-stained scrolls and fragile manuscripts are preserved inside carefully designed wooden halls. Just beyond that, the city opens into neighborhoods where wet markets, shrines, and back-alley noodle stalls sit only a few steps apart. The Ningbo Museum is a stark, low-slung structure built from reclaimed bricks that once lined homes now gone.
Distance From Shanghai: 215.2 km
Cost: ¥20 – 50 / ₹250 – 600
Major Attractions: Tianyi Pavilion, Ningbo Museum, Old Bund, Dongqian Lake, Qita Temple
The most striking places to visit near Shanghai are where real life still thrives—canal-side towns, forested hills, and quiet rivers just beyond the city’s reach. Step away from the skyline and into villages unchanged by time, where daily rhythms continue as they always have. Whether it’s nature, culture, or calm you’re after, TripXL helps you discover what Shanghai left behind—moments of peace, tradition, and beauty, just a short journey away.
Cover Photo: Fiona Xu / Unsplash
