Between the two cities almost every first-time visitor to eastern China already has on the list, there is a mountain. Moganshan is in Deqing County, part of Huzhou prefecture, Zhejiang Province, about 60 km north of Hangzhou and 200 to 240 km from Shanghai. Moso bamboo covers more than 92 percent of it, as a working commercial crop rather than scenery. The usual Shanghai Hangzhou itinerary does not need rebuilding around it: you stop at the mountain on the way past.
Check you have the right place first. Moganshan Road in Shanghai’s Putuo District is the M50 art district, 200 km from here, and it dominates the search results.
This is a routing page about trains and the order you take them in. It does not tell you what to see in Shanghai or Hangzhou; use a city guide for those days.
Why the mountain goes in the middle
Deqing station falls between the two cities, so the mountain belongs second. Slot it in third and you double back.
| Inbound, 2025 | Figure |
|---|---|
| Shanghai | 9.36 million visits, 7.14 million of them foreign nationals |
| Zhejiang | 4.171 million overnight visitors, up 24.6 percent |
| Hangzhou | 1.44 million, up 26.5 percent |
Both ends of this China 5 day itinerary are already among the country’s busiest places for foreign travelers. The middle is not.
Inbound visitor figures for 2025 for Shanghai, Zhejiang and Hangzhou, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
It has been written up before, if thinly. The New York Times put it at number 18 in “45 Places to Go in 2012.” Tatler Asia calls it “the Hamptons of China.”
“45 Places to Go in 2012,” The New York Times, 2012. A numbered list, not a ranking.
The two rail legs
Both legs are short, and they run often enough that you never build the day around one train.
| Leg | Journey time | Services a day | Second class fare |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai Hongqiao to Deqing | 63 to 80 min | 13 direct | about RMB 61 to 110 |
| Hangzhou East to Deqing (35 km) | 13 to 17 min | 16 | about RMB 16 to 67 |
| Deqing station to Moganshan town, Y1 shuttle | 30 to 40 min | 7 departures | RMB 10 |
| Deqing station to Moganshan town, taxi or van | about 30 min | on demand | about RMB 100 |
Journey times, service counts and fares from public rail listings, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
Added together, both legs come to roughly RMB 77 to 177 in second class fares, plus RMB 10 for the Y1 shuttle or about RMB 100 for a taxi. That is arithmetic on the fares above, not a package price.
Deqing has been on the Nanjing to Hangzhou high-speed line since 2013, so neither leg depends on new track.
If you are running the route in the order above, the leg you book last is Hangzhou to the mountain: check the live Hangzhou East to Deqing times once your Hangzhou nights are fixed, because sixteen services a day means the train bends to your plan rather than the other way round.
Get off at Deqing. The station called Moganshan is on a different line, serving Wukang, the county seat 20 km away.
The five days
| Day | Sleep | The move | Time on a train |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shanghai | Land, airport into the city | 0 |
| 2 | Shanghai | Nothing scheduled | 0 |
| 3 | Moganshan | Hongqiao to Deqing, then the last 30 km | 63 to 80 min, plus 30 to 40 |
| 4 | Moganshan | Nothing scheduled | 0 |
| 5 | Hangzhou, or fly out | Deqing to Hangzhou East | 13 to 17 min |
Two cities and a mountain, and the whole trip puts you on a train for under two hours. That is four nights if you fly out on day five, or five if you add a Hangzhou night.
The five days in detail
Same five days, unpacked.
Day 1: land in Shanghai
Most long-haul flights arrive at Pudong. If you have the choice, fly into Hongqiao: the rail concourse is a walk from the terminal, and day three starts there. From Pudong, crossing the city adds 50 to 70 minutes by car, or a maglev and metro.
Day 2: Shanghai
A full day in the city, then a second night.
Day 3: Shanghai to Moganshan
Take a morning or early-afternoon train from Hongqiao to Deqing. Sample departures run 08:11, 12:12 and 17:39, but numbers change with each timetable revision. The full list and booking steps are on our Shanghai to Moganshan by train page.
Watch the shuttle gap at the far end. The Y1 has no departure between 10:40 and 13:00, exactly when a late-morning train puts you on the platform. Arrive then and you are taking a taxi.
Day 4: Moganshan
The one full day. The villa walk, the bamboo paths and Sword Pond are the core of it.
Your own car stops at the scenic-area boundary. You change to authorized transport at one of three transfer centers, Yucun, Fatou and Houwu, open 08:00 to 18:00. Be back through before six.
Day 5: Moganshan to Hangzhou
The shortest leg by a wide margin. Spend the morning on the mountain and you still get most of a day in Hangzhou. Our Hangzhou to Moganshan page covers both directions. Xiaoshan is the airport at this end.
Running it in reverse
Backwards works just as well. Both legs are identical either way, so the choice comes down to your departure airport.
| Flying home from | Run it in this order |
|---|---|
| Hangzhou Xiaoshan | Shanghai, Moganshan, Hangzhou |
| Shanghai Hongqiao or Pudong | Hangzhou, Moganshan, Shanghai |
| Shanghai, but you want the mountain last | Shanghai, Hangzhou, Moganshan, then back to Shanghai |
That third row is the one people ask about most. The order works, but you cross the same ground twice, and the Shanghai to Hangzhou leg is an hour of train you did not need to take.
Visas: the 240-hour rule
Many travelers on this exact route can enter China without applying for a visa.
| The 240-hour rule | |
|---|---|
| In force since | 17 December 2024 |
| Replaces | the 72 and 144-hour transit regimes |
| Who | 55 nationalities, the United States among them |
| How long | 10 days, with free movement across covered provinces |
| Where | 65 ports, 24 provinces and municipalities, Shanghai and Zhejiang included |
| Condition | an onward ticket to a third country |
240-hour visa-free transit, effective 17 December 2024, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
Moganshan and Hangzhou both sit in Zhejiang, so the whole Yangtze Delta itinerary falls inside one permitted zone, well within the ten-day ceiling. The onward-ticket condition ends more of these plans than anything else in the table. Flying home the way you came does not qualify.
Separately, 50 countries hold unilateral visa-free access as of February 2026, with a 30-day stay since November 2024. Canada and the United Kingdom joined on 17 February 2026.
The unilateral regime is currently legislated only to 31 December 2026. No extension had been announced when we checked on 5 August 2026. Transit and unilateral entry are separate policies, so check the one that fits your passport. Our China visa-free entry page has the country list.
The last 30 km
Your train stops about 30 km short of the mountain. People underestimate that stretch.
The Y1 tourist shuttle, done up as a Republican-era tram, leaves from the Deqing Coach Center next to the station.
| Y1 shuttle | |
|---|---|
| Fare | RMB 10 |
| Journey | 30 to 40 min |
| Departures | 07:30, 08:40, 09:40, 10:40, 13:00, 15:00, 16:00 |
| Return | between 08:40 and 17:00 |
| Terminus | Moganshan town, not the scenic area |
A taxi or van costs about RMB 100 and takes about 30 minutes to the same place. With luggage and two or three people, it usually wins.
When to go, and the two weeks to skip
Summer is the core season. July and August average 24.1 °C on the mountain, 6 to 7 °C cooler than the two cities, which is why the hill station was founded in the 1890s.
July to August mean temperature of 24.1 °C, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
Avoid the Golden Weeks. High-end guesthouse occupancy hit 94 percent over the May 2024 holiday, and daily footfall in Yucun rose 30 to 40 percent above normal at National Day 2025. Mondays are notably quiet, so if your dates flex, make days three and four a Monday and Tuesday.
Holiday occupancy and footfall figures for May 2024 and National Day 2025, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.
Winter scenic-area tickets are half price. Published prices conflict across sources, so check the figure when you book.
Where to sleep on the mountain
Moganshan runs on minsu (民宿), small owner-run guesthouses, and yangjiale (洋家乐), the foreign-founded farmstays that started here in 2007. About 1,000 properties as of September 2025.
| Village | What it gives you on a one-night stop |
|---|---|
| Yucun | The hub. Market square, restaurants, the scenic-area gateway, shortest transfer |
| Xiantan | Roughly 135 minsu among under 2,000 residents, so the widest choice and the most price competition |
Our where to stay page compares them. Given the occupancy above, book holiday dates far ahead.
Who this trip is wrong for
Two warnings before you book.
- Five days is not much, and three bases in that time is fast. Day three is really a travel day. You get an afternoon on the hill, not a day. Dropping the night to save time does not help, since a day trip means five to seven hours in transit for a few hours on the mountain, which our day trip page works through. One night is the minimum.
- The villages have no evening economy. No night market, little late-night food, and dinner at your guesthouse. If that sounds thin, give Moganshan one night and put the other back into the cities.
Other trip shapes are on our itineraries hub. For the Shanghai Hangzhou Moganshan version above, the Moganshan overview explains what you are adding.
Last checked 9 August 2026 by Echo Peng. Prices, timetables and entry rules on this mountain move without notice, so confirm anything you are booking around.
Photographs on this site are representative illustrations, not documentary images of the specific building, property or service described.
