12 routes
Walks
Self-guided routes across Shanghai. Each one is walked before it is published, starts from a named metro exit, and tells you how long it actually takes rather than how long it looks on a map.
Wukang Road & the French Concession
Plane trees, low balconies and a street that bends eleven times. The Shanghai most visitors picture, walked slowly.
The Bund at Dusk
One and a half hours, timed to the light: bridges, the promenade, the clock, then two yuan for the ferry back across the river.
Hongkou: Shanghai's Jewish Quarter
A neighbourhood that took in 20,000 refugees in the late 1930s, still standing, still lived in, and almost entirely missing from most itineraries.
Old City & Yu Garden
The walled city, the bazaar, the teahouse on the pond — and the five minutes past the tourist ring where the old street grid still runs.
Suzhou Creek to M50
Follow the creek west through warehouses, a 1930s post office and a battle-scarred warehouse, ending in the city's best cluster of galleries.
Zhangyuan & West Nanjing Road
The largest shikumen compound in the city, restored and reopened, sitting on top of the busiest shopping street in Shanghai.
Tianzifang & Sinan Mansions
Two lane neighbourhoods half an hour apart: one a dense maze of artist studios, one the quietest gardens in central Shanghai.
Xintiandi & the Shikumen Museum
Ninety minutes through the most famous restoration in Shanghai — plus the one lane house you can go inside and actually see how people lived.
West Bund: Museums & Riverfront
Four kilometres of former coal docks and runway turned into museums, oil tanks and the best flat riverside path in the city.
Hongqiao After Hours
You landed at Hongqiao, you have a hotel and two free hours, and every guide says the city centre is forty minutes away. Here is what is actually outside your door.
Jing'an Temple & the Backstreets
A gilded temple inside a glass-and-steel district, then ten minutes into lanes where the 1930s are still doing business.
Lujiazui: The Skyline Walk
You have seen the skyline from the Bund. This is the version from underneath, plus the ferry, the riverside park and one very good museum.
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