Best time to visit China and the festival calendar

September and October, or April and May. Avoid the first week of October and Lunar New Year at any cost — that is not an exaggeration: it is the difference between seeing the Forbidden City properly and not seeing it.

The two black weeks

Golden Week (1 to 7 October). It is the National Day holiday, and the whole of China’s holiday-making population moves at once. In recent years, monuments such as the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Army have received tens of thousands of visitors a day, with hotels doubling in price and trains and flights sold out weeks in advance. We do not sell tours in this week, and we warn anyone who asks us for it.

Lunar New Year (January or February). It is the biggest festival and the largest annual human migration on the planet. The dates follow the lunar calendar: in 2026 it fell on 17 February and in 2027 it will fall on 6 February. The festival itself is fascinating to watch in Macau and Hong Kong, with the lantern parades and the temples full, but travelling on the mainland on those days requires patience, money and bookings made months ahead. There is also a side effect: many restaurants and small shops close for a whole week, because the owners go back to their villages.

The calendar that matters

Lunar New Year — January/February — red lanterns, firecrackers, red envelopes with money, family reunion dinner. Best seen: the temples of Beijing, Shanghai and Macau, and the Lantern Festival fifteen days later.

Qingming Festival (4 to 6 April) — the day of the dead, when families go to clean the graves and head out to the parks. A short holiday, but with heavy movement on the trains.

Labour Day (1 May and the days around it) — a short break of three to five days, a reduced version of Golden Week, with the same pressure on the top monuments.

Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu, May or June) — regattas and glutinous rice dumplings filled with beans or meat, wrapped in leaves. Where to see it: Hong Kong, Shanghai and the south.

Mid-Autumn / Moon Festival (September or October) — mooncakes, tea and lanterns. One of the most beautiful festivals to witness: the parks fill with families looking up at the moon. For 2027 it is expected on 15 September.

Harbin Ice Festival (December to February) — the only reason to go to the northeast, and a spectacle unlike anything else in the world.

Dai Water Festival (mid-April, Xishuangbanna) — a week of water thrown at everyone in the street, in the tropical southwest.

Local festivals worth shifting your dates for

Alongside the national calendar, there are regional celebrations worth a detour of a day or two, and which almost no foreign operator programmes:

• Lantern Festival (fifteen days after Lunar New Year). Xi’an and Nanjing fill their parks with lanterns; in Zigong, in Sichuan, the lantern fair is considered the best in the country.
• Dai Water Festival (mid-April, Xishuangbanna). Water thrown in the street for a week. It is the happiest festival in China, and it means protecting camera and phone with a bag.
• Yi and Bai Fire Festival (June/July, Yunnan and Sichuan). Bonfires, dancing and wrestling on the ground around the villages; in Lijiang and Dali it coincides with big market days.
• Naadam (July and August, Inner Mongolia). Wrestling, archery and horse racing on the grassland. Requires a dedicated extension.
• Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong and Macau (June). Regattas with international teams, in front of the skyline; easy to watch and free.

In all of these cases the rule is the same: book the hotel two months ahead and expect sold-out trains. What we do is lock the local dates first and only then buy the rest of the itinerary around them.

Climate, region by region

China has all of Europe’s climates plus the tropics, in a single strip of land.

Region	Best time	Winter	Summer
Beijing and the north	Apr–May, Sep–Oct	−8 to 4 °C, dry	26 to 36 °C, humid
Shanghai and the Yangtze	Mar–May, Oct–Nov	1 to 10 °C, humid	27 to 38 °C, very humid
Xi’an and the centre	Mar–May, Sep–Nov	−5 to 8 °C	24 to 38 °C
Sichuan	Mar–Jun, Sep–Nov	3 to 12 °C, grey	24 to 35 °C, muggy
Guilin and the south	Apr–Jun, Sep–Oct	6 to 16 °C	25 to 35 °C, rain
Yunnan	Mar–May, Oct–Dec	2 to 16 °C dry	18 to 26 °C at altitude
Harbin	Dec–Feb	−15 to −30 °C	20 to 30 °C, brief
Tibet	May–Oct	−8 to 10 °C dry	12 to 24 °C, monsoon
Hong Kong and Macau	Oct–Dec, Mar–Apr	12 to 18 °C	26 to 34 °C, typhoons

One-day holidays that close a great deal

Beyond the two black weeks, there are four short holidays when monuments do not close but overflow, and morning trains sell out earlier: Qingming (4 to 6 April), Labour Day (1 May), Dragon Boat Festival (May or June) and Moon Festival (September or October). Each gives three consecutive days off, which is enough to move millions of people.

On these holidays we do not change the price and we do not refuse bookings: we change the timing of the visits. We enter the Great Wall and the Forbidden City right at opening, book meals in advance and avoid the railway stations between 7am and 10am on Saturdays. Managed this way, travelling over a short holiday is perfectly viable.

What actually changes during a festival

In the big weeks it is not only the crowds that change: the whole city changes. On Lunar New Year days, many neighbourhood restaurants and small shops close for a week, because the owners return to their villages, and the ones that stay open work with a reduced menu. In the southern cities, night markets gain stalls and close later.

At monuments, opening hours tend to be extended and named-entry reservations sell out on the very day they are released. On transport, railway stations saturate between 7am and 10am on the first days of the holiday, and domestic flights get noticeably more expensive.

The practical consequence is simple: in festival week, the itinerary is built from the bookings already closed and not from what you would like. We fix the dates and times first, and only then design the rest around them.

Three practical tips

Book monuments further and further ahead. The Forbidden City and the Terracotta Army release named tickets seven days in advance and sell out the same day in high season. We book at the first available minute.

Keep a buffer day. For itineraries that depend on light — Zhangjiajie, Yuanyang — we always leave a free morning to repeat the viewpoint that was left without sun. Between April and June in the south this is not caution, it is necessity.

Ask us before fixing dates. Before buying the flight, tell us the month. We reply with two lines on climate, crowds and availability, and save you two black weeks for a very low cost in adjustment. We get many requests where a difference of two or three days solves the whole problem: arriving on 8 October instead of 3 costs the same flight and completely changes the experience.