Chengdu Day Trips: Leshan, Mount Emei, Dujiangyan and Pandas

If you have one spare day in Chengdu, spend it at the Leshan Giant Buddha. The train takes about an hour, there are trains all day, and apart from the train ticket nothing has to be arranged in advance. If you have two days, you have real choices: Dujiangyan's ancient irrigation works and the Taoist temples of Qingcheng Mountain in one day, Dujiangyan Panda Valley if you want to see pandas without the city crowds, or Leshan and Mount Emei together with a night at the foot of the mountain. Mount Emei needs two days and a night to be worth the trip, and Jiuzhaigou is not a day trip at all. Below: how to choose, then how to reach each place by train, what the tickets cost, what has to be booked ahead, and which things older guides describe are now closed or work differently.

How to choose a day trip from Chengdu

Choose by what you want from the day, not by which name you have heard most. Here is how the options sort out:

• One day, least effort, one famous sight: the Leshan Giant Buddha (乐山大佛, Lèshān Dàfó). Trains leave mainly from Chengdu East, and most take between 46 minutes and an hour. This is the day trip that almost never goes wrong.
• History, water and forest in one day: Dujiangyan (都江堰, Dūjiāngyàn), the irrigation system that still waters the Chengdu Plain, plus Qingcheng Mountain (青城山, Qīngchéng Shān), one of the birthplaces of Taoism. Both are on the same short rail line from Xipu station in Chengdu's north-west.
• Pandas with fewer people around: Dujiangyan Panda Valley (熊猫谷, Xióngmāo Gǔ), a branch of the Chengdu panda base in the hills near Dujiangyan. It fits into a Dujiangyan day.
• A real mountain: Mount Emei (峨眉山, Éméi Shān), one of China's four sacred Buddhist mountains. Give it two days with a night at the foot. A same-day return is possible but long, and during the current construction work it involves several bookings and queues.
• Two days in the south: Leshan and Emei together. Leshan Station and Emeishan Station are one short train ride apart, so the two combine naturally over two days.
• Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟, Jiǔzhàigōu): the lakes and waterfalls in the far north of Sichuan. Plan three days, not one.

The table below lists ticket prices, opening hours and booking rules for each of these places. The sections after it explain what each ticket includes, how to get there and how to plan the day. If you are fitting one of these into a short stay, our 3-day Chengdu itinerary shows where a day out fits around the city sights.

Three recent changes matter before you rely on an older guide or a tour listing:

• At Leshan, the Nine-Turn Plank Road (九曲栈道, Jiǔqū Zhàndào), the stairway cut into the cliff beside the Buddha, is closed for maintenance. You now walk down to the Buddha's feet by the Lingyun Plank Road instead.
• At Mount Emei, the Golden Summit cable car is being fully rebuilt and the Leidongping car park and bus station building are closed for construction, with the work expected to finish in 2027; the mountain stays open, but the Golden Summit area is limited to 8,000 tickets a day.
• The China Panda Garden (中华大熊猫苑, Zhōnghuá Dàxióngmāo Yuàn) in Dujiangyan, which is a different place from Panda Valley, closed on 23 April 2026 for renovation, and no reopening date has been announced.

Leshan Giant Buddha: the safest day trip

The Buddha is carved into a red sandstone cliff where three rivers meet, and it sits facing the water. There are two ways to see it: from the cliff, where you look down at the head and then walk down to stand at the feet, or from a boat on the river, where you see the whole figure at once. If you have the time, do both.

Getting there

Trains to Leshan leave mainly from Chengdu East, with some from Chengdu South and Xipu; there are around 78 direct trains a day, and a second-class seat costs roughly 26 to 63 yuan depending on the train. The first train leaves Chengdu at about 05:55, and the last train back from Leshan runs at around 23:07, mostly to Chengdu East. You are not going to get stuck in Leshan.

Leshan Station is on the edge of town, not at the Buddha. City buses K1 and 3 both start at the station and go to the scenic area, and K1 is usually described as the fastest. Lines 13 and 601 also run to the Buddha from elsewhere in town, and bus routes change, so check the destination board at the stop before you get on. With two or three people, a taxi or a DiDi (滴滴, Dīdī, China's main ride-hailing app) from the station is quicker and not much more per person; our DiDi guide explains how to use it as a foreigner.

Tickets, opening hours and booking

The daytime ticket for the scenic area costs 80 yuan and includes the route to the Buddha itself; children under 1.2 m or under 6 go free. From 1 April to 7 October the site is open 07:30–18:30, from 8 October to 31 March 08:00–17:30, and there is no fixed closing day.

You can buy tickets online in the "大佛旅游" (Dàfó Lǚyóu, "Giant Buddha Tourism") mini-program inside WeChat or Alipay, or at the ticket halls of the North and South Visitor Centres and the windows at the north, south and west gates. With a foreign passport, the ticket window is the reliable option, because the online form may not accept a passport. If your ticket shows an entry time, go by that time. On public holidays arrive early, because the queues for tickets and for the cliff path both grow through the morning.

The cliff path, the queue and the boat

The Nine-Turn Plank Road that older guides describe is closed for maintenance, and no reopening has been announced; the route down to the feet is now the Lingyun Plank Road. The path down is narrow and everyone uses it, so on weekends and holidays expect to move slowly in a line. On an ordinary weekday it is much easier.

Because of that closure, the boat matters more than it used to. The daytime river boat costs 70 yuan and runs continuously, with boarding 08:30–17:30 in the winter season (8 October to 31 March; summer times are announced each spring) and tickets sold at the North and South Visitor Centre ticket halls and in the same 大佛旅游 mini-program. The boat does not stop at the Buddha; it slows down in the river in front of it, and that is the only place you see the full seated figure from head to feet. Sailings are adjusted for river level and weather, so if the water is high, ask at the pier before you buy.

Inside the scenic area, a shuttle cart runs between the South and North Visitor Centres, stopping at points along the way; one ride costs 10 yuan and a day pass 15 yuan. There is also an evening "three rivers" cruise at 138 yuan, which runs once a night at 20:00 in the 2026–27 winter season, with sailings depending on water and weather. It only fits a day trip if you book one of the late trains back.

A realistic Leshan day

Take a train from Chengdu East around 8:00, go straight from the station to the scenic area, and do the cliff path first while the queue is shorter. Have lunch in Leshan, then take the boat in the early afternoon for the full view. You can be on a train back to Chengdu by late afternoon, with the evening free. On a Saturday or Sunday, buy the return ticket when you buy the outward one.

For tickets, opening hours and how to get there, see Leshan Giant Buddha.

Dujiangyan and Qingcheng Mountain in one day

Dujiangyan is an irrigation system more than two thousand years old. It splits the Min River with a levee and channels instead of a dam, and it still waters the Chengdu Plain. The site itself is a pleasant riverside walk with temples and a swaying suspension bridge. Qingcheng Mountain, close by, is quieter: stone steps through thick forest, small Taoist temples, and cool air in summer. They are close enough to each other to share one day.

Getting there: start from Xipu, not Chengdu East

This is the trip where Chengdu East is usually the wrong station. The Chengdu–Dujiangyan intercity line (成灌铁路, Chéng-Guàn Tiělù) starts mainly from Xipu (犀浦, Xīpǔ), with only a few trains from Chengdu East, Chengdu West or Chengdu South. From Xipu, Dujiangyan Station is about 20–30 minutes away with around 40 trains a day, Qingchengshan Station about 23–35 minutes with around 48 trains a day, and second class starts at 10 yuan. The few trains that start at Chengdu East take over an hour to reach Dujiangyan, and most train numbers on this line begin with S5.

Xipu is on the Chengdu metro, and getting there is simple: Chengdu's metro gates accept a direct tap from contactless chip cards issued abroad by Visa, Mastercard or American Express, as well as UnionPay. Plan the ride on our Chengdu metro map.

Tickets and opening hours

A Dujiangyan ticket costs 80 yuan for ages 18 to 59, with half price for ages 60 to 65. Qingcheng Mountain is split into the Front Mountain (前山, Qiánshān), which has the temples, for 80 yuan, and the Back Mountain (后山, Hòushān), mostly forest and gorges, for 20 yuan; the two are sold separately, and the cable car, sightseeing carts and boat are all paid extra.

Dujiangyan opens 08:00–18:00 in summer and 08:00–17:30 in winter, with ticket sales stopping half an hour before closing; the Qingcheng Front Mountain opens 08:30–17:30 from 1 May to 30 September and 08:30–17:00 the rest of the year; confirm the dates when summer and winter hours switch on the scenic area's notices, and note that both can close at short notice when a geological hazard warning is issued. That last point matters in the summer rainy season: check the scenic area's notices on the morning you go.

In July 2024 Chengdu dropped advance reservations for most of its scenic areas, including Qingcheng–Dujiangyan, so on an ordinary day you can buy your ticket on the day; for public holidays, buy ahead on the scenic area's official WeChat account "青城山都江堰". Online tickets are checked against the buyer's ID at the gate, one ticket per ID. It is not clear whether the online system accepts passports, so buying at the ticket window is simpler. The scenic area's service line is +86 28 96526.

How to fit both into one day

Go to Qingcheng first. Take the train from Xipu to Qingchengshan Station, then a short taxi or DiDi to the Front Mountain gate. Walk up through the temples in the morning while it is cool (use the cable car for part of the climb if you prefer), and be back at the gate by early afternoon. Then take a taxi to Dujiangyan, spend the afternoon on the riverside walk, and catch the train back from Dujiangyan Station. There are local buses between the stations and the gates, but the taxi saves you working out the routes and costs little between two or three people.

Leave the Back Mountain out of a one-day plan. It is a separate gate, a longer walk and a different day. If you prefer pandas to temples, swap Qingcheng for Panda Valley (see below) and pair it with the Dujiangyan irrigation works instead.

You will not run short of trains home: the last trains leave Qingchengshan at about 23:08 and Dujiangyan at about 23:18, both going to Xipu. If you take a late one, check the last metro trains from Xipu first, or plan a taxi from Xipu to your hotel.

Mount Emei: worth it with a night

Mount Emei is a mountain with temples spread over it, not a single sight. The goal for most visitors is the Golden Summit (金顶, Jīndǐng), with its gilded statue of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra and, on a clear day, a sea of clouds below. To get there, you take a long, winding bus ride from the foot of the mountain to Leidongping (雷洞坪, Léidòngpíng), then walk or take a cable car up the last section. Every step of that chain currently involves a booking or a queue, and that is why we recommend two days.

Getting to Emeishan Station

Trains to Emei leave mainly from Chengdu East, with some from Chengdu South and Xipu: there are 50-odd trains a day (counting those to the old Emei station), the ride takes about 1 hour 5 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, and second class costs about 33 to 65 yuan. The last train out of Chengdu leaves around 21:49 and the last one back from Emeishan Station around 22:49. When you book, choose Emeishan Station (峨眉山站, Éméishān Zhàn), the high-speed station near Baoguo Temple (报国寺, Bàoguó Sì) at the foot of the mountain, not the older Emei Station (峨眉站, Éméi Zhàn), which is a different place. From Emeishan Station to Baoguo Temple it is a short taxi ride; local buses also run, and the staff at the station exit can point you to the current one.

Tickets, the mountain bus and the cable cars

The entry ticket costs 160 yuan in peak season and 110 yuan in the low season from 15 December to 15 January, and it does not include temples, cable cars, insurance or the mountain buses. Most visitors ride the scenic-area bus. The bus fares are 90 yuan for the full-mountain loop (Baoguo Temple or Huangwan to Leidongping, then Wannian Temple, then back), 40 yuan for a return to the middle of the mountain around Wannian Temple, and 50 yuan one way from Baoguo Temple or Huangwan to Leidongping. From Leidongping you still have to walk or take the Golden Summit cable car to the top.

The bus to Leidongping needs a reservation. Tickets are real-name and tied to a time slot, and you book them on the "峨眉山景区" official WeChat account, the official mini-program, or Trip.com or Meituan, up to 15 days ahead; you board with the ID you booked with, and a passport is accepted. If you miss your slot, you can switch to a later one that still has seats, and if none are left you can board after 14:00; the ticket line is +86 400 8196 333.

The Golden Summit cable car (Jieyin Hall to the summit) costs 65 yuan up and 55 down in peak season, and 30 up and 20 down in the low season; the Wannian cable car (to Wannian Temple, 万年寺, Wànnián Sì) costs 65 up and 45 down in peak season, and 30 and 20 in the low season. Since September 2025, the downhill ride on the summit's No. 2 cable car has used time slots booked on the day at the top, through a WeChat mini-program or a kiosk on the summit, with a queue at cable car No. 1 for anyone without a slot. Because the cable cars are being rebuilt, this may work differently when you go: when you reach the summit, ask first how to book the ride down, and leave time for queuing.

The construction changes the Golden Summit day. While the cable car is rebuilt, the Leidongping car park and bus station building are closed, but the booked mountain buses still run to Leidongping, in limited numbers and on timed slots; the Golden Summit area sells at most 8,000 tickets a day, which limits how many people go up to the summit, not entry to the mountain as a whole; the old Leidongping station building no longer lets people stay overnight to wait for sunrise; and the work is expected to be finished in 2027. The scenic area posts updates on the Leshan government notice page; check the latest notice before you book, because the works are ongoing and the arrangements may change.

Day return or overnight?

A day return from Chengdu is possible: an early train, a booked bus slot, the cable car up, the summit, and the same chain back down to a late train. It works, but it is a long day of transfers with little time on the mountain, and one missed slot or one long cable-car queue can decide whether you reach the summit at all. We do not recommend it for a first visit.

The better plan is two days. Arrive in the afternoon, stay near Baoguo Temple, and see the temples on the lower mountain that evening. The next morning, take an early bus to Leidongping, go up to the Golden Summit, and on the way down add Wannian Temple if you have the energy. That is what the 90-yuan full-mountain bus ticket is for: it runs from the foot to Leidongping, then down to the Wannian stop, then back to the foot. From the Wannian stop, take the Wannian cable car or walk up to the temple, then ride the bus back down and catch an evening train to Chengdu. Hotels around Baoguo Temple at the foot of the mountain are listed on Booking.com; staying at the foot keeps your bags off the mountain and puts you first in line for the morning buses.

The summit is just over 3,000 m high and far colder and windier than Chengdu in every season, so take a warm layer and a rain jacket even in summer. Clouds often cover the top; treat the sea of clouds and the sunrise as a bonus, not the reason to go.

The monkeys

The monkeys on Mount Emei are Tibetan macaques, a protected species. The scenic area bans feeding, calling, teasing and touching them, as well as staring at, chasing, frightening, shouting at or hitting them, and it has banned a visitor from the mountain for three years for pushing a monkey that was eating. In practice: keep food and plastic bags out of sight, do not stop to take selfies with them, and walk calmly past.

Leshan and Emei together

The two sit on the same rail line. Trains between Leshan Station and Emeishan Station take about 15 minutes, there are more than 30 a day, and second class costs about 6 to 11 yuan. Day one: train from Chengdu to Leshan, the Buddha and the boat, then train to Emeishan in the late afternoon and a night near Baoguo Temple. Day two: Mount Emei, then the evening train back to Chengdu.

Pandas outside the city

Dujiangyan Panda Valley is run by the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding as its wild-release breeding centre. The enclosures are on a forested hillside, and it gets far fewer visitors than the main base in the city, so you can stand at the fence without a crowd pushing behind you. There are fewer pandas on view, and they can be harder to spot in thick greenery.

Tickets cost 55 yuan for ages 18 to 59 and 27 yuan for students, and children aged 6 or under (or under 1.3 m) and people aged 60 or over go free without booking; everyone else must book online in advance through the "熊猫谷" WeChat official account, and a passport is accepted but checked by hand at the gate. Each ticket is for a morning or an afternoon entry slot on the booked day, and if spare tickets remain, the gate can sell them for cash. The official Panda Valley ticket page has the current rules.

From 1 November to 30 April it opens 08:00–17:30, with last entry at 16:30; from 1 May to 31 October it opens 07:30–18:00, with last entry at 17:00, and it closes for the day when a severe weather or geological hazard warning is issued. Pandas are usually more active early in the day, so take a morning slot, and pair it with the Dujiangyan irrigation works in the afternoon. It is a taxi ride from Dujiangyan Station.

Do not confuse Panda Valley with the China Panda Garden, the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. That is a separate site, and it has been closed for renovation since 23 April 2026 with no reopening date. Many older guides and tour listings mix the two up. If anyone offers you a panda volunteer programme, ask which base it uses and confirm that base is open. Wolong, deeper in the mountains, is a long drive from Chengdu and works better as its own trip than as a day out; check its official channels for opening and booking before you plan it.

If you only have time for one panda visit, the city base is still the easier one to reach. It also sells every ticket online, real-name, up to 14 days ahead, and passport holders enter through their own lane. Our Chengdu guide covers that visit in detail. Choose Panda Valley if you are already going to Dujiangyan, or if a quieter visit matters more to you than seeing many pandas.

Jiuzhaigou: plan three days, not one

Jiuzhaigou is now easier to reach than older guides suggest. Since the Chuanqing railway (川青铁路, Chuān-Qīng Tiělù) opened, the fastest train from Chengdu East to Huanglong-Jiuzhai Station takes 1 hour 39 minutes and second class costs 130 to 151 yuan, but the station is about 93 km and roughly two hours by road from the park, with direct coaches to the scenic area; Jiuhuang Airport is 88 km, about 1.5 hours, from the park gate. The park caps daily visitors and requires real-name booking in advance; entry stops at 14:00 and the park closes at 18:00, with the opening time shifting by season (08:30 in the low season from 16 November). In peak season, from 1 April to 15 November, the ticket is 190 yuan plus 90 yuan for the park bus. So: one day to get there, one full day in the park, one day back. If you are in China on the 240-hour visa-free transit, Jiuzhaigou is off the list: in Sichuan that policy only covers 11 cities, including Chengdu and Leshan (so Dujiangyan, Leshan and Mount Emei are fine), and Jiuzhaigou, in Aba Prefecture, is not one of them. Check whether your passport works for booking on the official Jiuzhaigou ticket page before you buy train tickets.

For tickets, opening hours and how to get there, see Jiuzhaigou Travel Guide.

Trains: which station, passports and booking

Chengdu has several stations, and each of these trips uses a different one. Leshan, Emei and Huanglong-Jiuzhai trains leave mainly from Chengdu East, with Chengdu South as a backup for Leshan and Emei; the Dujiangyan and Qingcheng line runs mainly from Xipu; and Chengdu West mostly has slow trains to the old Emei station and a few Dujiangyan trains. Check the station name on your ticket before you leave the hotel, because crossing the city to the right station can take the best part of an hour.

Train tickets in China are real-name, and the official 12306 site and app accept a foreign passport as ID. Tickets go on sale 15 days ahead, counting the day of travel, and each station sets its own release time, so there is no single national opening hour. For a weekday trip, a day or two ahead is usually enough. For weekends and public holidays, book early, and buy the return first: the Sunday evening trains back into Chengdu from Leshan and Emei fill up before the morning trains out.

Automatic gates cannot read passports, so at the station you use the staffed lane both to enter and to leave. Allow extra time for that lane and for the security check. Our guides to booking train tickets with a foreign passport and getting through a Chinese train station walk through each step. For which seat to buy, see train seat classes explained: second class is fine for every trip here. The high-speed train guide covers everything else, and if you would rather book in English, Chengdu trains are also sold on Trip.com.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: October 2026