Dalian Travel Guide: How Many Days, Getting There, Lushun and the Coast

Dalian (大连, Dàlián) is a seaside city at the southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula in Liaoning province, northeast China. Give it 2 days for the city and the coast, 3 days if you add Lushun, the old naval port at the end of the peninsula, and 4 days if you also go on to Shenyang or Dandong. Summer is the beach season; winter is windy and cold, so come then for history and food rather than the sea. High-speed trains use Dalian North station: on our sample day the fastest train from Beijing Chaoyang takes 3 hours 36 minutes, and the fastest from Shenyang takes 1 hour 25 minutes. The airport has direct flights to Seoul, Tokyo and Osaka.

This guide covers how many days to plan and when to go, how to get there and get around, the city sights and beaches, Jinshitan, a day in Lushun, what to eat, where to stay, and where to go next.

How Many Days in Dalian, and When to Go

Here is how we would plan it:

• 2 days: the city and the coast. One day for Zhongshan Square, the old streets and Xinghai Square; one day for the southern seafront (Tiger Beach, Bangchui Island and the coast road between them).
• 3 days: add Lushun. Lushun (旅顺, Lǚshùn), once known in English as Port Arthur, is a district of Dalian about 32 km from the city centre. Its museums and history sites fill a full day, and the metro goes there.
• 3 days in summer: or add Jinshitan instead. Jinshitan (金石滩, Jīnshítān), also called Golden Pebble Beach, is a beach and coastal rock area about 50 minutes from the centre by car. It is worth a day when the weather is warm.
• 4 days: add Shenyang or Dandong. Both are an easy train ride away. Shenyang is the provincial capital with a Qing dynasty palace; Dandong is the border city on the Yalu River. See "Onward from Dalian" below.

Dalian covers a large area: the city government counts 2,211 km of coastline and about 7.5 million residents across ten districts and counties. Most of what you will see sits in the old city districts (Zhongshan, Xigang and Shahekou) along the southern shore, with Lushun to the southwest and Jinshitan to the northeast.

Seasons

Dalian has a mild climate for northern China because the sea surrounds it on three sides. August is the warmest month with an average of about 24°C, and January is the coldest, averaging about -4.5 to -6°C in the south of the city. In July the average high is about 26°C and the average low about 21°C, so summer evenings by the water feel cool compared with Beijing. Most of the year's rain falls in summer, and the coast has strong winds on 90 to 140 days a year, mostly in winter and spring.

• July to early September: the beach season, and the busiest time. Weekends and Chinese holidays get crowded, and hotels near the sea cost more.
• Mid-September to October: our pick for most visitors. The sea is still mild, the air is clear, and the crowds are smaller, except during the first week of October (Golden Week). Our Golden Week guide explains why to avoid that week.
• November to March: cold, grey and windy by the water. The city sights, Lushun's museums and the seafood restaurants still work well; the beaches do not. Bring a windproof coat and a hat.
• April to June: spring warms slowly by the sea and can be windy. Good for walking and sightseeing, too cold for swimming.

For packing, our guides to weather by region and clothing by season cover northeast China.

Getting to Dalian

Most visitors arrive by high-speed train from Beijing, Shenyang or Harbin, or fly in directly from Japan or Korea. There is also a ferry from Shandong province across the sea.

By train

The figures below come from the 12306 timetable (China's official railway booking system) for one sample day, 5 November 2026. The number of trains and the fares change by day and by train, so use them as a guide and check your own date when you book.

The one thing to get right is the station. Dalian has two:

• Dalian North (大连北, Dàlián Běi) is the high-speed station. All high-speed trains from Beijing and Harbin use it, and so do the about 43 trains scheduled from Shenyang that day. It is in the north of the city on Metro Line 1.
• Dalian Station (大连站, Dàlián Zhàn) is the old station near Qingniwaqiao in the city centre. It mostly handles slower conventional trains, plus a few faster trains to Dandong.

What this means for each route:

• From Beijing: about 9 direct high-speed trains are scheduled on the sample day, all calling at Beijing Chaoyang (北京朝阳) station, not Beijing South; the fastest takes 3 hours 36 minutes and most take 3 hours 40 minutes to 5 hours, with second-class seats from 438 to 473 yuan depending on the train. If you want to save a hotel night, the only train to Dalian Station that day is the K681 overnight train, which takes 11 hours 41 minutes.
• From Shenyang: about 43 trains run to Dalian North, most of them from Shenyang Station rather than Shenyang North; the fastest takes 1 hour 25 minutes, most take 1.5 to 2 hours, and second class costs 146 to 190 yuan.
• From Harbin: about 17 direct high-speed trains run to Dalian North, all calling at Harbin West; the fastest takes 3 hours 33 minutes and second class costs 386 to 459 yuan.

Our high-speed train guide explains train types and seat classes, and how to book train tickets walks you through buying with a foreign passport. You can also book on Trip.com, which has an English interface and takes foreign cards. Book early for summer weekends and holidays, when Dalian trains fill up first.

By air

Dalian Zhoushuizi International Airport (大连周水子国际机场) is close to the city centre. In the 2026–27 winter-spring schedule there are flights to Seoul and Tokyo every day, to Kuala Lumpur about daily and to Osaka a few times a week; in 2025 the province also listed direct routes to Nagoya, Toyama and Fukuoka. Flight schedules change by season, so check the current timetable with your airline.

From the airport, Metro Line 2 runs from Airport Station into the city, stopping at Xi'an Road, Qingniwaqiao and Youhao Square, and the metro entrance is in car park zone D, near international arrivals. A taxi to the Xi'an Road area is about 10 km, about 25 minutes and roughly 22 yuan. International arrivals also has a one-stop service centre for foreign visitors that helps with payment, SIM cards and transport cards. The airport's transport page lists the current ground transport options.

You may read about a new offshore airport at Jinzhou Bay. It is under construction and has no announced opening date, so all flights still use Zhoushuizi.

By sea

From Shandong province, the Penglai–Lushun car and passenger ferry crosses to Lushun in about 5 hours; when the route reopened in March 2025 it had two sailings a day from the Penglai side, at 11:00 and 23:00, so check the current timetable with the operator. It lands in Lushun, not central Dalian, so plan the metro ride into town. Ferries also run between Yantai or Weihai and Dalian, but check their current timetable, fares and ID rules with the ferry company before you plan around them. Dalian port also has a passenger and cargo route to Incheon in Korea; check sailing days and fares with the operator.

Visa-free transit

If you plan to use the 240-hour visa-free transit, Dalian airport and Dalian seaport are both eligible entry points in Liaoning, and you may stay anywhere in Liaoning province, which includes Dalian, Lushun, Shenyang and Dandong. Jilin province is not part of the scheme, so on this transit you cannot go to Changbai Mountain, Yanji or Changchun, and in Heilongjiang only Harbin is allowed. This limit does not apply if you travel on a visa or on another visa-free entry. For most eligible countries the separate 30-day visa-free entry currently runs to 31 December 2026, so check that it still applies for trips in 2027. Our guides to visa-free transit and visa-free and transit policies explain who qualifies; the National Immigration Administration publishes the official rules.

Getting Around Dalian

The metro covers the main places a visitor needs: the airport, both train stations, the old centre, Lushun and Jinshitan. Dalian Metro has six lines: 1, 2, 3, 5, 12 and 13. The ones you are most likely to use:

• Line 1 runs from Hekou to Yaojia and serves Dalian North station.
• Line 2 runs from Haizhiyun to Xinzhaizi via Airport Station and Qingniwaqiao.
• Line 3 runs from Dalian Station to Jinshitan.
• Line 12 runs from Hekou to Lushun New Port, and you change from Line 1 at Hekou on the same platform level.

Fares go by distance: 2 yuan for trips under 6 km, rising in steps to 8 yuan for 44 to 54 km. Even the long rides to Lushun or Jinshitan cost only a few yuan; the machine shows the exact fare for your station.

How to pay. Ticket machines at every station accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club and JCB, and you can also buy tickets by scanning with WeChat or Alipay. The gates do not take a tap of your bank card. You go through with the ticket you bought, or by scanning a QR code: the UnionPay app or the metro's own ride code. For most short visits, buying a single ticket at the machine with your card is the simplest way. Our guide to using international cards in China covers the rest of your spending.

Trams. Dalian still runs trams. Line 201 runs 10.8 km from Xinggong Street to Haizhiyun Park with 20 stops, and it is a slow, cheap way to see the streets of the old centre. There is also a second tram line, 202.

Taxis and DiDi. The coast road and the southern beaches are spread out and not all on the metro, so a taxi or ride-hailing car is the easy way to string them together. DiDi (滴滴, Dīdī) has an English interface and takes foreign cards; see our DiDi guide.

What to See in Dalian

Dalian's sights fall into two groups: the old centre with its early 20th-century buildings, and the southern seafront with its parks, beaches and coast road. Dalian was leased by Russia in 1898 and founded as a city in 1899, and was later under Japanese rule, which is why the centre looks different from most Chinese cities.

Ticket prices in this section are official prices or price caps. Online sellers often sell the same tickets for less, so compare before you buy.

Zhongshan Square and the old centre

Zhongshan Square (中山广场, Zhōngshān Guǎngchǎng) is a round plaza with streets running out of it like spokes, ringed by early 20th-century bank and hotel buildings. Two of them are national-level protected monuments: the former Yamato Hotel at No. 4, built from 1909 to 1914 and still in use as the Dalian Hotel, and the former Bank of Chosen branch at No. 1, built in 1918. The square is free and open, and it looks best in the late afternoon. Walk the streets around it for half an hour, then take a tram or a short taxi to the next sight.

Russian Street (俄罗斯风情街, Éluósī Fēngqíngjiē), north of the centre, is a short pedestrian street of restored Russian-style buildings with souvenir shops. It is very commercial; give it half an hour if you are nearby, and skip it if you are short of time. Labor Park (劳动公园), close to the centre, is a green hill park where locals walk and exercise.

Xinghai Square

Xinghai Square (星海广场, Xīnghǎi Guǎngchǎng) is a very large open square in the southwest of the city, facing Xinghai Bay. It is free to walk and best near sunset, when families come to walk, fly kites and watch the light on the water. There is a public beach next to it. Allow an hour or two. From here you can follow the seafront east towards Tiger Beach.

Binhai Road: the coast road

Binhai Road (滨海路, Bīnhǎi Lù) is a coastal road along the southern cliffs that links Xinghai Square, Fujiazhuang beach, Tiger Beach and Bangchui Island. Parts of it have a wooden boardwalk with sea views. You can walk sections of it, but the whole road is long and hilly, so most people take a taxi or DiDi between the stops and walk the stretches they like best.

Tiger Beach Ocean Park

Laohutan, or Tiger Beach (老虎滩, Lǎohǔtān), on the southern seafront is Dalian's best-known attraction; the ocean park was among China's first 5A-rated (top-rated) scenic areas in 2007 and receives close to 2 million visitors a year. There is one adult ticket, 220 yuan, which covers the park and its five halls: the polar aquarium, coral hall, Happy Theatre, sea animal hall and bird garden. Children aged 6 and under or 1.3 m and under enter free, and students aged 7 to 17 and full-time students pay 150 yuan. Concessions need a valid ID, and a foreign student card may not be accepted, so expect to pay the adult price unless the ticket office confirms otherwise. The park is open from 8:30 to 16:30, the Happy Theatre does not open in the off-season, and outdoor rides stop in thunderstorms. Check the full price list on the Tiger Beach Ocean Park website. It takes half a day, and it is the best choice in Dalian if you travel with children.

Bangchui Island

Bangchui Island (棒棰岛, Bàngchuí Dǎo) is a quiet, green seafront area on the southern coast east of Tiger Beach, around a state guesthouse, with a clean beach and a view of the small offshore island it is named after. Its ticket is a government-set maximum: up to 40 yuan in the peak season and up to 10 yuan in the off-season, in force from about July 2025. It is calmer than Tiger Beach and pairs well with the coast road.

Oriental Venice and other stops

Oriental Venice (东方水城, Dōngfāng Shuǐchéng) is a newly built canal district of European-style buildings in the Donggang area east of the centre, about 2.4 km long; it was named on the 2023 national list of tourism and leisure streets. It is a modern development, not a historic quarter, and it is pleasant for an evening walk and dinner near the water. Dalian Forest Zoo, in the hills behind the southern seafront, is popular with families; check its current ticket price and hours before you go.

Beaches and Jinshitan

Dalian's main swimming beaches include Xinghai, Fujiazhuang, Bangchui Island, Xiajiahe and, northeast of the city, Jinshitan. The water is the Yellow Sea, so it is cool rather than tropical. In mid-August 2026 the surface water at the main beaches was about 25 to 26°C, and by 1 October it had dropped to about 21 to 22°C. In practice that makes July, August and early September the swimming months.

Dalian's Marine Forecast Station publishes a daily forecast of wave height, water temperature and tides for the main beaches. Swim only at the official beaches, inside the marked area and when lifeguards are on duty, and follow the flags and notices on the day; opening dates and rules are set locally each season, so check at the beach.

Jinshitan (Golden Pebble Beach)

Jinshitan is a national tourist resort on the Yellow Sea northeast of the city, about 50 minutes from the centre by car; it became a national coastal geopark in 2005 and a 5A scenic area in 2011, and its Golden Coast beach is one of Dalian's bathing beaches. The main reason to go is the coastline of the geopark: layered, coloured rock formations along the shore, with walking paths above the sea.

Metro Line 3 runs from Dalian Station to Jinshitan. The resort is large, so from the station plan on local transport or a taxi to the part you want. The city's 2018 price list set the geopark ticket at 60 yuan in the peak season and 40 yuan in the off-season; the current price may differ, so check at the gate or online before you go. Watch the last train back: Line 3 finishes earlier than the city lines, although in summer 2026 extra evening trains were added, with a 21:00 train from Jinshitan to Dalian Station.

Make Jinshitan a full day in summer. Outside the warm months, choose Lushun instead.

A Day in Lushun

Lushun is the most popular add-on to a Dalian trip. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was a fortified naval port, and it was a main battlefield in both the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Today you can visit the Lushun Museum, the former Russian and Japanese prison, the Wanzhong Tomb memorial, the old railway station and the hills and forts from the 1904 war. The Lushun Museum has been free since April 2013, the prison site has been free since 2013, and the Wanzhong Tomb memorial is free. Bring your passport for museum entry; our Lushun guide has the entry details. The Russian-style railway station, built in 1903, has had no trains since 2014, so you see it from outside, and its surroundings are being renovated from October 2026.

Can foreigners go? Yes. Lushun partly opened to foreign visitors in 1996 and fully opened on 21 November 2009. It is still home to a working naval port, and Chinese law bans photographing or filming military restricted zones without permission. Follow the signs on site and do not point your camera towards the naval port or any military facility.

Getting there. Take Metro Line 1 to Hekou, then change to Line 12, which runs to Lushun New Port. The fare is a few yuan, set by distance. Line 12 stops earlier in the evening than the city lines, so check the last train before you start back. Many visitors join a day tour instead; Dalian's tourism bureau introduced a standard contract for Lushun day tours from April 2025, so ask your agency to use it. You can compare Lushun day tours on Klook; check which sites are included and how long you get at each.

Our Lushun guide has the site-by-site detail: opening hours, booking, prices and a one-day route.

What to Eat in Dalian

Dalian eats from the sea. Look for these local dishes:

• Spanish mackerel dumplings (鲅鱼饺子, bàyú jiǎozi). Dumplings filled with fresh Spanish mackerel, pork belly and chives; they are a local favourite. The filling is juicy and fish-forward, and a plate makes a cheap, filling meal.
• Menzi (焖子, mènzi). Cubes of sweet potato starch jelly fried until crisp outside and soft inside; stir-fried menzi, often with sea cucumber, shrimp or sea snail, is a traditional Dalian dish. Street stalls sell a simple version with garlic sauce and sesame paste.
• Stir-fried sea worm (炒海肠, chǎo hǎicháng). Sea worm stir-fried with chives or yellow chives, a coastal speciality that came to Dalian with migrants from Yantai. It looks odd and tastes like a tender, sweet clam.
• Sea urchin (海胆, hǎidǎn), scallops, clams and other shellfish. Steamed, boiled or grilled with garlic. Sea urchin is often steamed with egg or served with dumplings.
• Seafood barbecue (烧烤, shāokǎo) with local beer. The usual summer evening meal for Dalian people.

Ordering seafood. At many seafood restaurants you choose live seafood from tanks, it is weighed, and you pay by the jin (斤, half a kilo), sometimes plus a cooking charge. Before they weigh anything, ask the price per jin for each item and whether cooking is extra, and agree how each one will be cooked. Show your choices on a translation app if you need to. Prices for the same shellfish vary a lot between a tourist-area restaurant and a neighbourhood one. For the wider picture of northeast cooking, see our guide to Chinese cuisine by region.

Onward from Dalian

• Shenyang. The provincial capital, with three World Heritage sites, the Mukden Palace (沈阳故宫) and two Qing imperial tombs, plus modern-history museums. About 43 trains run between the two cities on the sample day, and the fastest takes 1 hour 25 minutes. Check which Shenyang station your train uses: most trains on this route use Shenyang Station rather than Shenyang North. One or two days is enough; see our Shenyang guide.
• Dandong. A border city on the Yalu River, across the water from Sinuiju in North Korea. The main sights are the Yalu River Broken Bridge (鸭绿江断桥) and the Hushan Great Wall, both national-level protected sites since 2006. About 9 direct trains run from Dalian on the sample day, 6 from Dalian North and 3 from Dalian Station; the fastest takes 1 hour 56 minutes, and second class costs 98 to 114.5 yuan. Dandong works as a long day trip or one night; if you go for the day, check the return train times before you book, and check the bridge's current ticket and opening hours before you go.
• Harbin. About 17 direct high-speed trains connect Harbin with Dalian North on the sample day, and the fastest takes 3 hours 33 minutes. In winter, Harbin's ice festival is the reason to go; see our Harbin winter guide.
• The full northeast route. Dalian often ends a loop through Harbin, Changbai Mountain and Shenyang. Our northeast China route covers the order, the train legs and the visa-free limits, and our Changbai Mountain guide covers the mountain itself. Remember that Changbai Mountain is in Jilin province, which is outside the 240-hour transit area.

Where to Stay in Dalian

• Zhongshan Square and Qingniwaqiao (青泥洼桥): the best base for a first visit. You can walk to the old buildings, Line 2 runs to the airport, and Dalian Station (for Line 3 to Jinshitan) is close by.
• Xinghai Square area: sea views and newer hotels, good for a summer beach stay, but farther from the old centre.
• Near Dalian North station: only worth it for an early train or a single night in transit. It is on Line 1 and away from the sights.

Hotels in China must register foreign guests, so confirm that yours accepts foreign passports; our guide to booking hotels and registration rules explains what to check. You can compare hotels in these areas on Booking.com, and read recent reviews from foreign guests.

Payments and Help

Dalian runs on mobile payment like the rest of China. Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay with your foreign card before you arrive and carry some cash as a backup; see how to use Alipay with foreign cards. In an emergency, call 110 for the police or 120 for an ambulance. Korea has a consulate-general in Shenyang covering Liaoning and an office in Dalian covering the city, and the US consulate-general in Shenyang covers Liaoning. Other countries, including Japan, list their nearest consulate on their embassy website; check before you travel. Our emergency contacts guide has more.

In short: plan 2 days for Dalian, 3 with Lushun or Jinshitan, and 4 with Shenyang or Dandong. Come from July to October for the sea, take the high-speed train to Dalian North or fly in directly from Japan or Korea, and use the metro and taxis to get around. Before you go, book your trains, choose a hotel near Zhongshan Square, and check the last metro back from Lushun or Jinshitan.

Last updated: November 2026