Nanjing

By road

There is a modern highway system between Shanghai and Nanjing, which can allow you to travel quite quickly from city to city. Beware of traffic in the morning and evening rush hours. If you're just one person it may be much cheaper to travel by train, but if you're in a larger group sharing a car service can be cheaper. Keep in mind that you need to be a very experienced driver to handle Chinese traffic, so you may be better served using trains and buses between the cities and taxis in the cities, unless you're really on for a challenge.

If you are interested in driving yourself, see Driving in China.

By bus

Nanjing is well connected to Shanghai, Hangzhou and most destinations within Jiangsu, Anhui and northern Zhejiang provicnces by bus as well as longer overnight sleeper services to Beijing 12 hours and Guangzhou 24 hours. Most services depart from Zhongyangmen bus station, a large, clean modern terminal in the north of the city approximately 10 minutes walk to the west of the main train station. The station has English signange and announcements but the ticket clerks generally cannot understand English. Some services into Anhui province depart from Nanjing South Zhonghuamen station, which is adjacent to Zhonghuamen metro station. There are also bus stations serving nearby destinations at Hanzhongmen, Nanjing East to the north of Purple Mountain and Nanjing North on the west side of the Yangtze River although they are less useful to travellers.

By plane

Nanjing's Lukou International Airport is about 35km from the city centre and serves inbound international flights from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Germany. You can also fly to Lukou International from most major cities in China, including Hong Kong Shanghai now also has a daily night-time flight from Pudong primarily aimed at connecting international travellers. There is a shuttle bus available from the airport.

There are several options to get from the airport to Nanjing. The 30-minute taxi journey to the city centre costs ¥100 or more there's a ¥20 toll about 3 km away from the airport. It is usually cheaper to take the airport bus to the centre and take a taxi from there.

There are two express-bus routes from the airport to downtown Nanjing - both terminate at the railway station and connect with the subway and local city buses. The services run at 15-minute intervals with one line serving Zhonghuamen also has good metro and bus connections and Hanzhongmen, while the other runs to the east of the city and stops close to Fuzimiao. A one-way ticket costs ¥20 and can be purchased from the kiosk outside the arrivals hall.WARNING - if taking the bus to the airport from Zhonghuamen, ignore the touts who hang around outside the bus station and metro station claiming to operate the official bus service - they will usually quote the same price, you'll be loaded into the back of a small, run-down minibus and will usually drop you off several kilometres short of the airport and claim that the fare into the actual airport is several hundred yuan. To find the actual bus service, enter the bus station building and go to Gate 7 - buy the ticket from the kiosk at the gate, not the main ticket office.

If you're flying into Shanghai, there are bus and train services that travel to and from Nanjing. The bus runs four times a day from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, with a stop at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and then on to Nanjing Zhongyangmen and back. From there, take the metro or a taxi to your destination. It costs ¥136 from Shanghai and the trip takes about five hours only about four at night. Many people prefer to take a train to Shanghai then bus, taxi or train to Nanjing.