10 days 3 cities 2 overnight trains
 

Hi fellow china followers.
My 11 yo daughter and I arrive in Beijing on the evening of Mar 3rd and have until lunchtime on the 14th to travel between Beijing and Chengdu. I was thinking of Beijing - Xian - Chengdu via overnight trains and am interested in the opinion of others about how to divide our time between the 3 places. I don't think my daughter will have the patience to visit too many temples, other than the 'must see' tourist attractions, I'm not really sure what would be suitable Please leave your suggestions. I'll look forward to chatting with you all.

There aren't so many temple in the list of typical attractions. Even a place like the Temple of Heaven is not about the temple part. It is a large park that you want to visit in early morning to watch the retires get together and do various activities. A lot of fun.
Beijing has the most things to do, usually 4-5 days. Xi'an is doable in 2 days. That leaves 3-4 days for Chengdu which is on the high side but ok if you visit some of the attractions out of town.

I would increase X'ian to three days, it's a great city. If your daughter (and you) can cycle then a trip around the 14 mile city walls of X'ian would be a worthwhile way to pass a half day. It's a nice city to stroll around, particularly around the Drum and Bell Tower.

3 max. is enough for Chengdu, although I really enjoyed the vibe of the place and the people are friendly. The panda sanctuary would be an excellent place to take your daughter. If you like spicy food then Chengdu is great for eating options, and very cheap as well.

So 5-3-3 roughly, although bear in mind that you may not be in the best of shape the day after your overnight trains. However, if you are willing to aplash out on soft sleeper options then that would definitely help. Beijing-X'ian is about 11 hours, X'ian-Chengdu is longer, maybe 15-16 hours.

In all instances, keep a hold of her hand as the traffic, like everywhere in Asia, is erratic to say the least.

Have a great time - they are three very interesting places.

I agree with the above comment. I did the hard sleeper once because that is all that was left. I will never do this again. The next day (in Dali) at about 2h30 we were looking for a cheap hotel to rent a room so we could have a 3-hour nap.

Thanks to the previous 3 replies. All great suggestions and will take the advice of a 5-3-3 split. The bike ride sounds like a fun thing to do also. Yes, the traffic will be erratic but we'd better get used to it because after China we're heading to Vietnam for a month where I believe the traffic is equally chaotic. I had fully intended to get a 2 berth soft sleeper, or buy out a 4 berth sleeper for us both. Now if I can only figure out how to do it while we're travelling through Europe. Maybe paying an agency will be the simplest option.

No particular reason to buy out the four berth sleeper. I travel solo, and have shared a four berth soft sleeper several times in China without problems (including Beijing to Xi'an, where I shared with the president of the university and his wife) and Xi'an to Chengdu (good scenery). It's a great way to meet Chinese people who aren't involved with the tourist biz.

You sound very fit.

Get the upper berths in the solft sleeper.

Same for Europe trains.

There's a bit more privacy with the upper berths and you can usually store your luggage in the luggage area over the door.

But if the people in the lower berths aren't ready to get up you're stuck without a window in the upper berths.