40 Best Hotels in Beijing to Shanghai, China

Overlooking the Grand Canal and within striking distance of Slender West Lake and Ge Garden, the popular Ramada Plaza Yangzhou Casa is accented with bright shades of red and has up-to-date amenities and a great pool. The hotel gets busy with tour groups in high season.

Insist on a room in the newer Valley Wing at the ever-reliable Shangri-La, which is a few hundred yards from the coast, near some of the best shopping and dining in town, and just a 15-minute cab ride from historic sights. Popular with expats, Q Bar is a stylish place for a pre-dinner drink, and a genuine Milanese chef helms the hotel's Italian restaurant.

The Shangri-La makes up for its out-of-center location with sumptuous rooms and suites: the interior design nods to the city's cultural heritage—desks mimic traditional mah-jongg tables—while remaining completely contemporary. The hotel has a wonderful Cantonese restaurant, as well as such amenities as an indoor pool, sauna, and steam room.

One of the few lodgings inside the walls of the recently rebuilt "ancient city," this Qing Dynasty–style complex offers simply furnished rooms set around a series of courtyards. The reception staff wears elaborate period gowns, amping up the Disneyesque atmosphere of the surroundings.

The carpets at the Shenghua could do with a scrub, but a few touches like having an on-site bilingual tour operator and guest rooms where teddy bears decorate the beds and bathrooms are equipped with tubs distinguish this average but well-run hotel from its peers. A decent restaurant serves local specialties such as lightly battered stir-fried venison.

This is the only real hotel on the summit, so although it has unusual perks (a bell rings to wake you in time to catch the sunrise), it's overpriced considering the barely adequate rooms.

Overlooking the enormous, lotus-shape sports venue built to host the 11th Chinese National Games, this hotel has indoor and outdoor pools, an excellent spa, and spacious guest rooms with fabulous amenities, including Egyptian cotton sheets and rain-forest showers. Housed in an imposing tower in East New Town, Ji'nan's central business district, this is a good spot for traveling executives.

Beside a canal and a short stroll to historic Pingjiang Lane, this comfortable and well-run hotel wraps around a peaceful courtyard and Suzhou-style garden. It's done up in traditional style with a sharply peaked roof that's illuminated at night. The hotel's proximity to most of the city's sights makes it a great choice. Rooms have different decor and amenities, so ask to see a few before settling in.

Choose between simply furnished rooms or grandly restored villas at this resort hotel, a short march from Old Dragon Head and centered on a seafood restaurant in a greenhouse filled with tropical flora. As you dine on spicy hotpot or local crustaceans, pay heed to the shrubby mound outside the windows. That's the long-since pillaged hump of the original Great Wall, 100 yards before it meets the grandly restored section running to the ocean.