Tips

Visiting the giant pandas at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was one of the main reasons we wanted to visit China.

When China introduced visa-free entry for our passports, we finally had the chance to make the trip happen. We only had 10 days in the country, so every stop had to count. After flying into Chengdu from Bangkok, there was one attraction at the very top of our China bucket list: the giant pandas.

And honestly, they didn’t disappoint.

There’s something about pandas that is impossible not to love. They’re goofy, clumsy, surprisingly expressive and seem permanently confused by their own existence. Seeing them up close for the first time was one of the highlights of our entire China trip.

One thing we quickly learned: pandas spend a lot of time eating

What surprised us most wasn’t the pandas themselves. It was the sheer number of people visiting the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The queues to enter were long, the weather was hot and some of the most famous pandas attracted crowds far bigger than we expected.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid the worst of the crowds and still have a fantastic experience.

The crowds outside the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding surprised us. Arriving before opening time is one of the best ways to beat the queues

Quick Verdict: Is the Chengdu Panda Base Worth Visiting?

Yes. Absolutely.

Chengdu is panda crazy. During our stay it felt like every second shop, billboard, souvenir stand and tourist brochure featured a panda somewhere. The giant panda is the symbol of Chengdu and visiting the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is one of the most popular things to do in the city.

Unlike many famous attractions around the world, we didn’t leave feeling disappointed.

The enclosures were larger and more natural than we expected, we saw plenty of active pandas and watching the red pandas turned out to be one of the highlights of our visit.

Our biggest piece of advice is simple: arrive early.

By late morning the temperatures had increased significantly, many of the pandas had retreated indoors and the crowds were noticeably larger. Getting there before opening time made a huge difference to our experience.

How to Buy Tickets for the Chengdu Panda Base

We bought our tickets through Trip.com the day before our visit and had no problems at all.

For most international visitors, we think Trip.com is the easiest way to book tickets for the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The website and app are available in English, accept international payment methods and make the whole process very straightforward.

When booking your ticket, you’ll need to enter your passport details. Don’t worry about printing anything afterwards. Your passport effectively becomes your ticket.

Your passport is your ticket. Once you’ve booked online, simply scan the passport used for the reservation at the entrance.

When we arrived at the panda base, we simply scanned our passports at the entrance and walked straight in.

👉 Book Chengdu Panda Base tickets on Trip.com here

If you’re travelling independently in China, we would strongly recommend downloading Trip.com before you arrive. We used it for attraction tickets, train bookings and general travel planning throughout our trip.

Opening Hours

Opening hours vary depending on the season:

• March to October: 7:30am to 6:00pm
• November to February: 8:00am to 5:30pm

While those are the official opening times, our advice is to arrive at least 30 to 60 minutes before the gates open.

It might seem excessive, but you’ll quickly understand why once you see the queues.

Essential Apps for Visiting the Chengdu Panda Base

If this is your first time visiting China, we strongly recommend setting up a few key apps before you arrive.

We booked our panda tickets through Trip.com, ordered taxis using WeChat and used Alipay for payments throughout our trip. Having these apps installed before landing in China made travelling around Chengdu much easier.

If you’re planning a trip to China, make sure to read our guide:

Best Apps for Visiting China in 2026
https://lbsbworld.com/best-apps-for-visiting-china-2026-guide/

It covers everything you need to know about payments, transport, bookings and navigating China as a foreign visitor.

Our Top Tips for Visiting the Chengdu Panda Base

Arrive Before Opening Time

This is by far the most important tip.

The pandas are most active during the cooler morning hours, particularly around feeding time. Arriving early means you’ll see more active pandas and avoid some of the worst crowds.

Enter Through the South Gate

We entered through the South Gate and headed straight towards the Panda Villa area.

This seemed to work well and allowed us to get ahead of many visitors heading towards the most famous enclosures.

Don’t Feel Like You Have to Queue for Hua Hua

Hua Hua is currently one of the most famous giant pandas in China.

When we visited, the queue was already enormous shortly after opening. We decided not to join it and instead spent our time exploring the quieter enclosures.

Honestly, we don’t regret that decision at all.

There are plenty of pandas throughout the park and we were able to enjoy our visit without spending a huge chunk of the morning standing in line.

Crowds gathered around most of the panda enclosures, Hua Hua has her own building. We found it much more enjoyable to explore the quieter enclosures instead.

Bring Water and Wear Comfortable Shoes

The panda base is much larger than it looks on a map.

There is a surprising amount of walking involved and by 11am we were definitely feeling it. Comfortable shoes and plenty of water will make the experience much more enjoyable.

Our Experience Visiting the Chengdu Panda Base

We visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on our second day in China.

The evening before, we booked our tickets and planned an early start. At around 6:30am we hailed a taxi using WeChat and headed towards the panda base.

Despite Chengdu being a huge city, the roads were surprisingly quiet at that time of day and the journey took around 30 minutes.

When we arrived, we were immediately surprised by the crowds.

Even before opening time, there were already long queues forming outside the entrance. Vendors lined the streets selling panda hats, panda ears and every other panda-themed souvenir you could imagine.

Once inside, we headed straight for the Panda Villa area.

The queue for Hua Hua was already huge, so we decided to skip it and focus on the less crowded enclosures instead.

For us, this turned out to be the right decision.

We watched pandas eating bamboo, climbing trees, rolling around and generally behaving exactly how you’d expect a panda to behave. Slightly clumsy, completely unbothered and endlessly entertaining.

One of the highlights was seeing the red pandas being fed.

The enclosures themselves were much larger and more natural than we expected. In many places only a low wall separated visitors from the pandas, making it easy to get a good view.

By around 11am, the heat was beginning to build and many of the pandas had retreated indoors. Combined with the amount of walking involved, it felt like the perfect time to leave.

Looking back, arriving early was easily the best decision we made.

A China bucket-list moment. Visiting the pandas was one of the main reasons we wanted to come to Chengdu

Why Are the Pandas in Chengdu?

The giant panda is native to Sichuan Province, making Chengdu one of the most important places in the world for panda conservation.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was established to help protect and breed giant pandas and has become one of the leading panda conservation centres in the world.

Today, visitors can see giant pandas and red pandas while also supporting important conservation and research programmes.

Can You See Red Pandas in Chengdu?

Yes.

In fact, the red pandas were one of the highlights of our visit.

While most visitors focus on the giant pandas, the red pandas are often more active and playful. We spent far longer watching them than we expected and would strongly recommend making time to visit their enclosure.

The red pandas ended up being one of the highlights of our visit. They were far more active than many of the giant pandas and seemed to have endless energy.

Is the Chengdu Panda Base Ethical?

From our observations, yes.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is first and foremost a conservation and breeding facility rather than a traditional zoo.

The enclosures were spacious, heavily vegetated and designed to resemble the pandas’ natural environment. The pandas appeared relaxed and had plenty of space to retreat from visitors when they wanted to.

While everyone will have their own views on wildlife attractions, we felt comfortable visiting and were encouraged by the centre’s focus on conservation.

Final Thoughts

Visiting the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was one of the highlights of our time in China.

If you’re visiting Chengdu, we think it’s an essential stop.

Arrive early, don’t stress about seeing every famous panda, make time for the red pandas and wear comfortable shoes.

Most importantly, enjoy it.

After all, there aren’t many places in the world where you can spend a morning watching giant pandas casually munch bamboo while looking completely unconcerned about the thousands of people who have travelled across the world to see them.

Traveling in China as a tourist

Before our first trip to China, we spent far too much time reading articles about apps.

Some made it sound like traveling around China would be impossible without downloading twenty different apps, setting up a VPN, opening a Chinese bank account and obtaining a degree in computer science.

The reality was much simpler.

China turned out to be one of the easiest countries we’ve travelled around, but it does work differently from most places. Google services aren’t widely supported, cash is becoming increasingly rare (we never used or even saw cash at all during our stay) and nearly all everyday tasks are handled through local apps.

The good news is that if you install a handful of apps before you arrive, you’ll be absolutely fine.

These are the apps we found most useful during our travels through China.

Get an eSIM Before You Arrive

Before we even talk about apps, let’s talk about internet access.

Our biggest piece of advice is to sort out your mobile data plan before you land in China.

Livia used an eSIM purchased from Trip.com and had very few issues throughout our trip. Alternatively, if you’re coming from a country with affordable roaming charges, that can work just as well. Sam used his AIS physical SIMcard from Thailand (with roaming) and found it very reliable.

One major advantage of using a foreign SIM or eSIM is that many international services continue to work normally. Throughout our trip we could still access Gmail, Google Search, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook using mobile data.

The only real problem came when connecting to hotel WiFi, where access to some services became much less reliable, even impossible.

If you rely heavily on Google services, having your own mobile data can make life much easier, ut backing up photos on wifi probably won’t be possible

Android vs iPhone in China

One thing that genuinely surprised us was how different the experience was between Android and iPhone.

Livia used an iPhone and had very few problems. Apple Maps worked well, her photo library continued syncing normally and most of her everyday apps behaved exactly as expected.

Sam’s Android phone was a different story.

Because Android relies heavily on Google’s ecosystem, many built-in services struggled. Google Maps wasn’t particularly reliable, Google Photos didn’t sync at all, Google Docs and Google Calendar were inconsistent and uploading photos became frustrating if not impossible.

Oddly enough, Gmail continued to work perfectly well using my physical Thailand AIS SIMcard.

This isn’t really a China problem. It’s more of a Google problem. Once we started using local apps such as WeChat, Alipay, DiDi and Amap, everything became much easier.

That said, if you’re deeply invested in Google’s ecosystem, expect a few more headaches on Android than you would on an iPhone.

Most stores are happy to help you order and pay through your app if you need help.

WeChat and Alipay: The Two Apps You Need

If there’s one thing you should do before arriving in China, it’s setting up WeChat and Alipay.

China is almost entirely cashless.

We arrived in China without any cash, only the apps listed here with our temporary virtual creditcards loaded (more about that later) almost everyone preferred QR code payments.

• Street food vendors.
• Coffee shops.
• Train stations.
• Restaurants.
• Convenience stores.
• Even tiny market stalls.

Everyone seemed to accept WeChat Pay or Alipay.

Alipay

Of the two apps, we found Alipay significantly easier to set up.

Within a few minutes we had linked our card and were ready to start making payments.

Most shops display an Alipay QR code at the checkout. Simply scan the code, confirm the amount and pay.

Easy.

WeChat

WeChat took a bit more effort.

The setup process felt less intuitive and we encountered a few more verification steps before everything was working properly.

However, once it was set up, it quickly became one of our most-used apps in China.

The biggest advantage wasn’t actually the payments.

It was everything else.

WeChat includes mini-apps, transportation services, messaging features and, most importantly for travellers, built-in translation tools.

We regularly used the translation functions for menus, signs and conversations. It became one of those apps we found ourselves opening multiple times every day.

Meeting up with friends is a breeze with WeChat

Which One Should You Use?

Our recommendation is simple.

Set up both.

Alipay was easier to get started with, while WeChat offered more useful features once we were traveling around the country.

Together they handled virtually every payment we made during our trip.

Amap: (Forget about Google Maps)

Before arriving in China, Sam assumed we’d simply use Google Maps, that lasted about five minutes.

While Google Maps occasionally worked, we found locations inaccurate and directions unreliable.

Instead, download Amap (Gaode Maps).

This is what most locals use, and it provides excellent navigation, public transport information, walking directions and business listings.

Once we switched to Amap, getting around became dramatically easier.

Apple Maps

If you’re traveling with an iPhone, Apple Maps was also surprisingly good.

Livia used it regularly throughout the trip and often preferred it over Amap for everyday navigation.

Either option is significantly better than relying on Google Maps.

DiDi: China’s Version of Uber

One of our biggest concerns before visiting China was transport.

How were we supposed to explain where we wanted to go if we didn’t speak Mandarin?

As it turns out, we didn’t need to, DiDi completely solved the problem.

Think of it as China’s version of Uber.

The easiest way to use it is through WeChat Mini App, which means there’s no need to download another app.

Simply enter your destination, choose your vehicle and confirm the booking.

That’s it.

Instead of trying to communicate addresses or directions, everything is handled through the app.

In many ways, we actually found DiDi easier to use than Uber.

Taxis in China are so luxurious

Trip.com for Trains, Hotels and Experiences

China’s high-speed rail network is incredible. It’s also enormous.

For booking train tickets, we found Trip.com to be by far the easiest platform available in English. We used it throughout our trip to book trains between cities and found it reliable, straightforward and much easier to navigate than trying to use local booking systems.

We also booked most of our accommodation through Trip.com. Because the platform originated in China, it often has a much wider selection of hotels than international booking websites. We consistently found more options, better prices and occasionally a few extra perks that weren’t available elsewhere.

What surprised us most was how useful Trip.com became for booking attractions and experiences as well. We used it to book our visit to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, which saved us the hassle of navigating Chinese-language booking systems. Throughout China, many attractions, day tours and activities can be booked directly through the app, often with English descriptions and straightforward payment options.

If you’re travelling independently through China, Trip.com is one of the most useful apps you can install. By the end of our trip, we were using it for trains, hotels and experiences almost daily.

Booking trains and hotels become so easy

Do You Need a VPN in China?

Maybe, but most likely not.

Using our Livia’s eSIM, and Sam’s foreign Physical Thailand SIMcard we were able to access our email, all apple apps, some google apps and most international services without needing a VPN.

If you’re planning to rely heavily on hotel WiFi, just forget about it, VPN or not , you won’t be able to connect.

If you followed this guide, you will be using mobile data through a foreign SIM or eSIM, so you will find you rarely need one.

The Biggest Surprise About Visiting China

The biggest surprise wasn’t WeChat. It wasn’t Alipay. And it certainly wasn’t the high-speed trains.

It was how quickly everything became normal.

Before arriving, QR code payments, local apps and digital wallets all sounded slightly intimidating.

Within two or three days, however, they had become second nature.

By the end of the trip we were paying for meals, booking taxis, buying train tickets and navigating cities almost entirely through our phones.

In fact, returning home and pulling out a physical bank card again felt strangely old-fashioned.

Bomb shelter hotpot in Chongqing (spot the Beijing bikini in the backgound)

Final Tips Before You Fly

Get a virtual CreditCard

We strongly suggest using a virtual Creditcard that you can delete after you visit to China. We use Wise and the app allows creation of unlimited virtual cards you can assign to different services. There’s no need to carry your wallet, and less risk of your card being compromised. Your virtual card has different details to your physical card, and can be frozen after each purchase. That means it’s a safe, smart and simple way to spend no matter where in the world you are.

Do it before you arrive

Before boarding your flight to China, make sure you’ve:

• Installed WeChat
• Installed Alipay
• Linked your virtual payment cards
• Downloaded Amap
• Installed Trip.com
• Purchased and activated your eSIM
• Tested everything before departure

Trust us, doing this at home is much easier than trying to figure it out after a long-haul flight.

Once you’ve got these apps sorted, traveling around China becomes incredibly straightforward. We arrived expecting a steep learning curve and left wondering what all the fuss was about.

Livia is always happy shopping!