Xi'an is unusually kind to solo travellers: street food sold by the single portion, a 13.7 km city wall you can ride alone at dawn, and parks where strangers hand you a chess piece. These three days stay inside the walls and the safe southern districts.
Rent a single bike at Yongningmen and ride the 13.7 km rampart loop at your own pace, no group tempo required. Wall entry ¥54, bike ¥45 for 120 minutes plus ¥200 refundable deposit. Gates open 08:00 and staff patrol every kilometre.
A walled courtyard of single-portion Shaanxi stalls: biangbiang noodles, Zizhou oil cake, the 'moaning' pork bowl. You order at one window and eat on a shared bench, sidestepping the two-dish-minimum problem solo diners hit in Chinese restaurants.
A 570 m flagstone lane of calligraphy shops, seal carvers and ink stalls running from the South Gate to the Forest of Steles. Free to enter and browse at whatever speed suits you; carvers cut a personal name chop in seal script while you wait, from ¥30.
A horseshoe-shaped alley of roughly 40 small bars and coffee houses just inside the wall near South Gate, quieter and far less predatory than tourist strips. Counter seating rather than table service makes drinking alone normal; a craft pint runs ¥35-55.
The 52-hectare park on the old Tang palace grounds where Xi'an's retirees gather from dawn: erhu circles, ballroom dancing by the lake, water-calligraphy brushed straight onto the paving. Free, no booking, and nobody minds an onlooker joining in.
This 1898 paomo house hands you a flatbread and an empty bowl: you crumble it into fingernail-sized pieces for about 15 minutes before the kitchen floods it with mutton broth. The ritual gives eating alone a job to do. Bowls ¥45-58.
Grounds and museum are free with your passport, booked through the official WeChat account. A 1,300-year-old leaning pagoda, mulberry lawns full of napping locals, and the Morning Bell that visitors can strike for ¥10. Closed Tuesdays.
A 1.5 km pedestrian avenue that lights up from 19:00 with Tang-costumed street performers, poetry duels and live bands. Free, heavily patrolled and packed until midnight, so walking it alone at 23:00 draws no attention at all.
Emperor Jing's 2nd-century-BCE tomb, 40 km northwest, where you walk glass floors suspended over open burial pits of miniature painted figures. A fraction of the Terracotta crowds — whole corridors to yourself. Entry ¥70, open 08:30-18:00.
The Hui neighbourhood where Xi'an actually eats, west of the tourist lanes: Ma'er hulatang soup, Zhang's roast duck, sesame cakes pulled from a barrel oven. Portions run ¥8-25, cheap enough to order one dish at a time and keep walking.
Over 3,000 engraved stone tablets in the old Confucian temple, including the 837 CE Kaicheng Stone Classics carved on 114 slabs. Halls stay quiet even in August, and a rubbings workshop lets you ink and press your own sheet to take home.
A free lakeside park on the Tang dynasty pleasure ground south of the wall: willow causeways, a west bank facing the sunset, and tai chi groups forming after 18:30. No ticket, no closing time, lit paths, and Qujiangchixi metro station right there.