City guide · Fujian
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
The cats of Gulangyu wander the lanes and never fear a stranger; many shops keep one asleep on the counter. It is the cats, more than anything, that give the island its gentle, unhurried air.
Traveller note — 'February: Xiamen, the Sea, the Cats'
I was born lucky, to grow up on a southern island like this, breathing with the green trees and the flowers, day and night, all year round.
Shu Ting, poet, on Gulangyu
Gulangyu is made for getting lost. It is made for people who have no sense of direction and are glad of it.
Traveller note — '21, Walking Xiamen Simply'
Gulangyu is small enough to cross on foot in half an hour and dense enough to keep you busy for two days. It is a 1.87 km² island just off the southwest of Xiamen, and for a century it was a foreign concession: thirteen countries kept consulates here, and the merchants, missionaries and returned overseas-Chinese families who followed built a whole townscape of villas, churches and gardens that survives largely intact.
What sets it apart from every other famous Chinese sight is the silence at its edges. There is not a single car, and the only wheels on the island belong to a handful of electric shuttle buses. Step off Longtou Road, the main shopping street, and you are among crumbling walls, hanging banyan roots and bougainvillea, where the loudest sound is someone practising the piano behind a closed window.
It is also a self-declared island of music — Gulangyu has produced an outsized number of concert pianists, owns more pianos per household than anywhere in China, and is the rare place with both a piano museum and an organ museum. And it is a cat island: the cats sleep in the shops and shopfronts and alley mouths, and the whole island has adopted them as its mascot.
The catch is the crowds. Gulangyu is a capped 5A scenic area, and by midday the lanes fill with day-trippers funnelled off the ferries. The island is at its best in the early morning and after the last boats leave — which is the entire argument for sleeping over rather than crossing back to Xiamen the same day.
Gulangyu
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Villas in every European style — Greek columns, Islamic domes, baroque ornament — built by consuls and returned overseas-Chinese merchants from the 1840s on. The lanes off Longtou Road hold the best of them, still lived in and largely un-restored.
The island's highest point and the only view that shows its whole shape, with the Xiamen skyline behind and, on a clear day, the coast of Kinmen. Go at opening — the summit path is narrow and the queue forms fast.
A merchant's seaside garden that hides the sea and then reveals it, holding China's only piano museum in its 'Listening to the Waves' pavilion — around forty antique pianos, from a gilded grand to the world's earliest square piano.
The red-domed octagon villa that is the island's landmark, filled with a collection of giant pipe organs. Climb into the dome for another of Gulangyu's best panoramas — and to hear one of the organs played.
A memorial park to the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong, with a colossal stone statue facing the sea, and the quiet garden-grave of Lin Qiaozhi, China's pioneering obstetrician. Both are calm corners away from the main drag.
The island's real pleasure is undirected: a fresh-fruit juice on Longtou Road, a cat asleep on a counter, a coffee in a courtyard villa, and no schedule at all. Bring an umbrella and get lost on purpose.
Suggested itineraries
The one-day route hits the headline sights. The overnight route is the same island with all the crowds subtracted.
A full crossing-and-back day: the sights in a loop, food on Longtou Road, and the last ferry home.
Take the first ferry you can get, land, and walk straight for Sunlight Rock while the lanes are still empty. Climb it before the tour groups arrive, then come down through the old villas around the base.
Work your way towards Shuzhuang Garden and its piano museum, which opens early and is quietly the best thing on the island.
Stops: Sunlight RockThe villa lanesShuzhuang GardenPiano Museum
Head for Bagua Lou and the organ museum, then Haoyue Garden on the seafront and the quiet Yu Garden. Keep off Longtou Road while it is at its busiest.
Grab snacks from a side street rather than the main drag — the small kitchens are better and cheaper.
Stops: Bagua LouOrgan MuseumHaoyue GardenYu Garden
Come back to Longtou Road in the late afternoon, once the crowd is thinning, and eat your way along it — mochi, fish balls, pineapple cake, fresh juice.
Catch one of the last ferries back to Xiamen. Or, better, do not — see below.
Stops: Longtou RoadSeafront promenadeNight ferry
The same island, but you get the early morning and the late evening that most visitors never see.
Run the one-day route above, but do not take the last ferry. Check into an island guesthouse and, as the light goes, walk the lanes again — they belong to the residents and to you.
Stops: Island sightsGuesthouse check-inEvening lanes
Get up before the first ferry lands and walk the seafront and the southern lanes in the empty morning. Have breakfast on Longtou Road before the shops are fully open.
Then do nothing in particular — a coffee in a courtyard, a second look at a villa, the beach at Gangzaihou — and leave whenever you feel like it.
Stops: Morning seafrontLongtou Road breakfastGangzaihou beach
Sights
Ticket prices change without much notice. The ¥100 combo ticket covers the main sights and is usually the better buy.
Viewpoint · Highest point
The island's highest point, named — as legend has it — by Zheng Chenggong, who thought the view better than that from Japan's Mount Nikko and split the characters of its old name to make the new one. From the top you see the whole of Gulangyu, the Xiamen skyline and, on a clear day, the coast of Kinmen. A cable car runs part of the way.
Tip Climb it first thing. The path to the summit is narrow, and by mid-morning the stairway becomes a queue that barely moves.
Garden · Music
The private seaside garden of a Fujian merchant, Lin Erjia, who built it to hide the sea behind a wall and then open onto it — one of the classic gardens of southern China. In its 'Listening to the Waves' pavilion is the Gulangyu Piano Museum, the only one in China: some forty antique pianos, including a gilded grand, the world's earliest square piano and an eight-pedal self-playing instrument a century old.
Tip This is the one sight to slow down for. The pianos are the reason Gulangyu calls itself the island of music, and the collection is genuinely rare.
Museum · Landmark
A red-domed octagon villa from the 1920s, designed by an American-Dutch missionary architect who borrowed from Islamic, Greek and Chinese forms all at once — the dome copies the Agsa Mosque, the columns echo Greek temples. Today it holds the island's organ museum, a collection of giant pipe organs, and one of the island's best rooftop views.
Tip Time your visit for an organ demonstration if you can — hearing one of these instruments fill the dome is worth more than the exhibit labels.
Park · Memorial
A memorial park on the island's southeast shore, built around a colossal stone statue of Zheng Chenggong — Koxinga — the Ming loyalist who used Gulangyu as a base and drove the Dutch out of Taiwan. Large bronze reliefs below the statue tell the story of his fleet. It is one of the few places on the island with an uninterrupted view out to open sea.
Tip Best at dusk, when the statue faces the sunset and the day-trippers have gone. The gardens here are much quieter than the central sights.
Garden · Memorial
A small, deliberately peaceful garden and memorial to Lin Qiaozhi, the Gulangyu-born doctor known as the 'mother of ten thousand babies' for her life's work in obstetrics. It is not a headline sight, and that is the point — a marble statue, a grave, palms and quiet, a few minutes from the crowded lanes.
Tip Pair it with the villa lanes rather than making a special trip. It is the sort of small, out-of-the-way stop that gives the island its character.
Architecture · Walking
The best thing to do on Gulangyu is not a ticketed sight at all: it is walking the lanes off Longtou Road among the old villas. The Gold Melon Building, with its carved beams and European shutters; the Fanpo Lou, built by a returning Philippine merchant for his mother; the house where the writer Lin Yutang married; the Spanish-flavoured Guan Cai Lou. Most are still private homes, lived in rather than museum-ised.
Tip Buy the illustrated island map at the pier, get off the main street, and pick lanes at random. The houses are the destination; getting lost is the itinerary.
Aquarium · Family
An aquarium on the island's east shore by the old ferry landing, with more than 350 species of fresh- and salt-water fish and an underwater tunnel. It is the obvious rainy-day or with-children stop, and conveniently placed for the moment you land or before you leave.
Tip It is a straightforward family aquarium rather than a world-class one — go if it is raining, or if you are travelling with kids, rather than as a highlight in its own right.
Eating
Most of it is street food along Longtou Road. The crowds peak at lunch — eat early or late, or duck into a side lane.
The island's most famous single bite: a soft glutinous rice ball, opened up and stuffed with peanut, sesame and sugar, then rolled in more sesame. The Ye family stall has been making them by hand for generations, one at a time, for a couple of yuan each.
Springy fish balls — the local ones are made from shark or eel — served in a light broth in a paper cup. The plain and the shark-ball versions share the same broth; try both and decide which is worth the queue.
A Xiamen and Gulangyu institution since the 1840s: sweet-savoury dried pork floss and pork jerky, made from fresh hind-leg meat and sold by weight. The shop hands out generous samples, and it is the easiest edible souvenir on the island.
The island's signature tea snack — a small, golden, flaky pastry with a sweet or savoury filling, sold in boxes as gifts. The best-known names are Wangji and Babycat; buy a single to taste before you commit to a box.
Hand-pressed fruit juice made to order — a whole bag of strawberries in one cup, several oranges in another — for about ¥5. On a hot day it is the single best thing you can buy on Longtou Road, and there is no added sugar or water.
The cooling finish: herbaceous grass jelly served either hot with toppings or as a cold jelly with milk tea. The island's most famous milk-tea shop is named after a real cat, Zhang Sanfeng, who lived at one of the guesthouses.
Where to eat
Phone numbers are local landlines; add +86 and drop the leading 0 if calling from abroad.
Local · Cheap
A small, unglamorous canteen that has quietly done the same thing for more than twenty years: beef soup and satay noodles, generous and well-priced, which on Gulangyu is a rare thing. Most of the customers are students, which tells you the value is real.
Bakery · Gifts
A five-year-old bakery doing one thing properly: handmade pastry in a dozen flavours, with no artificial flavouring, boxed for gifts. Cash in on it as a snack and a souvenir at once. It has become one of the island's better-known small brands.
Café · Western
A quiet corner café wrapped in bougainvillea, all sun, terracotta pots and a dark-green awning. It is a Western-style coffee-and-cake stop rather than a meal, and a good place to wait out the midday crowd.
Café · Courtyard
A handsome old Western-style house turned café, with English-style interiors and, famously, a lot of resident cats dozing in the sun. The tiramisu is the signature. Slow, quiet, and a world away from Longtou Road.
Seafood · Local pick
If you ask an islander where they actually eat, this is the answer more often than not. Ordinary-looking, and the one place worth breaking the rule against eating on the main drag: stir-fried clams, soy-braised razor clams, salt-and-pepper mantis shrimp and sea-weed pastry.
Sleeping
Guesthouses are the whole point of staying over, but they are small and fill up — book a week ahead, or a month for holidays. Bring small luggage; there are no cars.
Guesthouse · from ¥110
The island's best-known guesthouse, a 1970s villa on the site of the old German consulate, in blue among the grey and red of the island. Courtyard, fruit trees, resident cats, and the café that gave the famous island cat Zhang Sanfeng his name. Rooms range from basic to suites.
Hostel · from ¥75
A three-storey Mediterranean-style house a ten-minute walk from the ferry and a stone's throw from Bagua Lou. Cheap beds, a sociable common room and a view over the strait. The best-value place to sleep on the island if you are travelling on a budget.
Boutique · from ¥400
A 1903 European-style red-brick villa, later bought and restored by a returning overseas-Chinese businessman as a home for his father. Now a refined boutique guesthouse with a courtyard tea garden — the sort of place the phrase 'old-world charm' was invented for.
Boutique · from ¥396
A hilltop villa up a short slope, and worth the walk: hung throughout with paintings, built in traditional pale-brick Minnan style with touches of a Californian villa. Rooms are named after painters, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Heritage hotel · from ¥1,088
The island's grandest stay: a five-building 1895 mansion complex of the Lin family, one of old Fujian's great clans, now a heritage hotel. Heritage, boutique and lightly modern rooms, all set in an estate that once belonged to a single family. The upper end of Gulangyu accommodation.
Getting around
Everything on the island is on foot. The only logistics are the ferry and, once you are here, the shuttle.
The only way to reach the island. Day crossings leave from the Xiagu Pier at the Xiamen International Cruise Centre; from about 5:30pm the service moves to the downtown Lundu Pier for the overnight crossing. The ride is about 20 minutes, and the return is open — you do not rebook to come back.
Gulangyu caps how many people land each day, and tickets are bought in real name with your passport through the official Xiamen Ferry service — there is no walk-up option. In peak season tickets sell out days ahead, so book as soon as your dates are fixed.
Buy your combo sight ticket at the same time if you can, and check the last return ferry time for the day you visit — it changes with the season.
You reach the island via Xiamen. Fly into Xiamen Gaoqi (XMN), 10 km from the city centre, or take high-speed rail to Xiamen Station on the island; the ferry piers are a short taxi from either.
The only vehicle you can ride, apart from the odd service cart. A shuttle loops the whole 6 km island on a fixed route, and the ticket lets you hop on and off all day.
How you actually get around. The island is small, walkable and mostly flat around the rim, steeper through the middle. Signage is good, but the lanes are made for getting lost in — buy the illustrated map at the pier and use it loosely.
Shopping
Buy specialities in Xiamen where you can — the same goods cost less there than on the island.
The island's main commercial street and the one every visitor walks. Craft shops and calligraphy stores on both sides, with local crafts — bead embroidery, lacquer thread sculpture, coloured clay — alongside jade, ceramics and curios from all over China.
The two edible souvenirs to buy here: boxes of Gulangyu pastry from the well-known bakeries, and Huang Shengji pork floss and jerky sold by weight. Both travel well and both make genuinely good gifts.
Postcards are a Gulangyu ritual. Buy them on the island, but post them from the island's own post office, where a stamp is normal-rate — the shops that offer to post them for you charge a large mark-up. The post office is the one on Longtou Road.
The piano museum sells the one souvenir unique to the island: black-walnut desk sets, keyrings and pen boxes carved with the museum's pianos. Away from the main street, a handful of small original-design shops sell hand-made, one-off pieces worth hunting for.
Practical
Staffed English help is not guaranteed. Save these before you need them.
| Emergency (police / ambulance / fire) | 110 · 120 · 119 |
|---|---|
| Gulangyu branch, Xiamen First Hospital | 60 Fujian Road, Gulangyu · 0592-2063549 |
| Banks (on the island) | Longtou Road — CCB and ABC branches, both with ATMs · 0592-2065470 |
| Post office | 102 Longtou Road — the place to post your postcards |
| Ferry tickets | Official Xiamen Ferry service only, in real name with passport; no walk-up |
| Combo sight ticket | About ¥100, covering Sunlight Rock, Shuzhuang Garden and the museums |
| The sea | Watch the tide on the rocks; do not swim out far, and stay clear of the reef at low water |
| Cash & cards | Cards and mobile pay work in most shops; carry a little cash for small stalls |
Tips
The island caps daily arrivals and tickets are bought by passport, so nothing is available on the day in peak season. Book as soon as you have dates, and check the last ferry time for that day.
From mid-morning to late afternoon Gulangyu belongs to the day-trippers. Sleep over and you get the empty early morning and the quiet late evening, which is a completely different island.
There are no cars or porters, and the guesthouses are up lanes and steps. A backpack beats a suitcase here; leave the big bag at your Xiamen hotel if you can.
Buy postcards anywhere, but post them at the island post office on Longtou Road, where a stamp is the normal price. Shops offering to mail them for you charge far more.
The ¥100 combo covers the main sights and saves queuing at each. Start from Longtou Road near the ferry, then work north first, away from the crowd before you circle back.
The seafront rocks are lovely and the tide comes in fast. Stay within sight of the steps, do not wander out along the reef, and keep an eye on children near the water.
Background
Gulangyu is a 1.87 km² island in the mouth of the Jiulong River, just off the southwest of Xiamen and facing the islands of Kinmen across the water. There is no traffic of any kind — even bicycles and motorbikes are banned for all but service vehicles — which is unusual for a place with this many visitors, and is the single thing that shapes the experience of it.
The climate is the same subtropical one as Xiamen: warm and humid, averaging around 21°C, with rain from May to August and a handful of typhoons a year, mostly from July to September. Winter is mild but can feel cool indoors, because there is no central heating. Greenery is everywhere — banyans, palms, bougainvillea and orchids.
Gulangyu's modern shape was set in 1842, when the Treaty of Nanjing opened Xiamen to foreign trade and the foreign community settled on this island rather than in the city. Thirteen countries established consulates; merchants, missionaries and speculators followed, building the villas, churches, schools and hospitals that give the island its odd, half-European look. In 1903 it became a formal international settlement, a 'public concession' run by its own council.
Alongside the traders came the churches, and the churches brought music — organs, choirs and piano lessons — and Gulangyu began turning out professional musicians at a rate far beyond its size. It has produced a striking number of concert pianists and is the only place in China with both a piano museum and an organ museum; the ferry pier itself is shaped like an open piano lid. That, and the cats, and the quiet lanes, are what people mean when they call it the island of music.
Travel with them
Not guides — a film, two books and a song made here or about here, that show the island the way the people who love it see it.
Dir. Han Yan, 2012
A gentle romance about a sick young woman and an old schoolmate who encourages her to dance, shot over more than a month in Xiamen and on Gulangyu. The director called the city his travelling companion; the island's lanes and seafront are almost a character in it.
Shu Ting
The poet Shu Ting, who grew up on Gulangyu, wrote this as a memoir of the island — its animals, its trees, its family stones and its slow pace. It opens with her asking her grandmother why she was born here, and the answer: 'God's will.' The single best book about the place.
Air and his wife
A photographer-and-writer couple who lived on the island for years, recording its alleys, its villas and its corners in pictures and prose. It is the book that made Gulangyu a destination for a generation of Chinese travellers, and it reads like a long, unhurried walk.
Zhao Yiwei
A warm, leisurely song written for the island, from the album that shares its name — summer as the longest journey of the year, and the sound of wandering Gulangyu with no plan at all. A good thing to have playing as you land at the piano-shaped pier.
The questions visitors ask us most about Gulangyu, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Only by ferry, and only from Xiamen — and yes, you must book. The island caps daily arrivals, so tickets are bought in real name with your passport through the official Xiamen Ferry service, and there is no walk-up option. Day crossings leave from the Xiagu Pier at the International Cruise Centre; from about 5:30pm the service shifts to the downtown Lundu Pier for the night crossing. Book days ahead in peak season.
Yes, if you time it. Midday it is a crush of tour groups funnelled down Longtou Road; early morning and after the last ferries it becomes one of the most atmospheric places in China. The fix is simple — stay a night on the island, or arrive at opening and leave on the last boat.
The ferry is about ¥35–50 return and the combo ticket about ¥100, which covers Sunlight Rock, Shuzhuang Garden with the piano museum, the organ museum, Haoyue Garden and more. Individual sights run ¥30–60. Food, cafés and guesthouses on the island cost more than the same things in Xiamen.
You can — the crossing is only about 20 minutes and a full day is enough for the main sights. But the island's real character only shows once the day-trippers leave, so an overnight is worth rearranging for. If you only have one day, take the first ferry out and the last one back.
Street food along Longtou Road: peanut-and-sesame mochi, shark-ball fish soup, pineapple cakes and coconut pies, and fresh-squeezed juice. Beyond snacks, go off Longtou Road — the small local kitchens and seafood houses do better food than the tourist cafés, and at lower prices.
No. The island is car-free and bicycle-free except for a few service vehicles, so you walk everywhere or take the electric shuttle that loops the 6 km circuit. That is exactly why it feels the way it does — leave the wheels on the Xiamen side.
March to May and October to November, the same as Xiamen. Avoid the National Day and Spring Festival holidays if you can — the capped ferry sells out and the lanes are at their fullest. Summer is hot and typhoon-prone; winter is mild and much calmer.
One night is the sweet spot: you arrive, see the sights in the afternoon, and then get the early morning and the late evening to yourself, when almost everyone else has gone. Two nights lets you skip the combo ticket entirely and just wander, which is really the point.
Plan this trip
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Yesanpo
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Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Xi'an
City guide · 14 tours
Thirteen dynasties of emperors, a terracotta army buried for 2,200 years, and a walled city you can cycle in 100 minutes.
Qinghai
City guide · 11 tours
China's high-altitude blue heart: a salt lake you can walk on, a 3,200-metre sea, and yak butter tea at the roof of the world.
Tibet
City guide · 11 tours
A plateau the size of Western Europe where the sky starts at your feet, prayer flags carry the wind, and the roads run past 8,000-metre peaks.
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