City guide · Xinjiang
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
We chose this route knowing it meant hardship, tears, exhaustion and legs that stopped working — and it also meant beauty. It is like standing inside an oil painting, the colours so clean and separate that it takes your breath away. I shot hundreds of frames and it made no difference: the real thing is a thousand times better than any photo.
Traveller's note, 'A Week of Self-Inflicted Suffering in Kanas'
I kept panicking that the bus would leave without me. Then I realised it just circles: ten minutes after Lotus Square we were back at Lotus Square. North Xinjiang is like that — you think you are covering ground, and the same mountains keep turning up outside the window.
Adapted from a traveller's Hong Kong–Macao diary
You start in Urumqi, a city of tower blocks sitting under the snow line of the Tianshan, and you end eleven days later having crossed a distance roughly equal to London to Istanbul. In between there is a night in Burqin eating grilled pike by the Irtysh, a morning standing above the mist on Shenxian Bay, and an afternoon on a grassland where the only sound is a horse cropping grass somewhere behind you.
The landscapes do not blend into one another here — they switch. You leave oil country, where hundreds of pump jacks nod in unison across the desert, and two hours later you are climbing into spruce forest with a river running green beside the road. Then the forest opens onto steppe, and the steppe opens onto a lake so flat and pale it looks like a sheet of metal laid on the ground.
North Xinjiang is not a comfortable trip. Drives run five to eight hours, guesthouse bathrooms are basic, and the temperature can swing from 28°C at noon to 4°C after dark — Kanas averages just 4°C across the year. But the loop rewards the effort with the kind of scale that makes photographs useless, and with Kazakh and Tuvan hospitality that is genuinely, unguardedly warm.
North Xinjiang
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Every September and October the birch and larch forests around Kanas turn gold, copper and deep red, and the lake beneath them shifts from jade to slate blue to silver depending on the light. Locals call it God's own palette, and after one morning at the Moon Bay you will agree. Go early; the tour buses arrive around 10am.
Hemu is the largest of the three remaining Tuvan villages, home to over 1,400 people who still live in log cabins half-buried in the soil to survive six months of snow. Waking to woodsmoke, mist and horses in the meadow is the single most memorable night of most North Xinjiang itineraries.
From mid-June to early July the plains around Huocheng and the 65th Regiment turn purple for kilometres in every direction, a lavender sea that makes people whisper about Provence. Even at the height of summer it is never hot here, and the air smells faintly of perfume.
Nalati has been a herding ground for centuries — braided rivers, flat valley floors, snow peaks on the southern edge and wildflowers from June to September. Yurts scatter across the green like white pearls, and the annual Nadam fair brings horse racing and wrestling to the meadow.
Herdsmen have sworn for generations that something huge drags horses into the water at Kanas, and the stories only grew after sightings hit the national press in 1980. The Tuvan elders call it the lake spirit. Stand on the Fish-Watching Pavilion and decide for yourself.
Itinerary
The classic first taste of North Xinjiang: fly or drive to Buerjin, push up to the border village of Baihaba, then work through Kanas and Hemu at the peak of the fall colour. Best from mid-September to early October, and you must book beds in advance.
Roughly 620km of highway from Urumqi to Buerjin, broken by a late-afternoon stop at the Wucaitan Rainbow Beach — the 'first beach under heaven', where the Irtysh River cuts between a bare eroded north bank and a green poplar south bank. Tickets are CNY 50 and the low sun is what makes the colours work.
Stops: UrumqiWucaitanBuerjin Night Market
Drive to Jiadengyu, the gateway to the Kanas reserve, then head to Baihaba, the frontier village on the Kazakh border. You need a border permit for this. Walk the Golden Avenue, look for the China-Kazakhstan boundary marker, and sleep either in quiet Baihaba or inside the reserve so you can catch the dawn mist at Shenxian Bay.
Stops: JiadengyuBaihabaGolden AvenueChina-Kazakhstan Boundary Marker
Ride the shuttle from the lake mouth down through the birch forest to Wolong Bay, Moon Bay and Shenxian Bay — each one a different colour of water. Climb to the Fish-Watching Pavilion (CNY 30 plus CNY 60 round-trip shuttle) for the panorama over the whole lake, then either ride or drive across to Hemu village for the night.
Stops: Wolong BayMoon BayShenxian BayFish-Watching PavilionHemu
A gentler, greener loop through the western grasslands — Sayram Lake, the Khorgos border, the lavender fields and Nalati. Ideal from June to August when the grass is high and the wildflowers are out.
Sayram Lake sits at 2,073m, roughly 30km long and 20km wide, ringed by permanent snow peaks. It is nicknamed the last tear of the Atlantic because the moist air from that ocean dies here. Wildflowers bloom right around the shoreline. Continue through the Guozigou gorge — the old 'iron gate' — and sleep by the lake or in Qingshuihe town.
Stops: Sayram LakeGuozigouQingshuihe
Morning at the Khorgos border checkpoint (bring your ID — it is checked) for the gate and boundary marker, then Huiyuan Old Town for the Ili General's Office, the drum tower and the Lin Zexu residence. In June and July the lavender fields line the road; stop at the 65th Regiment for oil and dried flowers. Finish with sunset over the Yili River bridge and dinner on Hanren Street.
Stops: KhorgosHuiyuan Old TownLavender FieldsYili River BridgeHanren Street
Drive into the Nalati grasslands, one of the four great valley grasslands of the world, then continue to Bayanbulak, China's only swan reserve, for the Swan Lake and the famous Nine Bends at sunset. Bring binoculars for the swans and a jacket for the wind.
Stops: Nalati GrasslandBayanbulakSwan LakeNine Bends
Sights
Lake · Must-see
A 2,030m-high alpine lake where the water changes colour with the season and the weather, which is why locals call it the Chameleon Lake. Around it: the Wolong Bay sandbar shaped like a sleeping dragon, the S-bend Moon Bay with its two 'fairy footprints', and the marsh flats of Shenxian Bay, best seen at dawn when mist sits on the water.
Tip The ticket is valid for two days, so you can enter multiple times — use it. Locals say the dawn mist at Shenxian Bay is worth waking for, and they are right.
Village · Autumn
The biggest of the three surviving Tuvan settlements, hemmed in between the Kanas and Hemu rivers. Log cabins stand half-sunk into the earth for warmth, roofs pitched to shed snow, and horses graze right up to the doorsteps. In autumn the surrounding forest is the single most photographed scene in North Xinjiang.
Tip Book your bed weeks ahead for late September and early October — this is the peak of the golden season and cabins sell out.
Geology · Sunset
A stretch of the Irtysh River, China's only river that flows into the Arctic Ocean, where the north bank is bare eroded yardang rock striped in ochre, red and grey, and the south bank is dense green poplar forest. The name means 'five-colour beach' and the colours only really ignite in the last hour of light.
Tip It is on the way to Kanas, so build it into your driving day rather than making a special trip — the low sun is what you are paying for.
Lake · Summer
A 2,073m alpine lake, about 30km long and 20km wide, surrounded by permanent snow mountains that mirror in the still water. In summer the shoreline is a carpet of wildflowers in red, yellow, blue and purple. In winter the lake freezes and the oval surface sits in the snowfield like a jade in white silk.
Tip Sleep by the lake if you can. The light at dusk and dawn over the snow peaks is the whole reason to come.
Grassland · Wildlife
Nalati is a classic river-valley grassland with braided streams, flat meadows and snow peaks on the south edge, plus the Nadam fair each summer. Continue to Bayanbulak, China's only swan reserve, where the Kaidu River snakes through the marsh in the famous Nine Bends, a favourite sunset viewpoint for photographers.
Tip Bayanbulak is high and windy even in midsummer — a fleece at sunset is not optional.
Food
Rice steamed with mutton, carrot and onion in lamb fat until every grain shines. Once the dish you served a guest of honour; in Urumqi it arrives on a plate for about CNY 25–35, and the sweet version with raisins and apricots is worth trying once.
Invented in Shawan County on the old G312 by a cook who was told his noodles were too dry, and now the signature dish of the whole region. Chicken braised with potato, green pepper and dried chilli, with hand-pulled belt noodles dropped in at the end. Order it for two people minimum; it's a CNY 80–120 plate.
Cumin, chilli and fat dripping onto charcoal — the reason the night markets exist. Skewers run CNY 5–10 depending on size. In Urumqi's Wuyi Xingguang night market the grill masters say the best time to eat them is after midnight, when the coals are at their hottest.
Naan is the travel food of the north: baked in a tandoor with sesame and onion, crisp or soft, and light enough to carry a few in your pack for the long driving days. Youtazi is the flaky, tower-shaped steamed bread pulled apart at breakfast with milk tea.
Buerjin's night market grills pike (gou yu) from the Irtysh — the only river in China that drains into the Arctic Ocean. Prices go by size: roughly CNY 10 for two small ones, CNY 20–25 for a single larger fish. Wash it down with kawas, a fizzy, lightly alcoholic honey-beer brewed locally from corn, barley and hops.
Where to eat
Urumqi · night market
The biggest open-air food street in the city and the single best introduction to northern Xinjiang cooking. Come hungry and order across several stalls rather than committing to one. Everything is grilled in front of you, so point at what looks good.
Urumqi · food district
A cross-shaped cluster around the Shanxi Lane junction holding three of the city's biggest food halls — the Grand Bazaar banquet hall, the Erdaoqiao food theatre and the Minjie food house. Eat here if you want Uyghur cooking with music and dance rather than a plastic stool on the pavement.
Urumqi · big-plate chicken
Ask a local where to eat da pan ji and they will say "the blood bank" — a cluster of restaurants around the blood-donation centre that earned the nickname for serving the dish cheap and well. The chain has grown to three branches, but the original cluster is still the one people mean.
Buerjin · grilled river fish
The last proper meal before you climb into Kanas, and by common consent the best grilled fish in the north. It runs late — lights still blazing at midnight — and doubles as the town's souvenir strip, so you can eat and buy dried fish to take home in one stop.
Where to stay
Urumqi · budget
The city has a dense run of international youth hostels and they double as the best information desks in the region — owners are outdoors people who will tell you which roads are open, find you a driver and match you with other travellers to split a car. Book ahead for the late-September and October peak.
Buerjin · family-run
Buerjin is the mandatory staging point before Kanas, so rooms fill fast and prices climb through autumn. Family guesthouses and the town's youth hostels are the value play; some take volunteers on a room-and-board basis in season.
Kanas · inside the reserve
Most hotels on the lake shore were closed to protect the reserve, so the choice is a herder's wooden cabin inside the park or a comfortable hotel outside it. If you want to see the dawn mist over Shenxian Bay, you have to sleep inside — the牧民之家 cabins in the old and new Tuvan villages are the affordable way.
Getting around
Almost every North Xinjiang trip starts at Urumqi Diwopu International Airport, 18 km northwest of the city centre and the western hub that feeds a dozen smaller airports across the region. From there you can hop straight up to Kanas or over to Yining without ever touching a highway.
Xinjiang has three main lines — Lanzhou–Urumqi, Turpan–Kashgar and the western Urumqi–Alashankou stretch. Trains reach the edge of the north but rarely the scenery, so you'll still switch to a bus or car at the end. Book early; the useful services sell out days ahead.
This is how North Xinjiang is actually done. Distances are brutal — the classic loop runs about 3,036 km — but the desert, gobi and poplar forest between the postcard stops exist only from a car window. Bring an SUV; the surfaces change fast and some sections are rough.
Inside Kanas everything moves by shuttle, horse or foot, and the shuttles are the only way to cover the lakeside stops in a day. In Urumqi itself the bus network is cheap and dense, with three BRT lines that run until midnight.
Shopping
Burqin's night market sells the pike, flatfish, wuchanghe and small whitefish pulled from the Irtysh — China's only river that drains into the Arctic Ocean. Dried and vacuum-packed, they travel far better than any souvenir and cost a fraction of what you'd pay in a city. Buy after 22:00 when the stalls are roaring.
Up in the mountains you'll find honey and milk products sold straight from the herders, including 'naogeda' — the hard, tangy dried cheese curds Kazakhs and Mongols have eaten for centuries. Sweet and sour versions exist; the sour one is the real thing and keeps for months.
Every Kazakh man carries a small folding knife, used for everything from skinning to saddle repair, and the decorated versions make genuinely useful gifts. Alongside them you'll find embroidered hats — the four-cornered 'duoba' — and felt work; prices are moderate and quality is honest.
Urumqi is where you stock up: locals buy raisins and almonds at Hongqi Market rather than the tourist stalls, where quality is reliable and prices fair. Erdaoqiao Bazaar is the spectacle, with craftsmen working in the open — but it runs a little dearer. Xinjiang carpets, glossy and vividly patterned, are the heavyweight purchase. Don't haggle unless you intend to buy; walking away after naming a price reads as rude here.
Practical
One rule that catches people out: prices in the parks are set for a captive audience, so stock up on naan, water and snacks in Burqin or Urumqi before you head up. Naan is light, filling and keeps for days — the single best thing to carry. If you want the mist over Shenxian Bay at dawn, you have to sleep inside the park, and the herders' family guesthouses (CNY 50–100 per person, CNY 10 extra for a hot shower) are the cheapest way to do it. For a custom route that stitches Urumqi, Kanas, Hemu and the Ili grasslands together without the driving, our Xinjiang private tour packages handle the permits and the long transfers.
| Money | Budget CNY 4,000–6,000 for a full North Xinjiang loop. Transport eats most of it. Kanas is where prices bite: a bowl of noodles with vegetables is CNY 40, a plate of shredded pork with vegetables CNY 100, a bowl of milk tea at least CNY 10, and a plate of noodles at the Blue Lake restaurant CNY 45. Guesthouse standard rooms in Kanas rise about CNY 200 a night from August to October. |
|---|---|
| Entry tickets | Kanas CNY 150 in peak season (1 Jul–30 Sep), CNY 80 in shoulder season (15 Apr–30 Jun and 1–31 Oct), free in winter (1 Nov–30 Mar); one ticket is valid for two days with multiple entries. Hemu CNY 60 plus CNY 120 shuttle and CNY 20 village maintenance fee. Wucaitan CNY 50. Fish-Viewing Pavilion CNY 30 plus CNY 60 shuttle. Tuva home visit CNY 50, bonfire party CNY 40 (CNY 120 at Jiadengyu). |
| Best season | June to October. Lavender in Ili blooms in June, the grasslands are fattest in July and August, and Kanas turns gold in September and October — that last window is the one photographers plan their year around. Leaf colour shifts a little earlier or later each year, so ask locally before booking. Kanas averages just 4°C annually: mornings want a down jacket, afternoons want a T-shirt. |
| Border permit | Baihaba sits on the Kazakhstan border and needs a border pass on top of your ID — arrange it before you travel, not at the checkpoint. Carry your passport or ID at all times; the Horgos checkpoint checks everyone, and police stops on night roads out of Urumqi are routine. |
| Safety and etiquette | North Xinjiang is generally the safest part of the region and most travellers meet nothing but hospitality. Dress and behave modestly, ask before photographing people, and avoid political and religious arguments. Pork is rare outside Tuva households and best not discussed. Nearly every herder you meet is a Kazakh or Tuva family who will offer you milk tea whether or not you asked. |
| Food you shouldn't skip | Lamb skewers, hand-grabbed rice, laghman noodles, baked samsa, naan, naan stuffed with meat, whole roast lamb, lamb offal, youtazi (steamed layered buns), big-plate chicken, Ili smoked horse sausage and smoked horse meat, sour milk curds and milk tea. Urumqi's Erdaoqiao food quarter and the Wuyi Starlight night market are the two easiest places to eat your way through the list — the best skewers come out after midnight. |
| Connectivity and health | Signal is weak or absent in parts of the parks, so don't rely on your phone for navigation or meeting points. Urumqi's hospitals are well equipped (emergency 0991-2833000; People's Hospital 0991-8564761), but Kanas has only a village clinic. Carry stomach medicine, cold medicine and rehydration salts; the altitude is modest but the temperature swings are not. ATMs and banks are everywhere in the cities and in Burqin, and nowhere in the parks. |
Background
North Xinjiang is Kazakh and Tuvan country. The Kazakhs you meet on the grassland are, in the old phrase, one happy person in every forty — a proverb they'll happily repeat over a bowl of kumis. In the Kanas valley the Tuvans, a Mongolian-speaking people, live in log cabins half sunk into the earth to survive a snowbound winter that can run six months. Around 1,400 Tuvans live in Hemu, the largest of the three remaining Tuvan villages.
They keep three big festivals: Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year, when the whole village races horses and wrestles on the ice), the Oboo festival in June when everyone ties a cloth strip to the sacred tree, and Zurukh — the 'winter-entering' festival on the 25th day of the 10th lunar month, when herders come down from the mountains, burn juniper and light butter lamps. If your dates land on any of them, rearrange your trip around it.
Kanas Lake has had a monster story for as long as anyone can remember. A herder supposedly left a dozen horses grazing by the shore, fell asleep, and woke to find the water stained red and hoofprints scattered on the bank. In 1980 the sightings reached the pages of Guangming Daily, and in June 2012 CCTV's flagship news programme aired footage of something long and dark moving under the surface.
Science says the 'monster' is almost certainly a taimen — a giant freshwater salmonid that can genuinely reach two metres. The old people by the lake insist it's a lake spirit, a protector. Either way, the second bay of the lake is where the sightings cluster, and a boat trip out there costs 120 yuan for about 40 minutes.
Reading & watching
Marco Polo
The chapters on the 'Province of Tenduc' and the Silk Road towns describe a desert-and-grassland world that has changed less than you'd think. Read it on the long Urumqi–Burqin drive and the landscape starts talking back.
Traditional, Altai region
A thousand-year-old herding song about men with bows on their backs, skiing through the larch forest — proof that this corner of the Altai is one of the earliest places humans ever strapped boards to their feet. Ask a Tuvan elder about the 'suur' reed flute; one old man by the lake is said to be the last who can still play it.
CCTV
The four minutes that restarted the lake-monster argument nationwide. Watch it the night before your boat trip and you'll spend the whole 40 minutes scanning the water like everyone else on board.
The questions visitors ask us most about North Xinjiang, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
June to October. June is for lavender around Yining and wildflowers on the grasslands; July and August give you the fullest, greenest steppe; late September and early October are the golden weeks at Kanas and Hemu, and also the busiest. Winter (November to March) means free Kanas tickets, snow up to a metre deep and horse sleds, but many facilities close.
For the full loop, yes — distances between sights are long, buses are infrequent and some stretches have no public transport at all. A 4WD with driver runs about CNY 900–1,200 per day including fuel, tolls and the driver's food and lodging; a sedan is around CNY 450. If you only want Kanas, you can take a flight to Kanas Airport and use the shuttle buses instead.
Plan on CNY 5,000–6,000 per person for the classic loop, with transport eating the largest share. Flights within Xinjiang are expensive — Urumqi to Kanas is about CNY 1,260 full fare for a 60-minute hop, Urumqi to Yining about CNY 1,150 — and they do not run daily. Budget accommodation runs CNY 40–100 per person in hostels and family guesthouses.
Yes. North Xinjiang is generally considered safer and more relaxed than other parts of the region, and the Kazakh, Tuvan and other minority communities you meet on the loop are famously hospitable — there is a Kazakh saying that one in every forty people is a god of happiness. Carry your passport at all times, avoid discussing sensitive political topics, and remember that Baihaba is a border area requiring a permit and ID checks.
Layers, and more than you think. Bring a windproof shell or down jacket, fleece, T-shirts, thermals, hiking boots and a hat, plus sunglasses, gloves (you will want them for autumn photography) and sunscreen. Add stomach medicine, cold medicine and rehydration salts. If you are self-driving, also carry a tow cable, spare tyre, jack, engine oil and a 12V pump — there are no petrol stations on the Kanas road, so fill up in Burqin.
Eleven days for the full Urumqi–Burqin–Kanas–Hemu–Sayram Lake–Yining–Nalati–Bayinbuluke loop. If you have a week, cut the Ili Valley and do Urumqi, Wucaitan, Burqin, Baihaba, Kanas and Hemu only. Add two more days for Zhaosu and Kalajun, or one day for Turpan or Tianchi on the way back.
Plan this trip
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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.
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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