City guide · Guizhou
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.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
I had spent too long in the concrete of the city, or maybe I was just tired of the noise. Qiandongnan felt like the cleanest patch of ground I had left in my head — the wooden houses, the green river, the old people sitting on the steps doing nothing in particular.
August, 'A Self-Drive Through Qiandongnan, Guizhou'
I fell asleep in a room by the river in Zhenyuan and a freight train went over the elevated track across the water, drawing a line of light through the dark. It looked exactly like the train in Spirited Away.
A traveller's note on Zhenyuan
Qiandongnan is the kind of place you arrive at half-expecting a theme park and leave wishing you had booked two more days. The villages are real: wooden stilt houses packed shoulder to shoulder against the slope, smoke drifting from the kitchens, old men carrying hunting rifles in the Biasha Miao village and Dong choirs rehearsing polyphonic songs in the drum towers at Zhaidang. Nothing here is staged for you, which is exactly why it stays with you.
The terrain does the storytelling. Qiandongnan covers 30,337 square kilometres of it, ridgeline after ridgeline dropping from 2,178 metres at the highest pass down to 137 metres where the rivers cut through, which is why locals describe it as nine parts mountain, half a part water, half a part field. Three rivers — the Qingshui, the Wuyang and the Duliu — run roughly parallel across the north, centre and south, and every old town in the region sits on one of them.
What surprises most first-timers is the scale of the living culture. More than 80 percent of the region's four million people belong to minority groups, with Miao and Dong as the two main threads and smaller communities of Shui, Bouyei, Gelao and Yao scattered between. Festivals run to more than 200 a year, which is why Qiandongnan has picked up the nickname 'the land of a hundred festivals' — if your dates are flexible, build the trip around one.
Qiandongnan
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
More than a thousand wooden stilt houses climb the hillside above the Bai Shui River, home to the biggest Miao settlement anywhere in the world. The view from the platform opposite is the shot everyone comes for, and at night every house switches on its lights until the whole valley looks like a spilled jar of stars. Entry is CNY 100, or CNY 50 with a student card.
Zhaoxing's five drum towers and wind-and-rain bridges sit in a mountain basin with a stream running straight through the middle, all built from fir with small grey tile roofs. But the real soul of the region is in Zaidang, 25km from Rongjiang, where the Dong Grand Song — a polyphonic choir with no conductor and no instruments — is sung in its purest, most goosebump-raising form.
Built along the Wuyang River, Zhenyuan's old town wraps around the water in a curve that looks like a yin-yang from above, packing Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist temples into one cliff face at Qinglong Cave. Walk the stone lanes, count the old wharves and docks, then watch the whole place light up after dark.
Every adult man in this Miao village still carries a matchlock rifle, and the community practises tree burial — the dead are laid in the forest, never in the ground. It is genuinely one of the strangest and most photogenic places in Guizhou, and yes, you can take photos, but ask first.
The terraces around Tang'an and Jiabang stack up the slopes like mirrors, especially in backlight, with stilt houses scattered between them. Down in the villages, Miao embroidery, batik and silverwork are still made by hand — a single embroidered sleeve panel can hold a dozen techniques that UNESCO lists as intangible heritage.
Itinerary
The greatest hits at an honest pace — one Miao mega-village, one Dong town, one gun tribe. Best done by private car or hired driver, because public buses eat your daylight.
Take the train from Guiyang to Zhenyuan — about 4 hours, or just 1 hour if you are coming from Kaili. Drop your bags and spend the afternoon walking the old town lanes and the riverside, then climb Qinglong Cave (CNY 60, open 08:00–16:00) before the light goes.
Stops: Zhenyuan Old TownQinglong CaveWuyang River
Roughly 2.5 hours by road. Arrive before lunch, then spend the afternoon crisscrossing the lanes and climbing to the viewpoint opposite the main village. Stay the night — the illuminated hillside is the entire point. Buses run Kaili–Xijiang at 09:30, 10:30, 12:30, 14:30 and 16:00, about 13.5 CNY and one hour.
Stops: Xijiang Qianhu Miao VillageViewpoint platformYoufang Street
A slow morning for the market and the embroidery shops, then take the 13:30 or 15:30 bus back to Kaili and connect to the high-speed rail. If you have a spare half-day, detour to Langde for a smaller, less commercialised Miao village.
Stops: Xijiang morning marketKailiLangde Miao Village
For travellers who want the Grand Song, the drum towers and the riflemen. Fly or drive into Liping and work west — this is the most rewarding route in the region and the least crowded.
Fly into Liping (airport code HZH, direct flights from Guiyang and Guilin; the shuttle from Liping Hotel square takes about 20 minutes). From Liping buses to Zhaoxing run roughly hourly. Check in, then walk the five drum towers and the two streams that cut through the village.
Stops: LipingZhaoxing Dong VillageZhaoxing drum towers
The classic hike: follow the stone flagstone path upstream on the right bank, the old villagers' route, past Xiage village and up through the terraces to Tang'an. About 3 hours at an easy pace. Come back by road bus for CNY 3 rather than attempting the stream descent — there is no trail and it is genuinely dangerous.
Stops: XiageTang'an Dong VillageTang'an rice terraces
If you have the time, push on to Zaidang near Rongjiang — 25km out on a rough road, and worth every bump for the Grand Song. Otherwise spend the day in Zhaoxing: coffee at the guesthouse terraces, the market, and one last long lunch before the bus to Liping or Congjiang.
Stops: Zaidang Dong VillageRongjiangZhaoxing market
Sights
Miao village · CNY 100
Over a thousand stilt houses stacked up a hillside above the Bai Shui River, making this the largest Miao settlement in China and probably the world. It is commercialised — the Pingzhai area and the viewpoint are the worst of it — but walk twenty minutes off the main drag and the original village is still there, and the residents are genuinely warm.
Tip Shoot the night panorama from the concrete apron below the wooden pavilions, not on the pavilion deck itself — the floor vibrates with every footstep and your tripod will never settle.
Temple complex · CNY 60
Not actually a cave — it is a huge cliff-hugging complex of halls and pavilions covering 20,000 square metres, where Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism share the same rock face. The Zhongyuan Cave hall is Buddhist but houses the Daoist immortal Zhang Sanfeng; the Confucian Ziyang Cave gives its best room to Laozi. It is a masterclass in Chinese religious compromise.
Tip Ignore the well-dressed men inviting you to burn incense for good fortune. Zhenyuan is one of the few places in Qiandongnan with a real tourist trap, and this is it.
Dong village · Free to walk
Five drum towers, each belonging to a different clan, plus wind-and-rain bridges and a stream running through a mountain basin. Every building is fir with small grey tiles, and the whole place is compact enough to walk in half a day. It is the transport hub and the cultural core of Dong country at the same time.
Tip Zhaoxing Hotel (CNY 288, 20% off in low season) is the plushest place in any village in the region — and it has the worst soundproofing, because it is a wooden building like everything else.
Dong village · Grand Song
Twenty-five kilometres from Rongjiang on a rough track, and the single most moving stop in the region if you care about music. The Dong Grand Song here is sung without instruments or a conductor, in layered polyphony that UNESCO protects as intangible heritage. The village also keeps the classic Dong stilt-house architecture intact.
Tip Performances are not on a fixed schedule. Ask at your guesthouse in Rongjiang the day before, and be prepared to pay a modest fee directly to the choir.
Miao village · Ancient customs
The last gun tribe of Qiandongnan — every adult man carries a matchlock rifle, and the village practises tree burial rather than earth burial. It is a genuinely old culture that has held onto its rituals, and it is on the road between Rongjiang and Zhaoxing, so it slots neatly into a driving itinerary.
Tip Pair it with Zhaoxing on the same day — Basha in the morning, Zhaoxing by late afternoon, and you have covered Miao and Dong culture in one loop.
Food
The dish that defines the region. River fish poached in a fermented tomato-and-rice broth so sour it makes your jaw ache, served with a chilli dip. Every household in Guizhou keeps a sour-soup crock; in Xijiang expect to pay around CNY 80–120 for a pot that feeds two or three. It is the single best thing you will eat here.
Beef sinew and shank from the back of the animal, chopped small and stir-fried hard with chicken pieces and dried chillies. Chewy in the best way, deeply savoury, and the chilli heat builds slowly. Order it in Zhaoxing or Rongjiang, where the beef comes off the mountain that morning.
A Miao and Dong staple: freshwater fish salted, layered with cooked rice, chilli and ginger, then sealed in a wooden barrel for months. It arrives sour, fragrant and fierce. Eat it steamed over rice — a few bites go a long way, and locals will be delighted you tried it.
Xijiang's signature breakfast and late supper. A whole chicken simmered into fresh rice porridge, then separated so the congee carries the chicken's savour and the meat carries the rice's sweetness. A whole chicken runs about CNY 100; a bowl is under CNY 15.
Zhenyuan's one true street snack, sold at a single stall on Shuncheng Old Street under a couplet that roughly translates as "rank in the nose, miraculous on the tongue." Four yuan a box, crispy outside, molten inside, and yes, it smells exactly as advertised.
Where to eat
Xijiang · home kitchen
Run by Amu, a Miao woman in her thirties who sits on the Leishan county advisory board, her house has hosted the likes of Yu Qiuyu and Lien Chan and the walls are papered with the photographs. You come for long-table rice and rice wine, poured by the bowlful while someone sings. Book ahead in high season — she seats maybe thirty.
Xijiang · viewpoint dining
Halfway up the hillside, which means you eat sitting on a beauty rail looking straight out over the stacked wooden roofs of the village. Come at dusk when the lights come on below you. The menu is plain Miao home cooking — sour soup, cured meats, stir-fried mountain greens — and none of it costs much.
Zhenyuan · sour soup specialist
A Zhenyuan institution serving the deepest, reddest sour soup in town, made with fresh vegetables and a broth that has clearly been fed for years. Excellent if you are travelling with vegetarians — ask and they will build a pot around tofu and greens instead of fish. Busy from 18:00.
Zhaoxing · cheap and cheerful
Right in the middle of Zhaoxing's main street beside the visitor centre, opposite the market. Nothing fancy: rice, a couple of wok dishes, a bowl of soup, done. If you are staying at Guesthouse Guokeju, they will also cook for you at CNY 15 a head and let you use the kitchen yourself.
Where to stay
Xijiang · the original
Opened by Liu Bin, the founder of WalkGuizhou, in 2004 — the oldest guesthouse in Xijiang and still the one everybody recommends. Sixteen twins and twelve doubles, every room with its own bathroom and 24-hour central hot water. The lobby has wifi, a small cinema room and a bar. It sits right opposite the old lusheng ground, 30 m from the Xijiang museum.
Zhaoxing · the comfortable option
By some distance the best hotel in any village in Qiandongnan — sweeping architecture at the top end of Zhaoxing with rooms looking down over the drum towers and tiled roofs. Standard rooms and suites, and it is where visiting officials and foreign delegations stay. The catch is the same as everywhere here: wooden walls, thin sound insulation. Room 205 is the one Yu Qiuyu slept in, and guests still ask for it.
Zhenyuan · riverside balcony
Eight rooms beside the Zhusheng Bridge, four of them facing the Wuyang River with private balconies. From the balcony you look straight across at the Qinglong Cave temple complex on the cliff and the old bridge itself — photographers book this place for the light at dawn and dusk. Riverside rooms cost more than street-side ones, and it is worth every yuan.
Getting around
Guiyang Longdongbao (KWE) is the gateway for almost everyone — the nearest big airport to Kaili, about 150 km from Qiandongnan. It connects directly to most major Chinese cities and sits 11 km from downtown Guiyang. From the airport, long-distance buses and the high-speed rail link carry you onward.
Guiyang is the province's rail hub, and the busy Xiangqian line threads right through Qiandongnan. Kaili station is a major stop — 25 trains a day pass through from Guiyang, tickets sell around the clock, and the ride takes under 3 hours. Zhenyuan is the other rail winner: 4 hours from Guiyang, 1 hour from Kaili, under 3 hours from Huaihua. For backpackers heading to Zhenyuan, the train is the unanimous pick.
Once you're off the rails, long-distance buses do the rest. Liping is the biggest county in Guizhou and a genuine transfer hub for Guangxi and Hunan. The Xiarong expressway is now open through Guizhou, running via Duyun, Sandu, Rongjiang and Zhaoxing — the run from Guiyang down to the Rongjiang Dong country that once took 10 hours is now about 2.
Inside Qiandongnan it's road travel all the way, and buses are the default. Zhaoxing is the fiddly one: from Congjiang there are two direct buses (07:30 and 13:00), but if you miss them, take any Congjiang–Luoxiang bus (every 30 minutes) and cover the last 7 km by minivan — CNY 3 on market days (lunar 1st and 5th), about CNY 50 to charter. From Sanjiang there are two buses to Zhaoxing (06:45 and 11:00), roughly 5 hours and about CNY 35. Liping sends a bus toward Zhaoxing about once an hour. If you'd rather not wrestle narrow, steep, rain-slick mountain roads yourself, hire a local driver — self-driving here is genuinely demanding.
Shopping
Xijiang's silversmithing is the real deal — most shop owners come from the nearby silversmith villages of Kongbai and Maliao. Ask plainly whether a piece is "pure silver" (baijiu silver, the genuine article) or "Miao silver" (usually white copper). Pure silver runs about CNY 12 per gram; anything much cheaper is suspect. Fine filigree pieces are sold by the piece, not by weight.
Shops all along Xijiang's main street sell embroidery panels, new and antique, from a few dozen yuan to tens of thousands. You won't learn to appraise them in a paragraph — buy what you like at a price you're happy with. As souvenirs go, Zhaoxing is generally a touch cheaper than Xijiang.
Butterfly Mother (蝴蝶妈妈), opposite the Qianzhiyi hostel, is a homegrown label fusing Miao motifs with modern cuts — T-shirts, hats and clothing from around CNY 10 up to CNY 100+. The embroidery shop next door specialises in embroidered shoes that work with everyday outfits.
Xifang (戏坊小店) sits about 50 metres into the old street past the wind-and-rain bridge by the Xijiang bus station, beside a tree-stump-shaped stove — easy to walk past. It's a jumble of small, genuinely fun things, some of them handmade by the shopkeeper herself. Also worth knowing: Zhenyuan's sanwei stinky tofu (CNY 4 a box) and its pickled daocai are the local edibles to carry home.
Practical
Zhenyuan is one of the few places in Qiandongnan with tourist traps, and they're religious in flavour — sites like Qinglong Cave, or semi-religious spots such as the Yan Gong by Zhusheng Bridge, where someone who looks impressively Taoist will invite you to burn incense and make a donation, at no small cost. If you're not religious, decline firmly. If you are, remember they aren't your co-religionists.
| Best time to go | Spring through autumn — from the March warm-up until the Leishan Miao New Year in November. 80% of the rain falls May–October, so pack an umbrella and expect occasional transport delays after heavy rain. Winter is cold and village heating is poor, which makes travel hard work — but you'll meet far more locals and see more unvarnished village life. Spring Festival is the traditional peak, with celebrations and folk events in the villages. |
|---|---|
| Money and ATMs | Bring CNY 600–1,000 in cash — enough to get you from anywhere in Qiandongnan back to a nearby city. Rural credit cooperatives and postal savings banks are easy to find, so a postal or rural-cooperative card is the safest bet; UnionPay cards work at many counters and in bigger hotels and restaurants. Agricultural Bank has branches in every county town; Zhenyuan and Liping also have ICBC. VISA can only be cashed at the Bank of China in Kaili, the prefecture capital. Xijiang is the only village in Qiandongnan with an ATM — postal savings and rural credit both have machines, plus an Agricultural Bank ATM inside the Qianzhiyi hostel. |
| Where to stay | Kaili, the prefecture capital, has the best range of hotels. In bigger towns like Congjiang and Rongjiang, food, lodging and hot showers are no problem — government guesthouses are a solid choice. In smaller villages you can usually find food and a bed, but conditions are basic and hot water is scarce, so be ready to rough it. In Xijiang, expect around CNY 138 for a standard room at Qianzhiyi, CNY 208 at Xijiangyue Hotel, and CNY 508 for a river-view standard at Langyuntai. In Zhaoxing, Zhaoxing Hotel's standard rooms are CNY 288 (20% off in low season) and Guokeju dorm beds are CNY 30. In Zhenyuan, a decent room runs CNY 80–120 in normal times; riverside rooms cost more than street-side, but street-side rooms are noisier. |
| Peak-season booking | All the rates above are normal-day prices. During Golden Week and public holidays they climb steeply, so phone ahead and book early. Farmstays won't guarantee a room without full prepayment — that's just how it works here. |
| What to pack | Rain gear, including covers for your backpack and camera bag. A torch and a lighter. Proper shoes — grippy, comfortable, made for mountain paths; hiking or trekking boots are ideal. A warm layer, since mountain villages run colder than the city. Anti-diarrhoea and hangover medicine whether or not you plan to drink, motion-sickness pills (if you don't need them, your travel companion will), sunscreen in summer, and mosquito repellent for village stays. For deep travel, bring a sleeping bag. |
| Health and food safety | Drink plenty of purified water and eat fresh fruit to avoid stomach trouble. At street stalls, be strict about hygiene: food cooked through, utensils sterilised, vegetables blanched. Never pick and eat wild fruit or mushrooms — poisoning is a real risk out here. |
| Phones and etiquette | China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom all have signal in towns, but coverage gets patchy in remote villages. On etiquette: Qiandongnan is Miao and Dong country, with Sui, Bouyei, Gelao and Yao communities alongside, and minorities make up more than 80% of the population. Respect local customs — not as a list of taboos, but as basic courtesy. A smile and a chat on the bus often earns you an invitation to someone's home; don't turn it down. Show real enthusiasm, because Guizhou people stay shy until the alcohol is flowing, and the warmth you put out comes back doubled. Go inside their houses and talk, rather than only pointing a lens at them — it makes for a far better trip. If you're shopping for valuables, look but don't touch, handle crafts gently, don't argue with shopkeepers or other customers, and always ask for a proper receipt; if a shop can't provide one, don't buy. |
Background
Qiandongnan covers 30,337 square kilometres — about the size of Belgium — and the old saying is "nine parts mountain, half a part field." The terrain drops from 2,178 metres at its highest point to 137 metres at its lowest, with three rivers — the Qingshui, the Wuyang and the Duliu — running parallel through the north, centre and south. That geography is the whole reason the villages survived: for centuries the only way in was a footpath, so Miao and Dong communities kept their own languages, their own weaving, their own songs. Twenty-seven nature reserves protect the original forest, and Leigongshan is a national-level one.
Before the Qin dynasty this was written off as "Nanman" — southern barbarian land. The Yuan ran it through hereditary local chiefs, the tusi system. The Ming "opened up the Miao frontier" and carved out Zhenyuan, Liping and Xinhua prefectures, which is when Han administration, garrison towns and the first wave of outside influence arrived. Everything from the Ming walls at Longli to the drum towers in Zhaoxing sits on that line between two worlds. On 23 July 1956 the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture was formally created, with Kaili as its capital — and today over 80 percent of the prefecture's four million people belong to a minority group, mostly Miao and Dong, plus Sui, Bouyei, Gelao, Yao and the still-unclassified Gejia.
Watch & read
Directed by Ning Jingwu
A Miao boy in a mountain village gets a letter from his father in Beijing saying he is building the Bird's Nest stadium for the Olympics. Nobody in the village believes it, so he bets 15 bundles of firewood and sets off to see for himself. Shot with non-professional Miao actors, 84 minutes, in Mandarin — it is the single best primer on what village life actually looks like before you walk into one.
Chinese travel guide series
The standard reference on the province, and the edition that put Zhaoxing and Xijiang on the backpacker map. Read the Qiandongnan chapter for village-by-village coverage; it is also the book that introduced most Chinese travellers to the idea that Guizhou's beauty is not a surprise but an inevitability.
Zhu Zheqin (Dadawa) and Zhaoxing village choirs
The Dong Grand Song is polyphonic, unaccompanied, sung by a choir with no conductor, and it was the first Chinese folk tradition to be listed by UNESCO. Zhu Zheqin spent years recording in these villages and folded what she heard into her album. Listen to it once before Zaidang, then hear it live in a wooden drum-tower hall with no amplification — that is the whole point of the trip.
The questions visitors ask us most about Qiandongnan, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
March to November. Spring warms up from March and the season runs through to the Leishan Miao New Year in November. About 80 percent of the annual rain falls between May and October, so bring a rain cover for your bag and camera; heavy downpours occasionally disrupt road transport. Winter is genuinely cold and village heating is basic, which makes travel uncomfortable, but you get far more unmediated contact with locals and the villages run Chinese New Year celebrations — Qiandongnan's traditional peak season.
Guiyang is the gateway, about 150 km away. Kaili, the regional capital, is the main rail stop: 25 trains a day pass through from Guiyang, tickets can be bought at Guiyang station around the clock, and the trip takes under 3 hours. If you are heading for the Dong villages around Rongjiang, the Xiarong expressway now runs through Duyun, Sandu and Rongjiang — about 2 hours from Guiyang, down from at least 10 hours. Buses are still the default for getting between towns inside the region.
Partly, yes — the Pingzhai area and the viewing platform are the most commercialised stretches. But walk 20 minutes off the main street into the upper hamlets and the village is still entirely itself: people farming, drying grain, repairing roofs. Entry is CNY 100, or CNY 50 with a student card, and the best time to photograph it is early morning before the tour groups arrive.
CNY 600–1,000 in cash is enough to get you from anywhere in the region back to a nearby city. Rural credit cooperatives and postal savings banks are easy to find, so a Postal Savings or rural cooperative card is the safest option. Every county has an Agricultural Bank of China; Zhenyuan and Liping also have ICBC. Bigger hotels and restaurants take UnionPay cards, but VISA can only be exchanged at the Bank of China in Kaili. Most villages have no ATMs at all — Xijiang is the only village in the region with one.
Rain gear including covers for your pack and camera, a torch or lighter, and proper hiking or trail shoes with grip — you will be walking stone paths and wet slopes. Mountain areas run cooler than the city, so bring a warm layer. Add diarrhoea and hangover medicine whether or not you plan to drink, motion-sickness tablets for the winding roads, sunscreen in summer, and mosquito repellent for the villages. If you plan to go deep into village stays, bring a sleeping bag.
The roads are narrow, steep and full of blind bends, which is fun but unforgiving. Slow right down for oncoming traffic, and in the rain keep below 40 km/h — the mountain surfaces get genuinely slippery. Unless you have solid mountain-driving experience, take local buses or hire a driver who knows the routes. On the Guangxi side, the 321 national road at the Boli bridge near Gao'an is a restricted bridge under repair, so large coaches cannot cross and passengers have to walk over and change vehicles; minibuses can still pass.
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China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
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.
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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