City guide · Qinghai
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.
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 got up at 4am and stood by the lakeshore at Heimahe with my jacket zipped to my chin. The wind came off the water so cold it hurt. Then the sun came up behind the mountains and the entire lake went from black to silver to a blue I have no words for. I forgot I was freezing.
From a traveller's diary, 'Wild Days at the Edge of the Sky — Qinghai Lake'
Flying into Golmud and looking down, I stopped breathing for a moment. The Gobi stretched to the edge of the horizon with no end, just two straight highway lines cutting through it. You think the whole earth is desert and wilderness, and it is terrifyingly, beautifully empty.
From a traveller's diary, 'Romantic Solitary Adventure on the Sky Road'
Most travellers treat Qinghai as a corridor — a train window between Xining and Lhasa, or a bus ride on the way to Tibet. That is a mistake. Qinghai is bigger than France and sits on a plateau averaging over 3,000 metres, and its landscapes change every hundred kilometres: blue lake, yellow rapeseed, white salt flats, grey Gobi, and green alpine meadow with yaks scattered across it like dark stones.
The province sits at the crossroads of China's west. To the east is Gansu, to the west Xinjiang, to the southwest Tibet, to the southeast Sichuan. Han, Tibetan, Hui, Tu and Salar communities live side by side here, which means a mosque with golden Tibetan finials in downtown Xining, and a Tibetan monastery in Tongren where the monks paint thangka scrolls for export across the Tibetan world. Islam and Tibetan Buddhism overlap in the same city blocks.
The reason to come is the scale. Standing at the edge of Qinghai Lake at 3,200 metres, with the far shore invisible over the horizon and the water shifting from grey to turquoise as cloud shadows move across it, is a different experience from seeing a photograph. Then you drive three hours west into salt flats where the ground crunches under your boots, and the same day ends with a bowl of thick set yogurt and skewers of lamb in a Xining food street.
Qinghai
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Chaerhan Salt Lake spreads over 5,800 square kilometres at 2,670 metres, holding enough sodium chloride to feed the entire world for 1,000 years. The 32-kilometre Wanzhang Salt Bridge is a highway with no piers and no concrete — it floats on brine, held up by nothing but crystallised salt. You can stand on a single crystal the size of your palm and it won't crack.
In July and August, over a million mu of rapeseed blossoms ring the shoreline in gold against water so blue it looks edited. The 360-kilometre ring road is a pilgrimage route for cyclists and one of China's top-level racing circuits — the Tour of Qinghai Lake runs here every July and August. Tibetan pilgrims still walk the full circumference, prostrating every few steps.
Tongren in Huangnan Prefecture is the birthplace of Regong art — thangka painting, murals, embroidery and sculpture. Visit Wutun Upper and Lower Monasteries and you walk into working studios: monks paint, sculpt and carve, and the old masters still take apprentices. The Guomari Stupa, at 33 metres the largest in the Amdo Tibetan region, took five years to build.
Heimahe sits on the southwest shore of Qinghai Lake, about 220 kilometres from Xining, and it's the single best place to watch the sun come up over the water. Stay in a lakeside tent or get your driver to leave the town before dawn — the 41-kilometre stretch of the ring road from Heimahe to Shinaihai is the most beautiful section of the whole lake.
Xining's Moshi Street and Shuijing Lane are the places to eat: set yak yoghurt so thick a spoon stands in it, hand-grabbed mutton, niangpi cold noodles, goujiaonia pancakes cooked in rapeseed oil, and sweet fermented barley. Most of it costs under CNY 20 a portion and tastes like nowhere else in China.
Itinerary
The tightest loop that still gets you the lake, the blossoms, the monastery and the sunrise — doable on public transport plus a shared car, best in mid-to-late July.
Start at Ta'er Monastery, 25 kilometres south of Xining — the birthplace of Tsongkhapa and one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school. Entry is CNY 80 and it opens 08:00–17:00. Get there early: the butter sculptures, murals and embroidered thangkas are the three things everyone comes for, and by 10am the courtyards are full.
Stops: Ta'er MonasteryGuideXining
Cross Sun and Moon Mountain (CNY 40) and the backward-flowing Daotang River, then hit the 151 Base at Erlangjian on the south shore — peak season entry CNY 100, low season CNY 50, with a CNY 10 shuttle from the gate to the water. Push on to Heimahe for the night and sleep in a lakeside tent if you can.
Stops: Sun and Moon MountainDaotang River151 BaseHeimahe
Up before dawn for sunrise over the lake, then drive the western ring road toward Bird Island — peak entry CNY 115, low season CNY 78, best from late April to May when the migratory birds arrive; by August they're gone. Continue through Gangcha and back to Xining, or loop north via Qilian and Menyuan if you have a car.
Stops: Heimahe sunriseBird IslandGangchaQilianMenyuanXining
A longer-haul version that swaps blossom fields for desert, salt and the Qaidam Basin — this one needs a car and a driver, best from June to October.
Same start as the classic loop, but keep going past Heimahe to Chaka Salt Lake, where the shallow water turns into a mirror at dawn and dusk. Overnight in Chaka town or push to Heimahe if you want the lake sunrise.
Stops: 151 BaseHeimaheChaka Salt Lake
A long driving day through genuinely empty country — this is the stretch where you understand how big Qinghai is. Arrive in Golmud, the second-largest city in the province, a place that appears out of the desert like a mirage. Eat well here: the Sichuan restaurants are the real thing, and options get thin from this point on.
Stops: ChakaGolmud
Drive out to Chaerhan, China's largest salt lake, and cross the Wanzhang Salt Bridge — a road floating on brine with no piers and no cement. If you have an extra day, the Kunlun Pass and the Tuotuo River headwaters of the Yangtze are within reach, but they need a full day and proper acclimatisation.
Stops: Chaerhan Salt LakeWanzhang Salt BridgeKunlun Pass
Sights
Monastery
The birthplace of Tsongkhapa sits in a valley 25 kilometres southwest of Xining, its white stupas and gilded roofs stacked up the hillside. This is the spiritual heart of the Gelug school and one of the largest monasteries in northwest China. The three unmissables are the butter sculptures — made by monks in freezing rooms in winter — the murals, and the embroidered thangka hangings that fill the main hall.
Tip Go on the first bus of the day. By 10am the tour groups arrive and the butter sculpture hall becomes a slow-moving queue. Photography is banned inside the main halls — leave the camera in your bag rather than risk a monk's whistle.
Lake
At 3,200 metres and 4,300 square kilometres, this is China's largest inland saltwater lake, and it changes colour hour by hour with the sky. The 151 Base at Erlangjian on the south shore is the postcard viewpoint and where every coach tour stops; the western route through Heimahe and Bird Island is quieter and better. In July and August the rapeseed fields run gold right down to the water.
Tip Skip the 151 Base if you're driving yourself — the free stretches of shoreline along the western ring road are just as pretty and there's nobody selling you an electric cart. For the full ring-road experience, look at our Qinghai Lake cycling and driving tours.
Salt lake
China's biggest salt lake, 160 kilometres long and up to 40 wide, with salt deposits 2–20 metres deep and over 50 billion tonnes of sodium chloride. The surface glitters like a mirror on a still day, and the Wanzhang Salt Bridge — a road laid straight over the brine — is the strangest piece of infrastructure you'll ever drive. Salt crystals here are hard enough to stand on; if you fall in, you can't sink.
Tip Wear sunglasses — the reflection off the salt is genuinely blinding. Bring a bottle of water to rinse your shoes afterwards; the salt gets into everything.
Sunrise spot
Heimahe is a small town on the southwest shore of Qinghai Lake, about 220 kilometres from Xining, and it's the best sunrise viewpoint on the lake. The 41-kilometre stretch of road from Heimahe to Shinaihai — known as the western ring road — is the most scenic section of the whole 360-kilometre loop, and it's where cyclists start. There are Sichuan restaurants along National Highway 109 that are better than they have any right to be.
Tip The town itself is a short drive from the water, so if you're staying in Heimahe you need to arrange with your driver to leave before dawn. The lakeside tents put you right on the shore, but they're cold and the bathrooms are basic — bring a sleeping bag liner.
Culture
Tongren in Huangnan Prefecture is the undisputed home of Regong art, and Wutun Upper and Lower Monasteries are its workshops. The Lower Monastery holds relics said to include five grains of the Buddha's hair, and the Guomari Stupa — the largest in the Amdo region at 33 metres — is covered in vivid painted hemispheres that look like inlaid gems from a distance. Rongwo Monastery, the regional Gelug centre, has a gilded 11-metre statue of Tsongkhapa.
Tip If you're here in late June, the Shaman Festival (June Assembly) fills every Tibetan and Tu village with masked dances, deity processions and drumming — it's the single best reason to time a Huangnan trip. If you want to buy a thangka, buy it here rather than in Xining; the artists are the sellers.
Food
Set firm in a bowl, almost like panna cotta, with a thin skin on top and a clean, gently sour tang — locals eat it with a spoon of sugar stirred in. It costs about 5–8 yuan a bowl and turns up everywhere from Xining's back streets to roadside stalls on the lake. Order it cold, and don't be shy about asking for the house-made version rather than the sealed supermarket pot.
Wide ribbons of steamed wheat or pea-flour noodle, dressed in chilli oil, garlic water, vinegar and a spoon of gluten, served cold. It's Xining's default breakfast and lunch snack, roughly 8–12 yuan a bowl, and the best ones are in the Mo Jia Street area. Ask for less chilli if you're not used to it — the oil is more flavour than fire.
Boiled bone-in mutton, no sauce needed, eaten with your fingers and a pinch of salt or chilli powder. This is the dish that shows off why Qinghai lamb tastes cleaner than lowland mutton — the sheep graze on high-altitude grass with wild onions. Expect around 60–90 yuan a jin depending on the cut and the restaurant.
Freshly baked nang bread pulled hot from the tandoor, torn and dipped into mutton soup, is the fastest, cheapest, most filling meal in the province — often under 20 yuan for bread plus soup. Qinghai has a large Muslim population, so Hui-run restaurants are everywhere, and they're usually the safest bet on the road.
A cloudy, low-alcohol barley spirit poured from a big jar and drunk in small cups over long toasts — the social engine of any evening with Tibetan or Tu hosts. Folklore says drink no more than two-thirds of your normal white-liquor tolerance on the plateau, and it's good advice: at 2,200 m and up, alcohol hits noticeably harder.
Where to eat
Food street
Xining's best-known eating street and the single easiest place to knock off half the province's specialities in one evening: niang pi, yoghurt, lamb skewers, sweet fermented oats and dried beef all within a few hundred metres. Go hungry, go early, and graze rather than sit down for one big meal.
Market street
The older, more local counterpart to Mo Jia Street, running behind the main drag near the centre. Half food stalls, half speciality shops — this is where you buy dried beef, goji, caterpillar fungus and barley wine to take home, and where you can still eat a bowl of noodles for under 15 yuan.
Lake stop
A string of small kitchens along National Highway 109 in the lakeside town where everyone stops for sunrise. Most are Sichuan-run, which means you get proper mapo tofu, stir-fried greens and hot soup after a cold dawn by the water — exactly what you want at 6am in thin air.
Big-city refuel
Golmud is your last real chance for a proper sit-down meal before the desert and the Kunlun passes, and the city's large migrant population means the Sichuan food here is genuinely good — better than you'd expect this far out. Eat a serious dinner here before any Chaidamu Basin leg.
Sleep
Best all-round base
The sane choice for your first and last nights: chain hotels, hostels, restaurants and bus stations all within walking distance, and easy day-trip access to Kumbum Monastery. Rooms range from 80-yuan hostel dorms to 400-yuan four-star doubles, and you can leave big luggage here while you loop the lake.
Sunrise spot
The lakeside town on the southwest shore is the classic place to sleep before a Qinghai Lake sunrise, and staying in a tent right by the water beats staying in town and waking a driver at 4am. Facilities are basic — expect shared bathrooms and no heating — but the location is the whole point.
Most comfortable, hardest to book
If you're here in May for the birds, the accommodation around Bird Island is the best on the lake — and also the most expensive and the first to sell out. Book weeks ahead if you're coming in peak bird season; outside April–August there's little reason to stay this far out.
Getting around
Almost every Qinghai trip starts at Xining Caojiabao Airport, east of the city. Beijing and Xi'an have daily flights; Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Golmud, Guangzhou, Kunming, Shenzhen and Urumqi do not fly every day, so check before you book. The airport bus costs CNY 21 to the CAAC ticket office at 34 Bayi West Road, takes about 30 minutes and is timed to arrivals; a taxi into town runs around CNY 80.
Xining sits where the Lanzhou-Qinghai and Qinghai-Tibet lines meet, so you can arrive by train direct from Lhasa, Golmud, Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Qingdao. Note that Xining main station has been closed for rebuilding; Xining West Station stands in as the temporary terminal, more than 20 km out of town, with shuttle buses meeting the trains. Golmud is the second rail hub: two trains a day leave for Xining at 07:20 and 19:30, and five trains pass through toward Lhasa between 19:30 and 08:30 the next morning.
Xining has two long-distance stations. The main one at 1 Jianguo Road (0971-7112094), about 600 m south of the railway station, handles other provinces; Xinning Road station (0971-6155795) covers Lanzhou and provincial runs to Ta'er Monastery, Gonghe, Ledu and Huangyuan. Buses are frequent and tickets are rarely tight if you buy the day before. From Xining, buses to Chaka or Wulan pass Erlangjian; the 4-hour run to Heimahe costs CNY 40, and buses to Hainan county cost CNY 18 hourly.
Outside Xining and the Hehuang valley most of Qinghai is high plateau and desert, and public transport does not reach the big sights. Chartering a car with a driver is the default — Heimahe to Shinaihai runs about CNY 150, and a day return from Xining to Riyue Mountain around CNY 80. If you self-drive, pick a solid vehicle and an experienced driver, and check road and weather reports in the rainy season, when landslides cut routes. The 360 km Lake Qinghai ring road is one of China's top cycling routes, and riders usually start at Heimahe.
Shopping
Tongren in Huangnan is Regong art country and one of the most respected sources of tangka in the Tibetan world. Real ones are painted with mineral and plant pigments that hold their colour for centuries — which is exactly why the good ones cost what they do. Buy from a painter's workshop, not a station kiosk.
Winter caterpillar fungus is Qinghai's most famous — and most counterfeited — export, sold alongside ginseng fruit, rhubarb and deer antler. Prices swing wildly by size and grade, so buy where you can see the goods graded in front of you and never from a roadside stranger. Xining's markets are the place to compare.
Dried beef, qingke barley wine and the region's dairy products travel well and make honest souvenirs. The solid set yoghurt you eat in Xining is the same one that made Qinghai famous; the dried version keeps. Xining's Mojia Street and Shuijing Lane cluster the food stalls and shops.
Xining's east side concentrates the shopping, with carpets, wool fabrics, blankets and butter sculptures among the crafts, plus Muslim and Tibetan religious goods. Golmud is not worth shopping in — locals joke that its market stock all comes from Yiwu. Save your yuan for Xining or Lhasa.
Practical
Carry anti-diarrhoea medicine such as berberine: butter tea and heavy Tibetan food don't always sit well with lowland stomachs. Book Lake Qinghai accommodation early — rooms near Bird Island are the priciest and hardest to get, and most lakeside hotels share bathrooms.
| Best months | July and August for the lake, rapeseed and Naadam; May to October for most routes; late July is peak bloom on the ring road. |
|---|---|
| Altitude | Xining sits at about 2,200 m, Lake Qinghai at 3,000 m and Tanggula Pass at 5,231 m. Take it slow on arrival. |
| Altitude prep | Consider rhodiola, drink plenty of water, avoid running, heavy meals, smoking and alcohol for the first day or two. |
| What to pack | Sun hat, sunglasses, lip balm, long sleeves and trousers, high-factor sunscreen. Bring a sweater even in midsummer. |
| Budget | Roughly CNY 4,000-5,000 for 8 days, comfortable pace, with a chartered vehicle. |
| Alcohol | Tibetan barley wine is stronger than it tastes — drink about two-thirds of your usual white-liquor limit. |
| Etiquette | In Muslim areas don't bring non-halal food or alcohol into halal restaurants, and don't waste food. Keep your butter-tea bowl about two-thirds full so it doesn't get endlessly refilled. |
Background
Qinghai is not one place but four pressed together. The east around Xining is Han, Hui and Tu farming country, green and crowded, sitting at about 2,200 m. West of that the land turns to desert and salt flats around Golmud and the Qaidam Basin. To the south lie the Tibetan prefectures of Yushu and Guoluo, source of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers. And around the lake itself you get the Amdo Tibetan grassland.
Xining was the 'lock and key of the western seas', the frontier town where the Tang dynasty and the Tibetan Tubo empire traded envoys and goods along the Tang-Tubo Road. Princess Wencheng passed through in 641 on her way to marry the Tubo king, and the story locals tell at Sun-and-Moon Mountain is that she dropped her mirror there and it split into sun and moon. Whether or not you believe it, the pass is still the psychological border between China proper and the plateau.
Before you go
Lu Chuan
Shot on the plateau at 4,500 m with almost no professional actors, this is the story of the volunteer patrols who chased poachers across the Kekexili no-man's land. Watch it before Golmud and the Tanggula Pass and those empty plains stop looking empty.
Oral tradition, Yushu and Guoluo
The world's longest epic poem, still sung by bards across Tibetan Qinghai. You do not need to read it all — a single chapter is enough to understand why Yushu calls itself the land of song and dance, and why the Gesar relics scattered around Zhiduo matter so much to the people living there.
Hui, Tu, Salar and Han singers, Xining and Hehuang
Hua'er is antiphonal mountain singing, often about love, belted out at festivals. In Golmud's昆仑 teahouses you will hear it blasted through loudspeakers at full volume along with the tea. Learn two lines and you will make friends faster than any souvenir can buy.
The questions visitors ask us most about Qinghai, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
July and August, without question. This is when the rapeseed fields around Qinghai Lake are in full yellow bloom, Xining sits at a comfortable 20°C while the rest of China swelters, and the Ring of Qinghai Lake International Cycling Race takes over the roads. June and September are quieter and still pleasant, but nights drop close to freezing. October to April is cold, many lakeside facilities shut, and the salt flats lose their mirror effect.
Not for Xining, Qinghai Lake, Chaka, Golmud or Tongren — all are open to foreign visitors without a permit. You only need a permit for areas bordering Tibet, such as Yushu and parts of Guoluo, and those must be arranged through a licensed tour operator before you arrive, usually with a guide and driver included.
There is no direct public bus to the lake's main viewpoints; the practical options are hiring a car with driver (about CNY 800–1,200 per day), joining a group tour, or cycling in stages. A bus from Xining to Chaka or Wulan passes the Erlangjian (151 Base) scenic area, about 151 km from the city. From the gate it is another 6 km to the water, served by a shuttle for CNY 10.
Yes, and it catches people who underestimate it. Xining sits at 2,200 m, Qinghai Lake at 3,200 m, and if you push on to Tanggula Pass you are above 5,000 m. Spend your first full day in Xining doing very little, skip alcohol and heavy meals for 48 hours, drink water constantly, and consider starting rhodiola tablets a few days before you fly. Walk slowly and sit down when you feel dizzy.
Sun hat, sunglasses, lip balm, long sleeves, high-SPF sunscreen and a proper windproof jacket — even in July. The plateau sun burns through cloud, and the temperature drops 10–15°C after dark. Bring layers you can shed by noon and a fleece for sunrise at the lake. A small supply of rehydration salts and stomach medicine is wise if you plan to drink yak butter tea, which does not agree with everyone.
Five days covers the classic loop: Xining, Ta'er Monastery, Qinghai Lake, Chaka Salt Lake and back. Eight days lets you add Golmud, the Kunlun Pass and the salt road west, or a detour to Tongren and Kanbula National Park. Anything under four days means you spend more time in the car than out of it.
Plan this trip
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Jiuzhaigou
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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.
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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