City guide · Sichuan
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
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 came in early spring. The grass hadn't grown, the flowers hadn't opened, the mountains were still bare — just like the inside of my head at the time. But everything was quietly sprouting. I can imagine late spring here: azaleas out, wildflowers everywhere, green trees, rivers running, butterflies in clouds, colour on every side. One day I'll bring someone back for the autumn.
songuestc, 'Seeking the Heart of Tibet, 2011'
We'd finally reached the 99 bends I'd been thinking about for so long. The danger isn't the surface — it's perfect tarmac. It's that on every hairpin you can't see a thing coming the other way, and what's beyond the bend is anyone's guess. Local drivers never bother honking. We crawled around each one, and before we could breathe, there was the next.
kidonly, Sichuan–Tibet Highway journal
There are thousands of roads in the world, and only this one makes your pulse jump the moment you hear its name. The Sichuan–Tibet Highway runs between Chengdu and Lhasa straight through the Hengduan Mountains, where the altitude swings and the odd climate throw up a run of landscapes and plant species you simply don't get anywhere else. The driving is hard. The scenery is the finest on earth.
You start in Chengdu, the old heart of Sichuan and the capital of Shu culture, then roll west through Kangding of the love-song fame, Xinduqiao with its photographer's light, Litang the world's highest town, the vast grasslands of Bangda, the impossibly coloured Rawok Lake, and finally Lhasa. On the way you cross the Jinsha, Lancang, Nu and Yarlung Tsangpo rivers and climb Erlang, Zheduo, Nyainqentanglha and a dozen other ranges. Big mountains, big water, all of it through the windscreen.
You can do it by plane, car or bicycle. The Tibetans have done it for centuries the original way — prostrating themselves the whole distance, spending years on a single pilgrimage. What is a scenic highway to us is a walking prayer route to them. Whatever it turns out to be for you, get on the road: the answer only shows up out there.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
National Highway 318 runs over 5,000 km from Shanghai to Zhangmu, and the Sichuan–Tibet stretch is its crown jewel. You climb from 500 m at Chengdu to 3,600 m at Lhasa, crossing the Hengduan ranges, four of China's ten most beautiful mountains, and the headwaters of the Jinsha, Lancang, Nu and Yarlung Tsangpo rivers — all without ever leaving the tarmac for long.
National Geographic's "Ten Most Beautiful Mountains of China" list puts four of them on or beside this road: Namcha Barwa (No. 1), visible from the Sejila Pass above Nyingchi on a clear day; Gongga Shan (No. 2), glimpsed from the Zheduo Pass south of Kangding; the three sacred peaks of Daocheng Yading south of Litang; and Meili Snow Mountain at the Sichuan–Yunnan junction near Deqin. Weather decides everything — build in buffer days if summits matter to you.
Mugecuo near Kangding (entry CNY 120, plus CNY 100 for the shuttle and CNY 70 for the boat), Basum Tso in Nyingchi, and Rawok Lake in Baxoi all sit right beside the highway. Rawok is the easiest win: pull over at Rawok Bridge, drive 8 km up the dirt track toward Zayu, and you have Upper Rawok Lake to yourself before the tour vans arrive.
Poor roads kept Tibet closed to casual travel for decades, and that edge has not fully worn off. You pass through Kham Tibetan towns where the monastery — Litang's Changqingchun Ke'er Monastery, the largest in southern Garze — is the centre of life, and where the old tea-horse caravan routes still shape where people live and trade.
The Nujiang 72 Turns drop 2,100 m in about 20 km of hairpins with no sightline around the bends, and the Tongmai Gorge section is regularly wiped out by landslides. It is dangerous enough that drivers treat it as an achievement. Go with someone who has driven it before, and never rush a blind corner.
Itinerary
The most photographed slice of the route, done at a pace that still lets you stop. You gain altitude fast — 500 m to 4,100 m in two days — so keep day one short and hydrated.
Leave Chengdu early — the 6–7 hour run only gets interesting after the 4 km Erlang Shan Tunnel, where the plateau suddenly replaces the Sichuan basin. Your first real stop is the Luding Bridge, the 1706 iron-chain suspension bridge, then on to Kangding, the old tea-horse town of 'Dajianlu' at 2,560 m. Walk the Anjue Temple (free, at Jiangjun Bridge) and eat huang liangfen for CNY 3.5 a bowl. Sleep here or push on to Xinduqiao if you have daylight.
Stops: Erlang Shan TunnelLuding BridgeKangdingAnjue Temple
Cross Zheduo Pass (4,298 m) — your first time above 4,000 m, and where altitude sickness tends to introduce itself. Xinduqiao is 2 hours from Kangding and worth a slow morning: the 'photographer's paradise' is unimpressive in the town itself but extraordinary 10 minutes out, where poplars, streams and scattered Tibetan farmhouses catch the light. Continue over the 4,400 m Gaoersi Pass, drop to Yajiang at 2,500 m, then over the 4,600 m Jianziwan and Kazila passes to Litang, the 'world's highest town' at 4,014 m.
Stops: Zheduo PassXinduqiaoGaoersi PassYajiangJianziwan PassLitang
Before leaving Litang, walk the circuit at Changqingchun Ke'er Monastery (free, open all day) and look for the Gelug murals, then drive out past the Maoya grasslands, where nomad tents dot the valley 30 km west of town. The road crosses Haizi Pass and drops hard — Batang sits at around 2,000 m, warm, green and full of orchards. Check into a guesthouse on Jinxianzi Avenue (singles from CNY 30), order zhazha noodles for CNY 7–15, and sleep well at low altitude.
Stops: Changqingchun Ke'er MonasteryMaoya GrasslandsHaizi PassBatangKangning Temple
The three days that decide whether you love this road. Long driving, 9–10 hour days, a border crossing, the 72 Turns and the Tongmai Gorge — but also the scenery everyone comes for.
Cross the Jinsha River bridge out of Batang and you are officially in Tibet. Markam is the first Tibetan county town and the junction where the Yunnan–Tibet road splits off toward Deqin and Meili Snow Mountain — resist it if you are on a schedule. From Bangda (4,300 m), climb Yela Pass and start the descent: the 72 Turns drop from 4,600 m to the Nujiang bridge at 2,200 m in roughly 20 km of blind hairpins. Local drivers do not honk; you should. Sleep in Rawok if you can, otherwise Baxoi. Rawok's dawn and dusk are the payoff.
Stops: Jinsha River BridgeMarkamBangdaYela PassNujiang 72 TurnsRawok Lake
Drive 8 km up the dirt track at Rawok Bridge for Upper Rawok Lake before breakfast, then continue west. This is the day you cross between the Nyainqentanglha, Himalaya and Hengduan ranges — snow peaks, forest, glaciers and the roaring Parlung Tsangpo the whole way. The Midui Glacier is a signposted detour but requires a hike in. Bomi is small, cheap and the trailhead for the six-day Medog trek.
Stops: Upper Rawok LakeMidui GlacierParlung Tsangpo RiverBomi
The Tongmai Gorge is the single most dangerous stretch on the route — narrow, landslide-prone, and terrifying when you meet a truck. Take it slowly and do not pass on blind corners. You emerge at Lulang, where the forest opens up and stone-pot chicken (shiguoji) is the local specialty and worth the stop. Climb Sejila Pass for the Namcha Barwa view if the sky cooperates, then drop into Bayi, Nyingchi's new town — after a week of dusty county seats it feels almost too modern.
Stops: Tongmai GorgeLulangSejila PassNamcha Barwa viewpointBayi (Nyingchi)
Sights
High-altitude lake
A 26 km drive from Kangding brings you to a lake that changes colour with the hour and the season — locals say 'one day, four faces.' The boat dock sits below Rhino Peak on the left and a ridge the shape of a crouching tiger on the right. Riding is available along the shore, and on clear days you can walk up for a distant glimpse of Gongga Shan.
Tip It is expensive by Sichuan standards and there is no shortage of lakes further west. If you are short on time or budget, skip it and save your money for Basum Tso or Rawok.
Gelug monastery
The largest monastery in southern Garze, built up a hillside with tiered halls that give it a genuinely commanding presence — it ranks with the three great monasteries of Lhasa in Gelug tradition. The murals are the highlight, and the treasury holds centuries of Buddhist texts and relics. Every Tibetan New Year, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the monastery hosts a butter-sculpture festival.
Tip Dress modestly, walk clockwise around the halls and ask before photographing anyone. Litang sits at 4,014 m — walk slowly, the stairs are steeper than they look.
Plateau grassland
About 30 km west of Litang the road follows the Wuliang River valley and opens onto a vast grassland ringed by snow peaks and big sky. It is not as wide as the Inner Mongolian steppe, but the proximity of mountains makes it feel more dramatic. In summer the wildflowers are thick enough that rolling in the grass leaves you smelling of them.
Tip This is a good place to break the long Litang–Batang day. Pull over, make tea from a thermos, and let the altitude settle for half an hour.
Lake, hot springs
Batang has over 100 lakes; Cuopu is the most beautiful, a turquoise pool ringed by dense forest and green slopes. The signature trick here is 'calling the fish' — a monk chants by the shore beneath prayer flags and the fish swarm in to be fed; put your hand in the water and they nibble your fingers. Upstream along the Baqu River is the Rekeng hot spring field, one of the three great geothermal areas of China alongside Yangbajing in Tibet and Tengchong in Yunnan.
Tip Ask the Batang tourism office about fees before you go — collection is inconsistent. The 08:00–08:30 Batang–Kangding bus passes Cuola township if you are travelling by public transport.
Lake, mountain pass
Rawok Lake is the stop people photograph most on the middle section of the highway — still, pale and backed by snow peaks, best at dawn and dusk. The 72 Turns above it are the road's most famous engineering stunt: a stack of switchbacks dropping 2,100 m from the Yela Pass into the Nujiang gorge, resurfaced in asphalt in 2010 but still dotted with blind corners. Pull over at the Yela Pass viewpoint and look back at what you just drove.
Tip Do the 72 Turns in daylight only. If you arrive late, sleep at the top and descend the next morning — the pass is not where you want to meet an unlit truck.
Food
Your last real blowout before the plateau. Chengdu hotpot is a softer, more aromatic cousin of the Chongqing original — numbing Sichuan pepper over a slow-building chilli heat. Eat it on D1 in Chengdu; from Kangding onward the food gets plainer, so order a big one now.
The cheap, fast, everywhere meal on the Sichuan half of the route. A bowl of noodles runs CNY 7–15, a plate of wontons similar. Longchao shou from Chengdu are the classic — paper-thin wrappers, rich chicken-and-pork broth.
Yak-butter tea is salty, greasy and an acquired taste, but locals swear it revives you when altitude sickness has you flat on your back. Tsampa (roasted barley flour) is eaten by hand, mixed with butter tea into a dough ball. Try it once, properly, in Litang or Markam.
Sold in strings in every market from Litang onward — chewy, salty, faintly smoky, and the single best snack to have in your bag for long driving days. Buy it fresh from a stall rather than a sealed tourist pack.
The reward after the Tongmai gorge on D6. A whole free-range chicken stewed in a carved stone pot with Tibetan medicinal herbs and mushrooms — CNY 300–500 per pot, feeds three to four, and worth every yuan after a day of white-knuckle driving.
Where to eat
Litang · Tibetan
A handsomely decorated Tibetan dining room on the second floor of the Wulianghe Hotel, and the safest place in Litang to try tuo tuo rou (chunks of boiled yak with a salt-and-pepper dip). Everything here is cooked in a pressure cooker, so order the moment you sit down and expect a wait — food simply does not cook fast at 4,014 metres.
Litang · Mixed menu
The one address in Litang where a fussy group can all find something: western food, standard Sichuan cooking and Tibetan dishes on the same menu. The owner is a walking information desk for the route ahead — ask him about road conditions before you set off the next morning. Yes, the burgers and fries come out of a pressure cooker, which is somehow part of the fun.
Batang · Noodles & snacks
Batang's eating is concentrated on the pedestrian commercial street and the southern stretch of Ankang Avenue. In the small alley on the north side of the shopping street you'll find zha zha mian — noodles and pig-trotter soup, both done well and priced at CNY 7–15. Opposite Batang Middle School near Kangning Temple there's an unnamed Sichuan noodle shop whose cold noodles and dumplings are excellent and cheaper for being off the main drag.
Markam · Noodle house
Markam's claim to culinary fame is jiajia mian, and locals say you haven't really passed through the town until you've eaten a proper bowl. The trick is the pipa rou broth — pork cured the Tibetan way in Yunnan's west and eastern Tibet — ladled over freshly boiled noodles with spring onion. Bowls are deliberately a third of normal size and refilled as you finish; a serious eater will go through eight or ten. Restaurants cluster on the main street between the county government and the bus station.
Where to sleep
Chengdu · YHA hostel
The oldest YHA hostel in Chengdu, tucked inside Kuanzhai Alley, so you step out of the door into snack stalls and little shops. Their house rule — printed on the wall — is 'no suits and ties'. It is deservedly popular; book well ahead or you'll be looking at dorms elsewhere. This is where you stage your kit, meet other people heading west and sort out a car.
Xinduqiao · Guesthouse
Set slightly higher than the town and closer to the Gongga viewing point, so on a clear morning you get both Gongga and Yala snow peaks from the doorstep. The owners rent horses, which is the easiest way to get out into the光影 fields that made Xinduqiao famous. Rooms are simple Tibetan-style, but the location is the whole point.
Litang · Budget guesthouse
The most cyclist-friendly bed in Litang. Rooms are decent, with free wi-fi, laundry and 24-hour hot showers — rare at this altitude — and the owner actively looks after people on two wheels, giving riders cheaper rates for beds and meals and helping arrange onward transport. Cyclists pay around CNY 15 per person in a two-to-four-person room. If you're driving, ring ahead; the place fills with riders in summer.
Transport
Chengdu is the starting gate, and Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CTU) is the busiest hub in western China, with domestic flights from every major city plus Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok and Singapore. The airport sits about 18 km from downtown; the shuttle bus costs CNY 8–10, leaves every 15 minutes and takes around 30 minutes, while a taxi runs about CNY 50. Buses 124, 300, 304, 318 and 804 also link the terminals to city bus stations.
Lhasa Gonggar Airport flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi'an, but discounts are rare, so book early. The airport shuttle leaves from the CAAC ticket office compound on the south section of Niangre Road starting at 6am; a taxi to the city costs CNY 120–150 and takes about 30 minutes on the airport expressway. Lhasa Railway Station, southwest of town in Liuwu township, has trains to Lanzhou, Xining, Shanghai, Chengdu, Beijing and Guangzhou since the Qinghai–Tibet line opened on 1 July 2006.
This is how most people actually do the Sichuan–Tibet Highway, and it is the mode our 10-day itinerary is built around. You can stop whenever the light is good, and towns are dense enough that you never have to plan meals and beds more than a few hours ahead. Book through a Chengdu travel agency, a 4WD rental company or an off-road club, or check the noticeboards at Chengdu hostels for shared-vehicle partners. Start from Chengdu with cash — enough to cover fuel, food and lodging for the whole run.
Public buses connect Chengdu to Kangding (CNY 100–130, about 7 hours, departures every 30 minutes from 7am to 7pm at Xinnanmen station) and continue west, but schedules thin out badly past Litang. Hitchhiking is possible and cheap — count on CNY 30 from Xinduqiao to Yajiang and about CNY 70 to Litang — but waits can eat a whole day. Cycling the full route takes about a month and walking it about six; the summer student wave means hostel beds along the line sell out, so if you ride, book ahead or carry a tent.
Shopping
Sold in vacuum packs from Litang and Batang markets and any Tibetan grocery in Lhasa. It is light, keeps for weeks and makes the best trail snack on the drive itself. Buy from a shop with a steady turnover — the stuff hanging in open air at a roadside stall has usually been there longer than you think.
Barley flour and brick tea are the staples that get Tibetans through a hard day, and both pack flat. A bag of tsampa costs a few yuan and weighs almost nothing; butter tea you will more likely drink on the spot, but tea bricks travel fine. Ask for the roasted barley, not the instant sweetened powder, if you actually want to make it at home.
Lhasa's Barkhor Street is the place to look, though prices swing wildly by how obviously foreign you are. Hand-knotted wool carpets and the striped pangden aprons worn by married Amdo women are the two things worth the luggage space. Compare three shops before you commit, and never accept the first number quoted.
Mani stones carved with sutras are sold near monasteries, and prayer flags cost next to nothing; both are light and easy to pack. Turquoise and dzi beads are the trap — most of what you see in tourist stalls is dyed stone or resin, so buy only from a shop that will tell you honestly what it is, and pay accordingly.
Practical
Pack for wind and cold rather than for technical mountaineering: a shell jacket and a fleece are enough for a driving trip, with a down jacket as backup. A headlamp, a thermos, a power strip for the guesthouse sockets, and a lip balm and high-SPF sunscreen are the small things people forget and then miss for ten days. If you would rather have someone else handle the permits, drivers and beds, our Sichuan–Tibet Highway private tours and small-group Sichuan–Tibet tour packages include the whole Chengdu–Lhasa run, and our Lhasa travel guide covers what to do once you arrive.
| Altitude sickness | Mild headache, dizziness and insomnia are normal in the first 1–2 days and fade as you acclimatise. Avoid alcohol and cigarettes before you go, take Rhodiola in advance, drink water and eat fruit rather than training hard. Do not reach for the oxygen bottle at the first twinge — you will just become dependent on it. Butter tea genuinely helps once you are suffering, and it is worth forcing down one cup. |
|---|---|
| Cash | Draw enough in Chengdu to cover fuel, food and lodging for the entire route. ATMs have appeared along the line but withdrawals are unreliable, and the small guesthouses that charge CNY 15–40 a bed take cash only. |
| Where to sleep | Deliberately skip Litang and Bangda as overnight stops. Litang sits at 4,014 m and you will be short of breath lying in bed with only an electric blanket for heat; Bangda at 4,300 m is worse. Push on to Batang (about 2,000 m) or Bamei instead. |
| Food | Tibetan food leans on barley, dairy and mutton — tsampa, butter tea, dried beef — and most Han travellers find it hard going at first. Luckily Sichuanese cooks run restaurants the whole way, so you will not starve. If even Sichuan food is too much, carry instant noodles and biscuits. |
| Foreign visitors and permits | Non-Chinese passport holders, Taiwanese travellers and overseas Chinese (Hong Kong and Macau residents with SAR passports or home-return permits excepted) need a Tibet Travel Permit issued by the Tibet Tourism Bureau before entering Tibet. Apply about 20 working days ahead through a travel agency, then book flights and trains only after the permit is in hand. Foreign journalists and diplomats cannot enter as tourists. |
| Best season | June to September is the classic window, but July and August bring landslides, mudslides and prices up to five times normal around the Litang horse festival. March and April give you peach blossom in Nyingchi and rhododendrons at Hailuogou; October and November deliver the autumn colour at Xinduqiao, Yading and Nyingchi; December to February is for hot springs and snow, though pushing further into Tibet gets icy and genuinely risky. |
| Speed-limit cards | Once you cross into Tibet at Batang you enter the speed-limit card system. You collect a card at each county exit and must not reach the next checkpoint before the stated time, effectively capping you at 42–43 km/h. Most barriers are manned, but some checkpoints have a single officer who may be eating or chatting — if you genuinely cannot find anyone and the barrier is up, photograph the checkpoint as evidence before moving on. Missing one means a fine at best, and being sent back to collect the card at worst. |
Background
The Sichuan–Tibet Highway is the 2,142 km stretch of National Highway 318 between Chengdu and Lhasa, and it climbs from roughly 500 m at the Sichuan basin to over 3,600 m in Lhasa, crossing the Jinsha, Lancang, Nu and Yarlung Tsangpo rivers and the Erlang, Zheduo and Nyainqentanglha ranges along the way. For most of its length it hugs the eastern edge of the Hengduan Mountains, where the altitude swings so violently that you pass pine forest, alpine meadow, semi-arid gorge and glaciated peak in a single day's drive. It is the reason Chinese travellers call G318 the country's 'landscape highway' — of the ten most beautiful mountains voted by Chinese National Geography, four of them sit on or beside this road.
Long before backpackers arrived, this was the Chamagudao — the tea-and-horse road — and the people who use it most seriously still travel it on their knees and hands, prostrating their way to Lhasa over the course of three years. Tibetans call this a vast prayer circuit; everyone else calls it a scenic drive. Keep both in mind and the trip makes more sense: the monasteries you pass are not attractions, and the pilgrims sharing the shoulder with your Land Cruiser are not performing. The road itself has improved enormously in the last decade — most of it is now smooth asphalt, with the exceptions of the Xinduqiao stretch, the gravel after Litang, the Tongmai cliff section and the Nujiang 72-turn descent, all of which still demand slow, careful driving.
Further reading
Chen Hwai-en
The Taiwanese cycling film that gave a generation the line 'some things, if you don't do them now, you'll never do them at all.' It follows a young man riding around Taiwan with a guitar, but it is the reason thousands of mainland university students buy a bike every July and point it at the 318 — the phrase hung over every guesthouse noticeboard on this road for a decade.
Gangqiangzhu_Lynn
A first-person account of drifting through the Tibetan plateau, and the source of the sharpest lines you'll read about this road — the dust, the guesthouses, the way Xinduqiao only makes sense once you leave the town centre. Read it on the plane and the towns will feel familiar before you arrive.
Traditional, Kangding
The 'Liuliu tune' that made Kangding famous across China — you will hear it played in every restaurant on the first leg of the drive. Pair it with the folk recordings of Batang Xianzi, the circle dance of Batang county whose long-sleeved, whirl-and-dip steps are painted on the walls of the Jokhang and Dunhuang, and which locals insist you learn before you're allowed to leave.
The questions visitors ask us most about Sichuan–Tibet Highway, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
June to September is the classic window, but July and August bring the heaviest rain, the most mudslides and the highest room rates — a big student riding wave pushes prices up all along the route. Most people who have done it more than once pick late May or October, when the passes are clear and the autumn colour on the Xinduqiao and Nyingchi stretches is at its best. March and April bring peach blossom in Nyingchi; December to February is fine as far as Hailuogou but genuinely risky past that.
It's much better than it was — most of it is now tarmac and a 4WD can cover the whole run in three to four days. The two stretches that still deserve real respect are the Tongmai section past Bomi, where landslides regularly take out the road, and the 99 bends below Yelashan. Drive them in daylight, slowly, and you'll be fine. The bigger risks are altitude and fatigue, not the road surface.
Mild symptoms — headache, dizziness, poor sleep — usually clear within one to two days as your body adjusts. Don't rush to the oxygen bottle unless you really need it, or you'll become dependent on it. Eat vegetables and fruit, drink plenty of water, sleep properly, and stay calm. Avoid running, jumping or shouting at the passes; the people who collapse at a viewpoint are almost always the ones who sprinted to it. Butter tea genuinely helps, once you get past the taste.
Yes. Non-Chinese nationals, Taiwan passport holders and most overseas Chinese travellers must have a Tibet Travel Permit issued by the Tibet Tourism Bureau before entering the region. Apply through an agency at least 20 working days ahead, and do not book flights or train tickets until the permit is in hand. Foreign journalists and diplomats are not permitted to enter Tibet as tourists.
Yes, but it changes the trip completely. Buses run from Chengdu's Xinnanmen station to Kangding (CNY 100–130, about 7 hours) and onward to Litang and Batang, and hitching and shared minivans fill the gaps, but you lose control of timing and the cost drops to around CNY 3,000 total. Riders take about a month, trekkers about six months, and pilgrims prostrating the whole way take roughly three years.
Layers, not specialist gear. A windproof shell and a fleece will cover you at every pass; a down jacket substitutes fine if you don't have a shell. Bring sunglasses, a hat, gloves, sunblock and lip balm, plus a headlamp, a thermos and your own medication — Rhodiola, ibuprofen, cold medicine, stomach medicine and glucose. You do not need trekking poles or mountaineering boots unless you're actually walking somewhere.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
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.
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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