City guide · Xinjiang
Snow peaks, grassland, desert and oasis — one-sixth of China, and the longest road you will ever ride.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Standing on a Urumqi street you can see the snow-covered Tianshan in the distance. I climbed Red Hill and looked out over the whole city, everything thriving. Best of all, summer in Xinjiang is not hot at all — for someone like me who hates heat, this is a good place.
chencurl, 'Traveling West Alone'
Grapes, little apples, the apples are really good — full of juice, 3 yuan each, completely different from what I eat in Shanghai. I honestly think they beat Red Fuji and rock candy apples.
328329125, 'Just Go, Catching the Last Bus on a Northern Xinjiang Trip'
Fly into Urumqi and the first thing you notice is the snow ridge sitting on the city's forehead. Bogda Peak never melts, and on clear mornings it hangs above the traffic lights like a backdrop someone forgot to take down. Urumqi means 'beautiful pasture' in Mongolian, and although it is now a modern city of four million, the pasture is still visible from the overpass.
Head west and the landscape rearranges itself every hundred kilometres: grey Gobi, then poplar windbreaks, then suddenly a valley of green so saturated it looks painted. Sayram Lake sits at 2,070 metres, the highest and largest cold-water lake in Xinjiang, and the road hugs it for long enough that you stop taking photographs and just stare. Kazakh herders move their flocks across the highway here in spring and autumn, and nothing — not trucks, not tour buses — moves until the last sheep has crossed.
Go south instead and the story changes from scenery to people. Kashgar's old town is a maze of mud-brick lanes where children play football against thousand-year-old walls and copper smiths still hammer in open workshops. Drive another 300 km and the Pamir plateau opens up — Kara Kul lake at 4,300 metres, Muztagh Ata at 7,546, and the Khunjerab Pass into Pakistan at nearly 4,800 metres. This is the Xinjiang that surprises people who expected only desert.
Xinjiang
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
The lake changes colour hour by hour — turquoise at noon, slate grey by evening — while 7,546-metre Muztagh Ata glares down at you from the far shore. The road there is only 217 km from Kashgar on the G314, but altitude hits hard: many visitors hire a local herder to carry bags and act as guide for the final uphill stretch to the glacier viewpoint.
Skip the July and August crush and come between 15 and 20 September, when the Siberian larch and birch turn four different colours in a single day. Independent walkers can follow the lakeside boardwalk all the way to the sixth bay; tour groups stop at the third. Entry to the Kanas scenic area costs around CNY 230 in high season.
Kashgar's old town still houses around 600 Uyghur families — roughly 2,000 people — living in lanes so tangled that outsiders get lost without a guide. The Sunday livestock market outside town is the real thing: donkeys, sheep, knife sharpeners and flatbread, no souvenir stalls in sight.
Forget the packaged theatre version. Real muqam happens when a dutar, a rawap and an ajik start trading phrases and passers-by, donkey-cart kids and grandmothers all join the circle. In Kashgar it is a UNESCO-listed art form; in practice it is a neighbourhood party that swallows you whole.
171 km northwest of Yining on the G30, Sayram Lake sits ringed by snow peaks and, in spring, by yellow wildflowers and grazing sheep. Locals call it the 'lake on the ridge of the mountains' and tell stories about a lake monster and a magnetic field on the lakebed. Winter turns it into a frozen white plain.
Itinerary
Urumqi as your base, then Turpan's desert and Heaven Lake's alpine water — both doable as long day trips, which saves you packing and unpacking.
Urumqi is the lowest-altitude city in Xinjiang and the natural first stop. Fly into Diwopu International (URC), 18 km from the centre — the airport bus runs every 30 minutes for CNY 10, a taxi is about CNY 40.
Spend the evening at the Erdaoqiao Grand Bazaar. Shops run roughly 09:00–18:30, and in summer street vendors sell freshly made yoghurt and pomegranate juice pressed on the spot.
Stops: UrumqiErdaoqiao International Grand BazaarHantengri Mosque
Turpan is a straightforward day trip from Urumqi and the classic introduction to the Silk Road's oasis towns. Bring a hat: this is one of the hottest, lowest places in China.
Book your onward train tickets before you leave Urumqi — trains run on Beijing time while daily life here runs on Urumqi time, two hours behind. Miss that and you miss your train.
Stops: TurpanUrumqi
Tianchi is best from May to October, when summer temperatures hover around 20°C. Entry is CNY 100, dropping to CNY 40 from 1 November to 31 March; the cable car and shuttle bus combo is CNY 35, a boat ride CNY 35.
If you have the legs, ride up into the surrounding mountains — the spruce and larch forest is silent and wildflower-strewn. Go with someone who knows the trails or you will get lost.
Stops: Tianchi (Heaven Lake)Bogda Peak
The far south, where the Silk Road feels less like history and more like a Tuesday. Fly in, then push toward the Pakistani border.
Kashgar airport (KHG) has year-round flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Urumqi, plus seasonal services to Xi'an, Jinan and Chengdu. A taxi to the centre costs about CNY 30 for the 10 km, plus a CNY 5 airport entry fee.
Id Kah Mosque, the largest in Xinjiang, charges CNY 15. Dress properly — long trousers or a long skirt — out of respect. On Fridays the crowds spill from the courtyard right out onto the asphalt.
Stops: Kashgar Old TownId Kah MosqueAyavag Road
The 217 km drive up the G314 hides real danger despite the short distance — the road conditions are poor and the altitude climbs fast. But once you turn into the pass, snow peaks close in from every side and the light becomes almost unbearable.
Karakul sits above 4,300 metres. The air is thin and the walk to the glacier involves several hundred metres of uphill. Budget for a local guide and pony if you are not acclimatised.
Stops: Karakul LakeMuztagh AtaSubashi Grassland
Stone Fort (Tashkurgan) is a Tang dynasty ruin — only walls, a gun platform and house foundations remain of the outer city, though the inner fort and its northeast gate survive well enough to read the plan.
Khunjerab Pass, at nearly 4,800 metres, is the China–Pakistan crossing on the Karakoram Highway. Since it opened to third-country travellers in 1986, more than 400,000 visitors from over 100 countries have crossed here.
Stops: Tashkurgan Stone FortKhunjerab PassTajik homestay
Sights
Museum
32,000 objects, including bronze warrior figurines, the Zagunluk mummies and — the headline act — the 3,800-year-old Loulan Beauty. The permanent galleries cover the dress, daily life and ritual of twelve of Xinjiang's ethnic groups alongside a thousand-plus Silk Road finds. It is the single fastest way to understand what you are looking at for the rest of the trip.
Tip The mummy hall is cold and dimly lit — bring a layer and give yourself a full hour. The museum runs on Beijing time, not Urumqi time, so check before you set out.
Lakes and forest
The most famous sight in northern Xinjiang, and deservedly so: clean green water, wooden-roofed Tuva villages, and larch forest that goes gold in late September. The scenic area is split into six bays along the lake; tour buses only reach the third, which means the last three are yours if you walk.
Tip If you want to walk in from Hemu, start at the wooden bridge and head west past Kanakule Lake — it is at least two hard days, and most people need three to four. The scenery beats anything inside the paid area.
History
The tomb everyone calls 'Xiangfei's Tomb' contains no Xiangfei at all. It is the family burial ground of the Apak Khoja line of missionaries — the clan the legendary consort came from. The tiled dome and the quiet courtyard tell you more about Kashgar's religious history than any plaque.
Tip Come on a weekday morning and you may have the whole courtyard to yourself. Photography inside the tomb chamber is not allowed.
Landform
A cliff-cut yardang landscape where the rock runs red, green, yellow, white and black, and the colours detonate at sunset. When the wind picks up, the gullies and overhangs produce low, uneven moaning — which is exactly why locals call this kind of terrain 'ghost city'. The desert, the oasis and the blue sky all stack up in one frame.
Tip Bring a windproof jacket — the same wind that shapes the rock will sandblast your camera lens. A lens cloth is not optional.
Village
A Tuva settlement of log cabins built on a narrow terrace between two streams, unchanged in structure for centuries. Every house is a single-log-walled box with a peaked roof and a ventilated loft between ceiling and roof for storing fodder and dried meat. Inside, the kang is covered with patterned felt and the walls with embroidered hangings.
Tip This is a living village, not a set. Ask before photographing people, and never walk into a courtyard uninvited. If you want to see the famous morning smoke, be outside by 07:00.
Food
Lamb, carrots and rice cooked together in one pot, the carrot cut to roughly the size of a french fry. Uyghur home cooks fry the meat hard in plenty of oil first, then layer vegetables and raw rice into the pot so the rice is just covered by the broth. Order it at any Urumqi canteen for around CNY 25–35, and ask for the crusty bottom layer.
Hand-pulled noodles served with a separate bowl of stir-fried lamb, tomato, pepper and celery, which you pour over yourself. This is the everyday lunch of Xinjiang, and the noodles are pulled to order, so it takes ten minutes and costs about CNY 20–30. Free noodle refills are standard; just ask.
Braised chicken with potatoes, green peppers and dried chillies in a big enamel basin, eaten with hand-pulled belt noodles dragged through the gravy at the end. A small portion feeds two; in Urumqi even the neighbourhood restaurant downstairs does a decent version. Expect CNY 80–120 for a medium.
Sold by the skewer everywhere, charcoal-grilled and dusted with cumin and chilli. The meat is fresh enough that even a random roadside stall beats most restaurants back east. Roughly CNY 5–10 a skewer; three or four plus a naan is a full meal.
Around fifty varieties exist — meat-stuffed, onion, sesame, ring-shaped. Baked dry, it keeps for about a month in Xinjiang's climate, which is why it is the classic travel food. Buy them hot from a tandoor for CNY 3–8 and eat one with yoghurt and honey for breakfast.
Where to eat
Urumqi · market food
The covered food floor of the Erdaoqiao Bazaar, where you can work through kebabs, laghman, samsa and fresh-pressed pomegranate juice in one sitting. Street stalls around the bazaar also sell Uyghur yoghurt set out in bowls and石榴 juice squeezed to order — both are worth the few yuan.
Urumqi · local institution
Named in the Dao Lang song, this is a downtown address rather than a single restaurant, and the surrounding streets are packed with regional kitchens — Hotan roast lamb, Kashgar noodles, Ili dairy. Come hungry and walk two blocks in any direction before choosing.
Kashgar · street eating
Inside the 600-household Uyghur old town you can graze your way through baked samsa, hand-pulled noodles and lamb off the bone from family kitchens with a few tables. The lanes are genuinely confusing — hire a guide or accept that you will get lost, which is half the pleasure.
Yining · regional speciality
Ili is where you eat smoked horsemeat and horsemeat sausage, plus the small sweet apricots locals call 'hanged-dried' apricots. Any county-town restaurant in Yining will do it well; pair with lavenders products bought straight from the Huocheng farms for dessert.
Where to sleep
Urumqi · 1–4 nights
Urumqi is the low-altitude, most economically developed city in Xinjiang and the natural first stop, with the widest range of accommodation in the region. Choose somewhere near the centre so you can reach the bazaar, the regional museum and the train stations easily, and use it as a base for Tianshan Tianchi and Turpan day trips.
Yining · 2–3 nights
Outside Yining city, county towns across Ili have a decent spread of mid-range and chain economy hotels, and they are the sensible base if you do not want to camp. Farm stays near the grasslands are essentially camping with a roof — fine in summer, grim in shoulder season.
Altay · 2–4 nights
If you want a proper hotel in Altay you have to stay in Altay city, where four- and five-star properties are plentiful. Once you head for Kanas, Wucai Pond or the salt lake, family-run guesthouses are the only option, somewhere between a hostel and a standard room, at roughly CNY 40 per person.
Getting around
Almost every Xinjiang trip starts at Urumqi Diwopu International Airport (URC), about 18 km northwest of the city centre. It has nonstop domestic routes to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Dunhuang, Lanzhou, Xi'an, Harbin and Qingdao, plus international links to Almaty, Tashkent, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Islamabad. Inside Xinjiang it also serves Korla, Kashgar, Hotan, Karamay and Altay — which is how you skip a 1,000 km drive.
Urumqi has two stations and they do different jobs. Train South Station is the one for passengers and sits on BRT Line 1 plus buses 8, 10, 16, 20, 36, 44, 50, 52, 58, 903, 906, 909 and 915; Train West Station is the departure point for South Xinjiang and most trains heading out of the region, reachable from the south station by bus 18 or 909, by a CNY 2 connecting train, or by a CNY 40–50 taxi. From Kashgar, the station is 6 km northeast of the centre and a taxi in costs CNY 10–13.
Buses fill in wherever the railway does not go, and in Xinjiang that is a lot of places. Urumqi has two main terminals: the North Suburb station (Nanhu North Road 437, tel 0991-4875555) sends buses to Bole, Qinghe and Burqin across North Xinjiang, while the South Suburb station (Yan'erwo Road 21, tel 0991-2866635) covers Aksu, Baicheng, Turpan, Kuqa and Korla. In Yining the main hubs are the Ili Prefecture Passenger Centre (Jiefang South Road 183, tel 0999-8121937), the Nongsi Shi station on Jungken Road, and the Dashijie long-distance station (Jiefang Road, tel 0999-8021343). Altay's station (Tuanjie Road 2-13, tel 0906-2311064) runs only 1–3 services a day to scenic areas, so confirm your departure time before you buy.
In Urumqi, city buses cost a flat CNY 1, outlying routes CNY 2, and after 10pm CNY 1.5; four BRT lines run, with Line 1 linking downtown to Train South Station. Taxis start at CNY 6 with CNY 1.6–1.8 per km after 3 km, and the drivers are almost all Han Chinese so language is not a problem — but in peak hours flagging one down is genuinely hard, and the private cars that pull over in commercial districts charge CNY 10 to start with a negotiated fare, which you should avoid on a first visit. In Yining buses are CNY 1 flat with private minibuses from CNY 0.5, and taxis start at CNY 5 with CNY 1.3–1.5 per km; for longer runs agree a price before you get in. If you drive yourself, a basic Santana with driver, fuel and tolls runs about CNY 450 a day, while a 4WD is CNY 900–1,200 — and in Kashgar, where you are heading for the mountains, hire the 4WD, because a normal car will leave you stranded when the weather turns.
Shopping
Forget souvenir-shop prices. Locals in Urumqi buy raisins, almonds and walnuts at Beiyuanchun wholesale market, where quality is reliable and the price is fair. Better still, buy in South Xinjiang straight from a farmer — Hetian jujubes, grapes, Hami melon. If the seller does not speak Mandarin, get his grandson to translate and slip the kid some pocket money; everyone goes home happy and you pay a fraction of what the Han-run stalls charge.
Three varieties of French Provence lavender were introduced to the Ili valley in 1964, and the Huocheng base now covers more than 20,000 mu. Dried flowers, essential oil, sachets and soap are all sold cheap at the farm gates around Yining, and they travel far better than anything perishable.
Ili's specialities include smoked horse meat and horse-meat sausage, plus a small dried apricot locals call the 'hanged-dried' one — intensely sweet and genuinely excellent. Both keep well enough for the flight home if you pack them properly.
Two things to walk past: jade, which is overwhelmingly fake in tourist markets, and traditional knives, which the airline will not let you bring back anyway. Yining's markets are also full of embroidered hats, which are useful the moment you step into a mosque — buy one and wear it rather than treating it as a souvenir.
Practical
Xinjiang is a 7-day-minimum destination and a 3,000–10,000 CNY destination, and it is genuinely tough going — long drives, thin air above 4,000 m, and 11–12 hour days on horseback if you go that route. If you are nervous enough to be frightened of it, stay home; the region rewards people who come prepared rather than people who come worried. Fruit and mutton are the two things you should eat relentlessly while you are here, because the sugar content is too high for the fruit to survive the journey out — what you buy back home is, at best, merely not sour. Our Xinjiang tour packages are built around this reality: private drivers, 4WDs where the roads demand them, and itineraries that leave room for the unplanned day in Kanas or a second morning at Karakul Lake. If you want the route mapped before you fly, start with our Xinjiang private tour options and let us handle the 1,000 km between the good bits.
| Time zone | Xinjiang runs on Urumqi time in daily life, but trains, flights and official schedules use Beijing time. The gap is two hours. Check your ticket twice — this is the single most common way travellers miss a train. |
|---|---|
| ID card or passport | Carry it at all times. In Xinjiang you cannot check into a hotel, buy a train ticket, enter some sites or pass certain checkpoints without it. Leave it in the room and your day stops there. |
| Cash and weight | Everything sold loose is weighed in grams and kilograms, not jin, so a 'small' bag of dried fruit is heavier and pricier than you expect. Markets and small shops are largely cash or WeChat Pay; bring more cash than you think you need for South Xinjiang. |
| Food and water | Xinjiang water is hard, and drinking it right after a fruit binge is a fast route to a bad stomach. Fruit here has far more sugar than what you are used to — pace yourself. The same goes for mutton and dairy: they are extremely fresh and very rich, and many visitors from eastern China react badly to both in the first two days. |
| Clothing | Whatever month you come, pack both a warm layer and sun protection. Day-night temperature swings are huge everywhere, north and south. A scarf and a long, loose robe beat any expensive sunscreen, and both are easy to buy locally. |
| Etiquette | Never eat, drink or smoke in front of a fasting Muslim during Ramadan. Do not point your feet at people, do not use your left hand to pass things, and do not compliment a stranger's looks — it is considered bad luck among northwesterners. Do not stare. Do not waste food. Do not fight your host for the teapot. |
| Photography | The light angle in Xinjiang is low, so add exposure for snow and cut about a stop and a half for dark subjects. Step half a metre back from your subject and you get a drone-like aerial look for free. For grassland shots the best ground is Tekes, not Nalati; for Kanas, come in May or June, when new growth and morning mist beat the autumn crowds. |
Background
Xinjiang has been tangled up with the Chinese heartland since the Han dynasty. Huns, Wusun, Rouran, Tibetans, Turks, Qiuci, Gaochang, Uyghurs, Western Liao, Dzungars — the list of peoples who have cycled through these oases, grasslands and mountain passes is long, and each left a layer. In 1875 the Qing government formally established Xinjiang Province, the first time the region was fixed as part of China's map; the capital moved from Yining to Dihua, today's Urumqi. In 1949 Wang Zhen marched in and took Urumqi, and Xinjiang came under the new People's Republic.
Xinjiang is a classic temperate desert climate. Northern Xinjiang is mid-temperate and, sitting in the path of the westerlies, gets a little more rain; southern Xinjiang is warm-temperate and bone-dry. Day-night temperature swings are brutal everywhere — the old line about eating watermelon around the stove is not a joke. Bring both thin and thick clothes no matter the month, and consider dressing like locals: a scarf and a loose long robe beat any expensive sunscreen. Thirteen peoples have lived here for generations, scattered in mixed towns and concentrated villages; Han Chinese dominate the eastern and northern corps areas, while southern Xinjiang is Uyghur territory. Language is a real barrier — schools may teach Mandarin to children, but rural primary education cannot be relied upon, so in the south ask kids for directions, not adults.
Before you go
Zhao Xinshui, 1963
The film that made the Pamirs famous across China. Set in 1951 on the Xinjiang-Pamir plateau, it follows border troops and militia facing a spy ring — a bride brought in from outside turns out to be a planted agent. The Amir-and-Gulandam love story still lingers in Chinese memory, and the plateau scenery is the reason plenty of travellers add Tashkurgan to their route.
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage
Forget the polished, staged version you may have seen on video. The real muqam is born among ordinary people, with no stage to keep it at arm's length. Once the drum starts the instruments answer each other — dutar, tanbur, rawap, satar — and passers-by, kids driving donkey carts and strangers from all directions join the dance and spin until nationality, clothing and age all fall away. Catch it live in Kashgar if you can.
Various travellers and local tourism bureaus
The route diaries and impressions collected around this material — from the lavender fields of the Ili valley to the desert world of Tugan — are the best preparation for the distances involved. They remind you that Yining is not a stop you tick off but a place to slow down: 'You do not know how vast China is until you reach Xinjiang; you do not know how beautiful Xinjiang is until you reach Yining.'
The questions visitors ask us most about Xinjiang, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Ten to fourteen days if you want more than one region. Seven days is enough for a single loop — either Urumqi plus Kanas, or Urumqi plus Ili, or Kashgar plus the Pamir. Trying to do north and south in a week means you spend most of it in airports and on trains, because Kashgar is 1,500 km from Urumqi.
Yes — the practical risks are altitude, distance and heat, not crime. Personal safety is generally high, but expect ID checks at checkpoints and when buying train or plane tickets; carry your passport at all times. Photography near military or police facilities is not allowed and will be questioned.
June to September for the north — grasslands, lakes and Kanas are at their best, and Ili's lavender peaks in mid-June. Late September to mid-October is the single best window for Kanas autumn colour, specifically around 15–20 September. Avoid July and August if crowds bother you, and avoid the Ramadan month if you are travelling in southern Xinjiang, because many restaurants stay closed during daylight.
Foreign travellers need a border permit for the Khunjerab Pass and some Pamir areas, arranged in Kashgar and usually handled by your tour operator. Chinese nationals need a border defence permit for Taxkorgan and Khunjerab, obtainable in Kashgar. Ordinary travel to Urumqi, Turpan, Ili and Kashgar needs no special permit.
Fly between the three hubs — Urumqi, Kashgar and Yining — then hire a driver or join a small group for the last stretch. Urumqi has one airport (URC), 18 km northwest of the city; the airport bus runs every 30 minutes for 10 CNY and a taxi downtown is about 40 CNY. Long-distance buses reach most towns but only once or twice a day, so confirm departure times before you rely on them.
Xinjiang food is heavy on lamb, and portions are sold by the kilogram at markets — check before you point. Uyghur and Kazakh hosts are Muslim, so do not bring pork or alcohol into their homes, do not offer or accept things with your left hand, and dress modestly at mosques, some of which do not admit women or non-Muslims at all. Tap water is hard and will upset a sensitive stomach; drink bottled water for the first few days.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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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.
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.
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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