City guide · Yunnan
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Flying down the road under those tall dark-green tropical plants, everything gives off a faint herbal smell, mixed with the clean wet earth after rain. It makes you want to close your eyes and just breathe it in, in tune with the land.
Traveller note — 'A Xishuangbanna Free-and-Easy Trip'
Only after coming here did I learn that Pu'er tea isn't from Pu'er at all — it's from Xishuangbanna. The six great tea mountains are all in Banna, and the drink travelled out along the old tea-horse road from right here.
Traveller note — 'A Xishuangbanna Free-and-Easy Trip'
Xishuangbanna is the corner of China that does not feel Chinese: a sliver of the tropics at the country's south-west tip, against Laos and Myanmar, where rubber and banana grow along the road, the rainforest drips, and the Lancang — the Mekong in its upper course — runs the whole length of the prefecture. The majority people are Dai, whose language, food and Buddhist temples have far more in common with Thailand and Laos than with Beijing.
The name means 'twelve rice fields' in Dai, from the twelve districts the Ming carved out here in 1570, and its capital, Jinghong, is where almost every trip begins. From there the classic loop heads north to the rainforest and the elephant valley, east to the great botanical gardens at Menglun, and south to the Dai villages of Ganlanba, where a daily water-splashing show stands in for the festival.
This is also the birthplace of Pu'er tea. The six great tea mountains that made the drink famous all lie within the prefecture, and the old tea-horse road that carried it westward started here. Between the rainforest, the elephants, the temples and the tea, there is a great deal packed into one small, warm, very green corner of the map.
The rhythm is unhurried and the food is outstanding — sour, grilled and herbal, built on lemongrass, pineapple and river fish — and the evenings belong to the night markets along the Mekong. Come for the tropical novelty; stay for the Dai culture underneath it.
Xishuangbanna
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
A valley of old-growth rainforest north of Jinghong, crossed by a four-kilometre walkway, with monkeys, gibbons and parrots along the way and elephants at the watering hole. Give it a full day; the wild elephants are a bonus, not a guarantee.
A stand of towering dipterocarp 'sky-gazing trees' in the far-east rainforest, threaded by one of the highest canopy walkways on Earth. Below you the jungle runs its strange business: strangler figs, cauliflory, giant buttress roots.
China's largest botanical garden, laid out on a gourd-shaped island in the Luosuo River and planted by family and theme. It is the best place in the country to see tropical plants labelled and explained; the site is huge, so ride the shuttle.
'The peacock's tail', in the Dai phrase, is the bend of the river south of Jinghong, where five Dai hamlets, stilt houses and Buddhist pagodas cluster in the village park. The daily water-splashing show happens here, and the fruit gets cheaper the deeper you walk.
Rebuilt on the site of the old Dai royal temple, this hilltop monastery is the grand expression of Theravada Buddhism in the prefecture, with a giant standing Buddha looking out over Jinghong and the tropical plain below.
The evenings belong to the night markets along the Mekong and the Manjinglan food street: lemongrass-grilled fish, bamboo-tube rice, tropical fruit and Burmese snacks. Eat light at dinner and graze all evening.
Suggested itineraries
Everything radiates from Jinghong. The one-day route is a taste; the four-day route is the whole prefecture done without rushing.
If you have a single day, spend it on the east side of the prefecture, where the landscape is at its greenest.
Leave Jinghong in the morning for Menglun, taking the Mekong scenery and the Dai villages of Ganlanba on the way, with a stop for tropical fruit.
Lunch on Dai food in the town, then walk the ten-minute suspension bridge to the Menglun botanical gardens and ride the shuttle around the island.
Come back to Jinghong for the evening show, bonfire and river lanterns at Manting Park.
Stops: GanlanbaMenglunManting Park
The standard loop: the Dai villages and Jinghong, the rainforest and elephants, then the botanical gardens.
Start at Mengle Temple for the view over the city, then eat around Manjinglan street — Dai, Burmese and Thai places all clustered together.
Spend the afternoon at Ganlanba for the water-splashing show and the stilt houses, and stay the night near Mengle Avenue.
Stops: Mengle TempleManjinglanGanlanba
Head north to the rainforest, walk the long forest boardwalk and watch for gibbons, monkeys and parrots, then take in the elephant show.
Return to Jinghong in the late afternoon; keep the evening for the night market on the river.
Stops: Wild Elephant ValleyRainforest boardwalkMekong night market
Make an early start east to the botanical gardens and give them the morning, then eat a Dai lunch in Menglun.
Come back through Ganlanba if you skipped it, and finish with the evening show at Manting Park.
Stops: Menglun gardensMenglun townManting Park
Add the string of sights most people miss: the treetop walkway, the Jino hill village and the tea country.
Run the first two days of the three-day loop — the Dai villages and the elephant valley — at half speed, with long lunches.
Stops: GanlanbaMengle TempleWild Elephant Valley
Drive east to the Wangtianshu rainforest for the treetop walkway and a boat on the river, and sleep out towards Mengla.
Stops: WangtianshuCanopy walkwayMengla
Visit a Jino hill village on the way back, then a Pu'er tea mountain, before returning to Jinghong for the last night.
Stops: Jino villageTea mountainJinghong
Sights
Ticket prices in China change without much notice. Treat these as a guide and confirm on arrival.
Rainforest · Elephants
A rainforest reserve in the Mengyang protected area, built around a valley the elephants still use as a watering hole. There is a four-kilometre boardwalk through the forest, with monkeys, gibbons, snakes, butterflies and parrots along it, plus a training-and-show area for the elephants. Wild ones appear at dawn or dusk if you are lucky.
Tip Get there for opening — the boardwalk is cooler and the animals more active in the morning, and the first tour buses do not arrive until later.
UNESCO plants · Gardens
The Chinese Academy of Sciences' tropical garden, the largest in China and the richest in species, laid out on the gourd-shaped island that the Luosuo River makes at Menglun. Planted by family and by theme — palms, ficus, ethnic-culture plants, rare and unusual flowers — it shows off tropical strangeness at close range: buttress roots, cauliflory and strangler figs.
Tip The park is enormous and the day is hot — pay for the shuttle, walk the gardens you care about between stops, and carry water.
Canopy walkway · Jungle
In the far-east of the prefecture, near the 'golden quadrilateral' where China meets Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, stands a grove of towering dipterocarps so tall the Dai call them 'umbrella-handle trees'. A canopy walkway is strung between them high above the forest floor, and a boat ride runs along the river beneath.
Tip The combined ¥188 ticket covers everything and is the sensible buy if you are doing both the walkway and the boat; book it in advance in high season.
Dai culture · Villages
Five Dai hamlets gathered along the river bend the Dai call 'the peacock's tail', with stilt houses among coconut, betel and mango trees, old Buddhist pagodas and temples in green shade. A water-splashing ceremony runs every afternoon, and the further you walk into the village the cheaper the fruit gets — grown in the gardens.
Tip The water-splashing show is heavily commercialised but genuinely great fun and worth watching even if you do not join in. Bring a spare set of clothes if you plan to.
Theravada · Hilltop
Rebuilt on the site of the old Dai royal monastery, Mengle is the grandest Theravada Buddhist complex in the prefecture, its temples climbing a hill with a giant standing Buddha at the top looking out over Jinghong. The staging stages of dragons on the stairway each have a different number of heads — one-headed dragons are the ones to photograph.
Tip Come for the view as much as the temple — from the plaza in front of the pagoda the whole city and tropical plain spread out below.
Garden · Evening show
Two kilometres from the centre, on the triangle where the Lancang meets the Liusha River, Manting is the city's garden by day and its stage by night: Dai, Lahu, Yao and Hani song and dance, a bonfire and the release of river lanterns. By day it is simply a green place to sit and read under the ironwood trees.
Tip Buy the evening ticket if you want the show — the park is a different place after dark, and the hour before it is the nicest time to walk the gardens.
Minority culture · Ethnography
The Jino are a small people who, until the mid-twentieth century, lived largely by slash-and-burn farming and did not have a written script; they are now the 56th recognised ethnic group. Their village north-east of Jinghong shows their culture, its older women carrying the traditional large ear-holes, plus production methods and a slice of daily life.
Tip Some of the village is an outdoor museum, but the residents are real and the tea is genuinely local — buy a small cake if you buy anything at all.
Eating
Dai cooking is sour, herbal and grilled, built on lemongrass, bamboo, banana leaf, pineapple and fish from the river. Sticky rice is eaten with the fingers — wash your hands first.
The signature dish: a whole fish wrapped in fragrant lemongrass, grilled over the fire and brushed with lard until the skin crisps and the flesh stays soft. Locals reckon a good fish is worth five yuan on the street, and it is everywhere.
Glutinous black rice soaked overnight and steamed inside a hollowed pineapple, glistening and faintly sweet. It is cooked for celebrations and photographed by everyone; the fruit does the seasoning.
Sticky rice packed into a length of fragrant bamboo, sealed with a banana leaf and roasted in the embers. Best from November to February, when the bamboo holds its scent; you crack it open with a wooden mallet.
A Dai staple in every restaurant of the region: a sour bamboo shoot base simmered with young chicken into a sharp, appetite-waking broth. Eat the meat, drink the soup, and go back for more.
The evening ritual of the region: grilled lake fish, pork, tofu and vegetables at open-air stalls along the Mekong and around Manting Park, eaten with a bowl of cold Dai rice noodles and a cold drink.
Mango, lychee, longan, pineapple, pomelo, jackfruit, passion fruit and star fruit, all cheap and ripe at the roadside. The curiosity is the 'mystery fruit' — after eating one, anything sour tastes sweet for a while.
Where to eat
Phone numbers are local landlines; add +86 and drop the leading 0 if calling from abroad. Jinghong is cheap: most meals run ¥25–60 a head.
Thai · Long-standing
The best-known Thai restaurant in Jinghong, staffed mostly by Thai servers and printed in Chinese, English and Thai, so ordering with no Chinese is easy. Go for the tom yum soup and the chicken-oil rice, which must be mixed with the chilli sauce to be right.
Local · Desserts
A local favourite with four branches, always busy, and the place to try the house 'sleeping coconut' — coconut juice, coconut shreds, tapioca pearls, purple rice and crisp bread pieces, soaked and eaten cold. It is the closest thing Jinghong has to a dessert institution.
Street · Dai and Burmese
A short street behind Manting Park packed with Dai, Burmese and Thai places, plus Dai barbecue stalls that only come alive at night. It is the single most efficient place in the city to eat, and the natural stop before or after the park's evening show.
Home cooking · Ganlanba
The best Dai meal is at a village table: a bamboo tray, sticky rice, grilled river fish, a bowl of sour soup and vegetables from the garden. Any guesthouse or driver will point you to a family that cooks for visitors, and it beats every restaurant in town.
Sleeping
Stay in Jinghong, near Xuanwei Avenue or Mengle Avenue, for the best access to food, transport and the airport. Book well ahead for the April festival and the October holidays.
Villa hotel · from ¥248
A garden-style villa hotel with a pool and traveller's palms, friendly staff and good local breakfast (rice noodles and the like), though the older rooms in the small blocks are a little worn and there is no lift. The newer rooms are the better pick.
Business hotel · from ¥261
On Xuanwei Avenue near the botanical research institute and the flower garden, with complete facilities in simply decorated rooms — TV, broadband, toiletries and reliable hot water. There are meeting rooms to rent, which makes it the practical pick for the comfortable mid-range.
Riverside · from ¥135
A few minutes' walk from the river, with a warm, personal feel — rooms decorated throughout with elephant motifs, lamps the owner designed and wall pieces his mother made. The 20th-floor river-view rooms catch the sunrise over the water.
Hostel · from ¥40/bed
On the busy Xuanwei entertainment street, with clean, recently fitted rooms, air-conditioning, 24-hour hot water and free Wi-Fi, and mountain bikes to rent. Dorm guests should bring their own toothbrush and toothpaste; a cheap convenience store sits downstairs.
Hostel · from ¥35/bed
Close to the long-distance bus station and popular with backpackers, with clean though plain rooms, a small garden, a reading room and walls covered in guests' scribbles. It rents bicycles. The one downside is that it sits inside a residential block with a slightly scruffy setting.
Getting around
Jinghong is compact and cheap to cross, but the sights are spread across the prefecture. A chartered car is the answer for anything outside the city.
Xishuangbanna Gasa International (JHG) is 5 km from Jinghong, the prefecture's only airport and the way almost everyone arrives. Domestic service reaches every major Chinese city; international routes serve Bangkok and Luang Prabang.
There is no railway yet, so buses cover the long hauls — most usefully from Kunming. Buses run from Jinghong's several stations to Kunming, Dali, Pu'er and the county towns.
Buy in-station tickets for prefecture sights — the price is fixed and legal; if you board outside a station, agree the fare before you get in.
The practical way to see the far sights. Rates are not fully transparent, so agree the route, the time and whether entrance fees are included before you set off — and be ready for the driver's request to stop at a shop or two.
Inside Jinghong, three bus lines reach the main sights cheaply, taxis run a flat low fare, and pedicabs fill in the last stretch. Outside the city, buses are infrequent, so build in waiting time.
Jinghong is flat and small, and rented bicycles are an easy way to reach the near sights. Several hotels and hostels rent them, as do the stalls near Manting Park.
Shopping
The good buys are tea, fruit and coffee; the risky ones are jade and gemstones. Buy tea from a proper shop and always ask for the receipt.
Xishuangbanna, not Pu'er city, is the true home of Pu'er tea: all six of the famous tea mountains lie within the prefecture, and the leaves left here for Central Asia along the tea-horse road. Buy cakes or loose leaf from a reputable shop or supermarket — the wild prices and 'vintage' stories are mostly noise.
Mango, pomelo, passion fruit and the rest are cheap and ripe at the roadside; the prefecture's small-bean coffee is a genuine local product, roasted for a sweet, full body that stands up to the better-known African beans. Buy a bag of roasted beans as a light souvenir.
Dai women sell their clothing, silver jewellery, black pottery, carved elephant figures and woven bamboo work in the markets and at the sights. Bargaining is normal, and the crafts are a better buy than the gemstones.
The region borders Myanmar, so Burmese jade and gemstones are sold everywhere — and the market stalls are full of fakes. If you do not know the trade, buy only from large established shops with a receipt, and treat expensive stones and 'rare' herbs with suspicion.
Practical
Area code 0691. Staffed English help is not guaranteed — save these before you need them, and keep a little cash for the markets and villages.
| Emergency (police / ambulance / fire) | 110 · 120 · 119 |
|---|---|
| Prefecture tourism bureau | 0691-2121589 |
| Tourism complaints | 0691-2122323 |
| Prefecture people's hospital | 4 Galan South Road, Jinghong · 0691-2147123 |
| Dai medicine hospital | 17 Minhang Road, Jinghong · 0691-2122456 |
| Airport | 0691-2159129 (confirm locally) |
| Bring | Mosquito repellent, sunscreen, rain gear, sport shoes |
| Sticky rice etiquette | Wash hands first; you eat it with your fingers, and the longer you knead it the better it tastes |
Tips
It is a real rainforest: humid, with a lot of mosquitoes. Pack repellent, sunscreen, an umbrella or light shell and shoes you can walk in, and keep a dry bag for electronics if it rains.
Charter rates are not published. Settle the itinerary, the duration and whether tickets are included before you set off, and be firm that shopping stops must not eat the day.
The water-splashing festival in mid-April is the busiest week of the year — rooms and flights sell out weeks ahead. If you want quiet, avoid it; if you want the spectacle, book early and bring clothes you can soak.
The boardwalks are coolest and the animals most active before the heat builds and the tour groups arrive. Leave Jinghong at dawn on any day you are heading to Wild Elephant Valley or Wangtianshu.
Stalls everywhere sell jade and 'rare' stones, and most are not what they claim. Tea, coffee and fruit are the honest local purchases; if you must buy gems, use a large shop and insist on the receipt.
The Dai hold water, and sources of it, as sacred. Do not drop anything into a well or a stream, and treat temple images and monks with the same respect you would anywhere.
Background
Xishuangbanna sits at the southern tip of Yunnan, against Laos and Myanmar and within reach of Thailand and Vietnam, in a fold of lowland valleys and hills at about 550 m. The Lancang River — the Mekong — runs the length of the prefecture from north to south, and it is the reason the whole area is so green: the climate is tropical monsoon, averaging about 21°C, with a dry season from November to April and a wet one from May to October, frost-free all year and famously foggy in the mornings.
The terrain does the rest. The prefecture is a patchwork of flat, fertile valleys — the 'bazi' — surrounded by hills, which is why the Dai, who farm wet rice, live on the plains and the other peoples live in the hills. That division of landscape into plain, hill and river is the basic shape of everything here, from the farming to the food to the pattern of the villages.
The Dai are the largest people of the prefecture, with their own language and script, and Theravada Buddhism is their faith — which is why the temples here, with their tiered roofs, gilded poles and serpents, look far more like those of Thailand and Laos than of the rest of China. Almost every village has a temple, and often a stupa beside it; they are the centre of community life as much as places of worship.
The Dai year peaks with the New Year, held 13–15 April, when people wash the Buddha images at the temple and then splash water on one another as a blessing — the origin of the Water-Splashing Festival. The other two fixed points are the 'closing door' and 'opening door' festivals in mid-July and mid-October, which bracket the rainy season and mark the point at which young people may marry again. While the April festival has become famous nationwide, its core remains the old idea: water washes away the past year's misfortune, and what is left is clean.
Travel with them
Not guides — the television, books and music that colour how the place is remembered, especially the way the last generation of Chinese knows it.
Dir. Huang Shuqin · 20 episodes
The defining television drama about Xishuangbanna for a whole generation of mainland Chinese. It follows the children left behind by urban youth sent down to the frontier during the Cultural Revolution, who grow up and go searching for the parents who abandoned them. It drew a reported 42% of the national audience and fixed the region in the popular imagination.
Zhu Letao (Piggy)
A gentle illustrated memoir of a childhood spent in the prefecture, told in watercolour and light. It is the counterweight to the darker history — the fog in the banana leaves, the fruit, the river — and the best book to read if you want to understand why people who grew up here miss it.
Lin Da and Wan Da
The story of two girls raised in a rainforest house, schooled by nature instead of a classroom, who go on to work for the forest's survival. Part memoir, part conservation argument, and a reminder that the prefecture's rainforest is a threatened, living thing rather than a theme park.
Comp. Shi Guangnan
The best-loved Dai melody in China, most often played on the gourd flute, and the piece that taught the whole country what a Dai evening is supposed to sound like. Put it on as you walk the riverside night market and the cliché suddenly makes sense.
The questions visitors ask us most about Xishuangbanna, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
November to April, the dry season, when it is warm but not oppressive and the roads are clear — that is the comfortable window. It stays mild all year at about 21°C, but May to October brings heavy rain. The Water-Splashing Festival in mid-April is the biggest event and the busiest week of the year; June to September is the season for tropical fruit if you can handle the wet.
Fly. Xishuangbanna Gasa (JHG) is 5 km from Jinghong, a 1-hour hop from Kunming, with daily international routes to Bangkok and Luang Prabang and frequent domestic service. There is no railway yet, so the alternative is a 6–8 hour overnight bus from Kunming. Once here, most travel is by chartered car, because buses to the outlying sights are slow and infrequent.
Reasonably, but a car helps enormously. Jinghong itself is walkable and cheap to cross by taxi, and three local bus lines cover the city sights for ¥1–2. The problem is everything outside it: Wild Elephant Valley, Wangtianshu and the botanical gardens are far apart, and public buses are slow. A chartered car costs about ¥100–200 for a half-day and ¥800–1,000 for two full days, and removes almost all the friction.
It is the Dai New Year, held on 13–15 April, when people bathe the Buddha images at the temples and then douse each other with water as a blessing for the year ahead. It is joyful and you will get completely soaked — wear clothes you do not mind ruining and keep your phone in a dry bag. Outside April, a shorter version of the same ceremony is staged daily at the Dai village park at Ganlanba.
Dai food above all: lemongrass-grilled fish, pineapple sticky rice, bamboo-tube rice and sour-bamboo chicken soup — sour, herbal and often fiery. You eat sticky rice with your fingers, washing your hands first. The night markets along the Mekong and the Manjinglan food street are the best places, alongside the many Burmese and Thai restaurants in town.
Possibly, but do not count on it. Wild Asian elephants do live in the prefecture and use the valley at Wild Elephant Valley as a watering hole, with the best odds at dawn and dusk. Most visitors see the captive elephants in the park's show rather than the wild ones — which is a different experience entirely. Go for the rainforest and the walkways first, and treat a wild sighting as a bonus.
On your own is fine if you charter a car, but a local guide earns their keep here. The region is a tourism-driven prefecture next to the border, and jade, gems and tea are sold hard — a good guide keeps you out of the shops that pay for the commissions and steers you to the Dai kitchens and villages that are worth the detour. If you want that handled, join one of our Xishuangbanna private tours and skip the logistics.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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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.
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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