City guide · Yunnan
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
I loved Dali more than Lijiang, which I visited later — maybe because Dali is quieter and fresher, less bustle and noise. The air and the climate here are famously good.
wu3598962, 'Dali in March, Too Lovely to Put Down'
The early-morning Pudacuo park was like a world apart, dreamlike. We had so little time that the guide told us not to get off at the first stop, and our little one was still asleep, so we stayed on until Shudu Lake. I can't describe the scenery — just look at the photos.
luyating82, 'Honeymoon: Relaxed Lijiang, Dreamlike Shangri-La'
Yunnan sits where the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau meets the Tibetan Plateau, and that collision is the whole point. Within a single province you drop from 4,500-metre glacier fields to steamy tropical rainforest near the Burmese border, passing through terraced rice country, deep river gorges and highland lakes on the way. It is the reason a trip here feels less like one destination and more like four stitched together.
Most travellers start in Kunming, the 'Spring City', where temperatures sit between 0°C and 29°C year-round and the parks are full of flowers and seagulls. From there the classic route climbs northwest: Dali with its Bai villages and the wind, flowers, snow and moon of Cangshan and Erhai; Lijiang with its Naxi old town and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain; then Shangri-La, where the names turn Tibetan and the altitude passes 3,300 metres.
What makes Yunnan different from a checklist of sights is the human layer. Twenty-five recognised minority groups live here — Bai, Naxi, Tibetan, Mosuo, Dai — each with its own festivals, dress and food. You will eat rice noodles in Kunming, cured ham and rose cakes in Dali, and yak butter tea in a Tibetan farmhouse above Shangri-La, all within a week. That range, not any single postcard view, is why people keep coming back.
Be honest about the trade-offs. Yunnan is heavily touristed and Lijiang's old town in particular has become a giant shopping arcade. Roads are long, some are rough, and altitude is real above 3,000 metres. But travel slowly, skip the packaged day tours, and the province still delivers landscapes and encounters that few places in China can match.
Yunnan
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (Yulong Xueshan) is the closest thing China has to a drive-up glacier. The big cable car lifts you to 4,506 m and a boardwalk over the glacier park; the small cable car drops you at Spruce Meadow, a meadow ringed by 3,000-year-old spruces. Altitude sickness is real up here — walk slowly, drink water, and don't sprint for photos.
Lijiang's Dayan Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site of cobbled lanes, willow-lined canals and 800 years of Naxi wooden houses. No cars are allowed inside — you walk, or you ride a horse cart, or you get lost, which is the point. Shuhe, 4 km out, is the quieter, cheaper version most backpackers prefer to sleep in.
Songzanlin Monastery outside Shangri-La climbs a hillside in white and ochre tiers, home to hundreds of monks and a trove of gilded Buddhas, thangka paintings and sutras. Entry is CNY 115, open 07:30–18:30, and bus No. 3 from Shangri-La town costs CNY 1. Morning prayer chanting is the reason to come early.
The Yuanyang terraces in southern Yunnan flood from November to March and reflect the sky like broken glass; at sunrise the water turns pink, then gold. Sunset at Laohuzui viewpoint and sunrise at Duoyishu are the two shots everyone is chasing. Bring a tripod — the light lasts about twenty minutes.
Down by the Mekong border, Xishuangbanna gives you rainforest, wild elephants at the Wild Elephant Valley, Dai bamboo houses on stilts, and a Water-Splashing Festival every mid-April. It is 700 km and a climate zone away from the snow mountains — which is exactly why Yunnan needs two weeks.
Itineraries
The most-travelled Yunnan loop, trimmed to three days for people connecting through Kunming. Fly in, ride the train out, and end on a snow mountain. Doable, but you will wish you had two more days.
Land at Changshui International Airport, drop your bags, and head straight for the Stone Forest, 90 minutes east of the city. Then eat your first proper bowl of crossing-the-bridge rice noodles.
Stops: Stone Forest (Shilin)Green Lake ParkJinma Biji Archways
Take the morning train or bus to Dali, then spend the afternoon between the lake and the 1,000-year-old Three Pagodas. Sleep inside the old town walls, not in Xiaguan.
Stops: Erhai LakeChongsheng Temple Three PagodasDali Old TownForeigner Street
Ride to Lijiang in the morning, wander the canals of Dayan Old Town, then spend the afternoon up Jade Dragon Snow Mountain on the big cable car. If you have a fourth day, add Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Stops: Dayan Old TownWangu TowerJade Dragon Snow MountainBlack Dragon Pool
For travellers who want monasteries, grasslands and 3,300 m air rather than old-town bars. Based on the PDF's nine-day Lijiang–Shangri-La route, cut down to the three days that matter most.
Ride horses along the old Tea Horse Road at Lashi Lake, spend the afternoon in sleepy Shuhe Old Town, and go into Dayan Old Town after dark when the lanterns come on. Sleep in Shuhe if you want quiet.
Horse-riding packages at Lashi Lake run CNY 100–120 for about two hours on horseback plus an hour on the boat.
Stops: Lashi LakeShuhe Old TownDayan Old TownSifang Street
Bus or drive north to Shangri-La (3,300 m — take it easy on arrival), then visit Songzanlin Monastery in the afternoon light. Entry CNY 115, open 07:30–18:30, bus No. 3 from town costs CNY 1.
Finish the day spinning the giant prayer wheel in Guishan Park above Dukezong Old Town.
Stops: Songzanlin MonasteryDukezong Old TownGuishan Park prayer wheel
Spend the morning in Pudacuo National Park, a mix of Bita Lake and Shudu Lake with boardwalks over wetlands and primeval forest. In the afternoon, ride horses across the grasslands of Napa Lake (entry CNY 65), or push on to Shika Snow Mountain if the weather is clear.
If you have five more days, continue to Deqin, Feilai Temple and the Yubeng trek — that is the real reason people come this far north.
Stops: Pudacuo National ParkBita LakeShudu LakeNapa LakeShika Snow Mountain
Sights
Snow mountain
Lijiang's holy mountain and its defining postcard: a 13-peak massif that stacks subtropical, temperate and glacial zones on one slope. Three cable cars serve it — the big one reaches 4,506 m and the glacier park, the middle one passes yak pastures, and the small one ends at Spruce Meadow, a meadow tucked inside old-growth forest. The best light on the thirteen peaks is at sunrise and sunset from Yak Meadow (Maoniuping), which also has its own cable car.
Tip Altitude hits hard above 4,000 m. Buy a can of oxygen at the base if you are unsure, walk the boardwalk slowly, and do not plan anything strenuous for the evening. Horses can also be hired up to Spruce Meadow for around CNY 60.
UNESCO World Heritage
Eight hundred years of Naxi wooden houses, cobbled alleys and canals fed by spring water diverted through the town. There are no cars inside — only foot traffic, horse carts and the sound of the local piped folk song everyone gets sick of by day three. Walk up to Wangu Tower for the full rooftop view of grey tiles, or out to Black Dragon Pool, where Jade Dragon Snow Mountain reflects in the water on a clear morning.
Tip Do not bring a wheeled suitcase — the old town is paved in rough stone and your wheels will not survive. Bring a backpack, or accept that a porter with a bamboo pole will carry your bag for you. Also skip the Golden Week holidays unless you enjoy paying triple for a room.
Tibetan Buddhism
The largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, built in 1679 and modelled on Lhasa's Potala Palace, spread across a hillside above Shangri-La. The two main assembly halls, Zhacang and Jikang, sit at the top of the complex; inside are gilded statues of the Fifth and Seventh Dalai Lamas, palm-leaf sutras, gold-ink thangkas and butter lamps that never go out. Monks in red robes move between courtyards all day, and morning chanting is worth the early alarm.
Tip Photography is restricted inside the assembly halls — ask before you raise the camera, and never photograph monks without permission. Walk clockwise around the monastery and its stupas, as Tibetan pilgrims do.
National park
Two alpine lakes, Bita and Shudu, joined into one park of boardwalks, wetlands, horse pastures and primeval forest. It is the most accessible way to see the Shangri-La plateau without a trek: you ride the shuttle, walk a plank path over flowering marsh, and look out for squirrels, yaks and, if you are lucky, a black-necked crane. Early morning mist on Shudu Lake is the shot everyone comes for.
Tip Do not skip the first stop thinking you will see it later — the shuttle route does not loop back the same way. Get off early, walk the longest boardwalk section, and reboard at the next stop. Bring cash for snacks; card readers are unreliable at this altitude.
Trekking
One of the deepest gorges in the world, with the Jinsha River thundering between two 5,000 m walls. The classic high trail runs two days from Qiaotou to Tina's Guesthouse, through Naxi villages and terraced fields, with the famous 28-bend switchback climb at the start. The lower road version is doable in a day, but the high trail is the one people remember.
Tip The 28 bends are brutal in the afternoon heat; start before 8am and carry more water than feels reasonable. If you only have one day, do the Middle Gorge section from Tina's down to the river and back — it gives you the roar and the spray without the two-day commitment. Our Yunnan tour packages can arrange a guide and porter if you want the full high trail without hauling your own bag.
Food
Yunnan's signature bowl, and Kunming is where you eat the definitive version. A scalding chicken-and-ham broth arrives with a film of oil on top; you drop in raw quail egg, sliced pork, and the noodles last, and they cook in the bowl in front of you. A proper bowl runs CNY 15–30 at a place like Jianshiyuan or Qiaoxiangyuan in Kunming, and it is a full meal, not a snack.
From June to September the rains bring the mushroom harvest and the whole province eats fungi. A clay-pot broth simmers with chicken or pork, then you cook porcini, chanterelles and the prized jizong yourself. Expect CNY 100–200 per person at Kunming's Guan Shang Zhong Lu 'wild mushroom street'. Never eat unknown mushrooms raw, and never pick your own without a guide.
Erkuai is pounded rice cake, grilled until it puffs and blistered, then brushed with chilli and fermented bean paste — a few yuan from any street cart. Xidoufen is a silky yellow-pea porridge eaten with fried dough sticks for breakfast; a bowl costs CNY 5–8 in Kunming and Dali.
Rushan is Dali's fan-shaped cow's-milk cheese, stretched, dried and then grilled or fried; it is salty, chewy and faintly funky, and it is the one snack every Bai household serves. Pair it with sandao cha, the three-course tea ceremony: bitter first, sweet second, and a lingering aftertaste third, about CNY 30–50 per person at a Bai guesthouse.
Xuanwei ham is Yunnan's answer to prosciutto, cured in the cool highlands and sliced thin — you will find it folded into rice dishes and mushroom soups everywhere. Shiping tofu is the opposite texture: small grilled cubes with a crisp skin and molten centre, sold by the dozen at markets and night stalls for CNY 1–2 each.
Where to eat
Crossing-the-bridge noodles
The reliable, old-school chain for Yunnan's most famous dish. Order the set, not the plain bowl, and let the server tell you the order to add things. Branches across Kunming; the one near Nanping Street is the easiest to reach from the city centre and is busy but fast-moving.
Wild mushroom hotpot
A whole street of mushroom restaurants that only makes sense from June to September, when the fungi are fresh rather than dried. Pick your mushrooms from the basket, point at what looks good, and let them cook for the full 15 minutes — undercooked wild mushrooms send people to hospital every year.
Bai home cooking
Along Renmin Road and the lanes off it, family-run kitchens serve the food Bai people actually eat: rushan grilled over charcoal, cold chicken rice noodles, pickled plums, and casserole-cooked fish from Erhai. The decor is often deliberately rustic and prices are low — CNY 40–70 per person for a full spread.
Local market eating
Lijiang Old Town restaurants are famously overpriced for what you get; locals eat at Zhongyi Market just outside the old town instead. Come for grilled erkuai, noodle bowls, Yunnan coffee and fresh fruit at a fraction of the old-town price. Go at lunchtime when everything is open.
Where to stay
Naxi courtyard guesthouse
The classic Yunnan stay: a wooden Naxi courtyard house with a garden, tea always on the table, and a host who will arrange drivers, tickets and treks for you. The catch is that no vehicles enter the old town, so you walk the last stretch over cobblestones — bring a backpack, not a wheeled suitcase, or the wheels will not survive.
Quieter alternative base
Many backpackers now sleep in Shuhe rather than Lijiang itself: it is four kilometres away, calmer, cheaper, and still a proper Naxi town on the old tea-horse road. You get the same courtyard guesthouses without the bar-street noise, and it is an easy taxi or bike ride into Lijiang when you want it.
Bai-style guesthouse or lake view
Dali splits into two choices. Stay in Dali Old Town for Bai courtyard houses converted into small hotels, walking distance to cafés and the old streets, and easy buses to the lake. Or pay more for a lakeside room at Shuanglang on the east shore, where you wake up facing Cangshan across Erhai — the view is the whole point.
Getting around
Kunming Changshui International Airport (KMG) is the province's gateway, 24.5 km from downtown and the only airport in Yunnan with daily long-haul international service. From here almost every onward leg — Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La, Xishuangbanna — is either a short hop or a high-speed train ride.
The Kunming-Dali-Lijiang line has rewired how people travel Yunnan: what used to be an overnight bus is now a comfortable 2-3 hour train. Book a few days ahead in peak season — seats sell out, especially Friday and Sunday afternoons.
Buses fill the gaps the rail network leaves: Shangri-La, Deqin, Tengchong, Ruili and the border country. Kunming has five main coach stations, each pointing in a different direction, so check which one serves your route before you set out.
Inside the old towns you walk — Lijiang's lanes are cobbled and closed to vehicles, so leave the wheeled suitcase at home. Between towns, hire a driver for the day or rent a bike; Dali's lakeside loop and Lijiang's run out to Baisha are two of the best half-days on two wheels in China.
Shopping
Yunnan's signature export. Buy it in Kunming or the Lijiang old town, but know the difference: most of the Pu'er sold to tourists is blended and cheap, while real aged cakes run into the thousands. Taste before you commit, and ask for a sealed bag.
The indigo-and-white cloth of the Bai people, made in workshops around Zhoucheng near Dali. Geometries, florals and animal motifs, all hand-tied and dyed. It's lighter and cheaper than it looks, and it's genuinely local rather than imported from Yiwu.
Lijiang's lanes overflow with silver bangles and dongba-paper notebooks. Prices are surprisingly reasonable, but the 'old silver' is often new — weigh the piece and compare across two or three shops before buying.
Kunming's markets sell morel, porcini and matsutake by the sack. Buy from a proper dried-goods stall rather than a souvenir shop, check for mould, and remember customs rules at home before you stock up.
Practical info
Prices and phone numbers in this guide reflect the source material; confirm opening hours the day before you go, especially in the rainy season when mountain roads and cable cars close without warning.
| Best months | March–May and September–November. July–August is the rainy season — cool enough to escape the lowland heat, but expect washed-out mountain views and slick trails. Winter is bright and dry, though Shangri-La and Deqin drop below freezing. |
|---|---|
| Golden Week | Avoid it entirely. Room rates in Lijiang and Dali jump to 2–5 times normal, guesthouse owners stop answering the phone, and buses sell out days ahead. |
| Old town maintenance fee | Lijiang charges a CNY 80 heritage fee, registered to your name and valid seven days. You need the receipt to enter Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Black Dragon Pool, Mu Mansion and Wangu Tower. |
| Altitude | Lijiang sits at 2,400 m, Shangri-La at 3,300 m, Deqin at 3,400 m and the Feilai Temple viewpoint at 3,500 m. Give yourself a night in Lijiang or Dali before pushing higher, drink more water than you think you need, and skip the alcohol on your first night up. |
| Cash and cards | Mobile payment works almost everywhere in the cities, but carry a few hundred yuan in cash for rural buses, village guesthouses, horse wranglers and temple donation boxes. |
| What to pack | Layers, a real rain shell, sunblock and sunglasses (UV at 3,000 m is no joke), and shoes you can walk cobblestones in. Skip the wheeled suitcase for Lijiang — the old town is all uneven stone and the wheels will not survive. |
| Budget | CNY 100 per person per day is genuinely doable if you sleep in guesthouses, eat local and skip the big-ticket attractions. A comfortable mid-range trip runs CNY 400–700 a day. The sample routing in most brochures — 8 days through Lijiang, Kunming, Dali and Lugu Lake — lands around CNY 5,000–6,000 excluding flights. |
| Solo and female travellers | Yunnan is one of the easiest provinces in China to travel alone; guesthouses are used to it and English signage is common in Lijiang and Dali. That said, solo women get plenty of unsolicited attention in the bar streets — normal street sense applies. |
Background
Yunnan covers barely 4 percent of China's land area but straddles the collision zone where the Indian and Eurasian plates shoved the Himalayas up and then kept going. That single geological accident is why you can have breakfast by Erhai Lake at 2,000 m and be drinking barley wine on a 3,300 m Tibetan plateau by dinner. The province runs from tropical rainforest along the Xishuangbanna border up through temperate highland to genuine alpine glacier on Meili Snow Mountain — a full vertical stack of climate zones in a few hundred kilometres.
It is also the most ethnically complex province in the country: 25 of China's 55 recognised minority groups live here, including the Naxi, Bai, Dai, Tibetan, Yi, Lisu and Mosuo. The Naxi developed their own pictographic script, the Dongba writing system, which is still studied and still used ceremonially. The Mosuo around Lugu Lake run a matrilineal society with a walking-marriage custom in which partners stay in their own family homes. None of this is staged for tourists, though plenty of it gets packaged that way in the old towns.
In 1933 the British writer James Hilton published Lost Horizon, a novel about a plane crash in a hidden Himalayan valley where nobody ages and everyone is content. The book invented the word Shangri-La and set off decades of arguments about where the real place was. In 2001 the Chinese government settled the question by renaming Zhongdian, a town of a few thousand people in northwestern Yunnan, to Shangri-La City. It became the only place on earth with that name.
That decision changed everything. The Tibetan name for the old town core, Dukezong, remains, and it is still one of the best-preserved and largest Tibetan residential quarters in China — but a fire in 2014 destroyed much of the historic wooden centre, and what you walk through today is a careful reconstruction. Go for the cobbled lanes and the giant prayer wheel on Guishan Hill, not for a sense of untouched antiquity. If you want the real thing, push further north to Deqin and the villages below Meili Snow Mountain.
Further reading
James Hilton, 1933
The novel that invented Shangri-La and, indirectly, renamed a Chinese town. Read it on the bus between Lijiang and Zhongdian — the landscape outside the window is the reason the book exists.
Robert van Gulik, 1960
A Judge Dee mystery set on a lake in Ming-dynasty China. It is not about Yunnan specifically, but van Gulik's atmosphere of walled towns, night markets and river travel is the closest fiction gets to the feel of a Dali or Lijiang evening.
Wang Jiayi, 1959
Shot around Erhai Lake and Butterfly Spring, this is the film that made Dali famous across China. The Bai songs and the lakeside courtship scenes are still recognisable in the villages around Xizhou.
Various ensembles, Lijiang
Taoist temple music and Tang-dynasty court tunes preserved by Naxi musicians, played nightly in small halls in Lijiang's old town. Some of the performers are in their eighties and nineties. It is genuinely rare, and genuinely worth an evening.
Local labels, available in Lijiang shops
You will hear the same handful of songs in every bar in Lijiang — the ones from the TV drama that made the town a destination. Buy a recording of actual Naxi or Tibetan folk music instead; the shop owners will point you at it if you ask for something that is not the soundtrack.
The questions visitors ask us most about Yunnan, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Plan on 8 days minimum and 14 for the full golden route. The classic Kunming–Dali–Lijiang–Shangri-La–Deqin corridor covers roughly 1,400 km of mountain roads; trying to squeeze it into a week means spending most of your time in a bus. If you only have 5 days, pick one region — Lijiang and Shangri-La, or Kunming and Dali — and do it properly.
March to April and October to November give the clearest skies and the most comfortable temperatures. October to late May is the dry season and the best window for Meili Snow Mountain views; May to July is when the grasslands are greenest. July and August are the rainy season and also the domestic summer-holiday peak, so expect crowds and afternoon downpours. Winter is sunny and dry but Shangri-La gets genuinely cold — pack layers.
Yes, above 3,000 metres. Kunming sits at 1,890 m and Dali at 1,970 m, which most people handle fine. Lijiang is 2,400 m, Shangri-La 3,300 m, and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain cable car tops out at 4,506 m — that last one catches people out. Ascend gradually, drink water, avoid heavy drinking for the first two days, and consider a day of rest in Shangri-La before pushing on to Deqin.
You can travel independently, but a private driver-guide transforms the mountain stretches. Public buses reach every major town cheaply, and trains connect Kunming, Dali and Lijiang. The problem is the in-between places — Tiger Leaping Gorge, Baishui Terrace, Meili Snow Mountain — where public transport is slow, infrequent or nonexistent. For those legs, hiring a car and driver for CNY 400–600 a day is worth it, and a guide helps enormously with Tibetan areas where English is rare.
Start with Crossing-the-Bridge rice noodles (guoqiao mixian) in Kunming, then work through the province. Dali gives you rushan cheese, rose cakes and cured Xuanwei ham; Lijiang has Naxi baba flatbread and wild mushroom hotpot; Shangri-La serves yak butter tea, tsampa and Tibetan hotpot. Wild mushrooms are a Yunnan obsession from June to September — eat them in reputable restaurants only, since some species are toxic if undercooked.
A comfortable 8-day trip runs about CNY 5,000–6,000 per person excluding international flights. Budget travellers who stay in guesthouses, eat local and skip the priciest ticketed sights can get by on around CNY 100 per day. The big costs are transport between towns, entry tickets (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Songzanlin Monastery and Pudacuo all charge CNY 100+), and accommodation, which triples during Golden Week.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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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.
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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