City guide · Zhejiang
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Born in Zhoushan, raised in Zhoushan — no city is as close to the sea as this one. Lean out of the old house window and there it is, green waves and sea wind, the carefree days and endless memories. Go on, put yourself in the sea's embrace and drift. It has a warm and lovely name: riding the waves.
'A Wave-Riding Trip to South Sand, Zhujiajian', a traveller's note
Sit somewhere, watch the sea, feel the wind on your face and the blue in front of you. Then the sun comes through a gap in the clouds, and all at once the water is glittering.
'Dongji — that forgotten blue sea', a traveller's note
Zhoushan is a city that happens to be 1,390 islands. They spread across 22,000 sq km of the East China Sea, and the main island — the one everyone means when they say Zhoushan — is long and low, shaped, the locals insist, like a boat tied up at anchor. More than twenty cross-sea bridges now stitch the big islands back to the mainland, so you can drive here without ever boarding a boat; but the moment you leave the main island, the boat is the whole transport network again.
It sells the sea, not the city. Putuo Mountain is one of the four great Buddhist mountains of China and the island where Guanyin is said to hold court, all incense smoke and yellow walls among the pines. Zhujiajian is sand and sculpture. Taohua is the swordsman's island Jin Yong borrowed for his novels and then confirmed as the real thing. And out at the edge — Dongji, Shengsi — the water finally turns the deep blue that the mainland coast never manages.
Then there is Shenjiamen, and honestly a lot of people come just for Shenjiamen. It is the largest natural fishing harbour in China and one of the three great fishing ports of the world, its waterfront strung with a mile of night-market stalls that cook the day's catch to order. Zhoushan beltfish, yellow croaker and swimming crab are the local claims; the beltfish, no exaggeration, is often called the best-tasting in the world.
By Chinese-city standards it is a gentle place. Distances are short, prices are low, the air is cleaner than the mainland's, and the pace is set by ferry timetables rather than traffic. Give it three or four days and lean into the waiting — the pause between boats is not the wasted part of a Zhoushan trip, it is the product.
Zhoushan
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
One of the four great Buddhist mountains of China and the busiest pilgrimage site on the coast. Three great temples — Puji, Fayu and Huiji — the 18 m bronze Guanyin, the sea cave at Chaoyin and a joint ticket that covers most of the island. Come early; by mid-morning the ferry crowds arrive.
The fifth-largest island, joined to the main island by bridge, and the setting for the annual International Sand Sculpture Festival. Seven beaches in all, South Sand the biggest, with a dedicated square where you can carve your own sculpture and a summer programme of laser films and beach concerts after dark.
378.6 m, reached by road up the north slope to a ridge between two bays, with more than two hundred named rock formations and a summit that spends much of the year in cloud. Daybreak from the ridge over the five linked sands is the reason to drive up before the heat sets in.
A ten-li natural harbour between two hills and the largest in China — one of the three great fishing ports of the world. At fishing seasons tens of thousands of boats from a dozen provinces fill it. By night the lights come on, the masts become a forest, and the waterfront stalls cook the catch straight off the decks.
45 km out from Shenjiamen: 28 islands and 108 reefs, the easternmost inhabited land in the country. Dongfu Mountain brings the cliffs, the lighthouse and the legend of Xu Fu's search for the elixir; the reward for the one-boat-a-day crossing is the cleanest, deepest blue in the province.
The island Jin Yong put in 'The Legend of the Condor Heroes' as the home of Huang Yaoshi, and which he confirmed was based on the real Taohua. A Song-style film set, the 1,370 m sweep of Tanwan Golden Sand, and Anqi Peak at 540 m — the highest point in the entire archipelago.
Suggested routes
For a short break out of Ningbo or Shanghai: Putuo Mountain one day, Zhujiajian and Shenjiamen the next.
Take the early fast boat from Shenjiamen's Banshengdong pier to Putuo Mountain. Start at the 18 m bronze Guanyin, walk on to Chaoyin Cave and the Hall of the Unwilling-to-Leave Guanyin, then take a vegetarian lunch at Puji Temple.
Spend the afternoon at Puji and Fayu temples — the nine-dragon ceiling at Fayu is the finest temple interior on the island — and finish with the cable car up to Huiji Temple on the Buddha Summit for the view out to sea. Boat back to Shenjiamen in the evening.
Stops: Nanhai GuanyinChaoyin CavePuji TempleFayu TempleHuiji Temple
Early drive up Mount Daqing for the sunrise over the linked sands, then down to South Sand to swim and see the International Sand Sculpture Art Square. Have a go at a sculpture of your own — it is the local craft.
Late afternoon at Wushi Tang, the black pebble beach, to hear the 'Wutang tide sound', then back to Shenjiamen for dinner at the night market and the harbour lights.
Stops: Mount DaqingSouth SandSand Sculpture SquareWushi TangShenjiamen night market
The standard trip. Adds the fishing harbour as an experience rather than a backdrop, plus the wuxia island.
Start on the main island at Dinghai ancient town — the only historic island city in China — and its Opium War memorial park at Zhushan. Climb Huangyangjian, the island's highest point at 503.6 m, for the panorama over the archipelago.
Come down to Shenjiamen in time for the sunset over the harbour and eat at the night market.
Stops: Dinghai ancient townOpium War parkHuangyangjianShenjiamen
A full day on Putuo as on the two-day route, but with the time to add the Foding (Buddha Summit) walk down through the woods and the smaller halls most day-trippers skip. Sleep on the island if you have booked ahead — the early morning before the boats arrive is the best hour Putuo has.
Stops: Nanhai GuanyinChaoyin CavePuji TempleFayu TempleHuiji Temple
Fast boat from Shenjiamen to Taohua. Walk the 1,370 m of Tanwan Golden Sand, wander the Song-dynasty set of the Condor Heroes studio town at the foot of Sanhua Peak, and climb Anqi Peak for the highest view in the islands. Back to Shenjiamen by evening.
Stops: Tanwan Golden SandCondor Heroes studio townAnqi Peak
The version that earns the archipelago. Adds the eastern isles and a night in Shengsi.
Land, settle in, and warm up on the main island — Dinghai ancient town, the Opium War site, the view from Huangyangjian and a first night at the Shenjiamen market.
Stops: DinghaiZhushan parkHuangyangjianShenjiamen
Mount Daqing at dawn, South Sand and the sculpture square at midday, Wushi Tang in the late afternoon, back to the harbour for dinner.
Stops: Mount DaqingSouth SandWushi Tang
The full island, early boats and a slow circuit of the three temples; add the quiet western halls if you have the daylight.
Stops: Nanhai GuanyinPuji TempleFayu TempleHuiji Temple
The 08:30 boat from Shenjiamen to Miaozihu. Wander, eat at a fisherman's guesthouse facing the water, and book a boat the next morning for Dongfu Mountain's cliffs and lighthouse.
Stops: MiaozihuDongfu Mountain
Out early to Dongfu for the Elephant Trunk Peak, the Waiting Wife Cliff and the 'number-one fortune' stone, then take the 11:00 boat back and the coach or flight home.
Stops: Dongfu MountainXiangbi PeakFuzi stone
Sights
The pilgrimage island
China's four great Buddhist mountains are Wutai, Putuo, Emei and Jiuhua — gold, silver, bronze and iron — and Putuo is the silver one, the court of Guanyin. The island's sights run from the 18 m bronze Guanyin and the temple of the Guanyin who would not leave, to Chaoyin Cave where the tide thunders into a sea cave, to the three great temples: Puji (the 'front temple', the island's first, with the 8.8 m Vairocana Guanyin in its 'living hall'), Fayu (the 'back temple', whose Nine-Dragon Hall is the finest temple interior in China) and Huiji (the 'Buddha Summit temple', hidden in yellow-tiled glory above the tree line).
Tip Book ahead at the big holidays — and note that on the 19th of the 2nd, 6th and 9th lunar months, the three great incense days, locals lose their free entry too and the island is at its most crowded.
Sand and sculpture
Zhujiajian is the fifth-largest island of the group, 72 sq km, joined to the main island by bridge and paired with Putuo Mountain as a national scenic area. It is confirmed by the World Sand Sculpture Association as one of the world's best beaches for sand quality and scenery, and it is where Chinese sand sculpture began. South Sand is the best of the seven: clean, fine, gently sloped, with lifeguards, showers, water sports and the International Sand Sculpture Art Square, which stages the annual festival and lets visitors build their own.
Tip In festival season South Sand runs laser films, karaoke and beach dancing in the evening, an 08:00 rock concert, and a Guinness show at 09:00 each morning — stay for dusk if you are there in summer.
The high ridge
The highest point of Zhujiajian at 378.6 m, and the south end of the island, pushing out into the sea between the Wusha and Wolf bays. An easy road runs up the north slope to the summit, with footpaths threading to Eagle Ridge, the Four-Drum Flats and Cat Leap. Three sides face the water, the peaks run for ten li, and there are more than two hundred named rock formations; because of where it sits, the mountain spends much of the year wrapped in cloud — 'Daqing drunk on mist' is the local wonder.
Tip A Zhoushan-resident or Zhoushan-student annual card costs ¥50 and covers the sculpture square, the Guanyin culture park, Wushi Tang and Mount Daqing — worth it if you are staying a week.
The black beach
Two ridges of gleaming black pebbles curve round the bay east of Dadong'ao — a 500 m 'great' one and a 350 m 'small' one, laid up the slope by the sea itself. They are remarkable less for size than for sound: lie on the cool stones at night, watch the moon and listen, and the effect locals call the 'Wutang tide sound' takes over. Drive the bay slowly; it is one of the strangest beaches in Zhejiang.
Tip Combine it with Mount Daqing the same afternoon — they share a road, and both are better in the low light than at midday.
The far east
There is a South Pole and a North Pole, and there is also this — China's easternmost edge, 45 km out from Shenjiamen: 28 islands and 108 reefs, with Miaozihu the administrative hub and Dongfu Mountain the scenic peak. Dongfu brings the Elephant Trunk Peak, the Waiting Wife Cliff and the 'number-one fortune' stone, plus a working lighthouse; the legend is that Xu Fu's fleet, sent by the First Emperor in search of the elixir, stopped here. The fishermen's paintings of Miaozihu are a craft in themselves.
Tip This is a stay-the-night destination, not a day trip. The water out here is the only genuinely blue sea on the whole coast, and dusk on Dongfu is the reason.
The wuxia island
The real Taohua is mild, ridged and misted, and it is the island Jin Yong had in mind: in April 1994 he travelled to Zhoushan and said outright that if people wanted to know the prototype of the East Sea Peach Blossom Island, yes, it was Taohua. It has the 1,370 m Tanwan Golden Sand, a Song-style film set of the Condor Heroes studio town at the base of Sanhua Peak, and Anqi Peak at 540 m, the highest in the archipelago, with the rockfields that make up the 'Hundred Families Pilgrimage' landscape.
Tip Read a bit of the Condor Heroes first and the film set becomes a game rather than a set of props — 'Pharmacy', 'Jing's Cottage' and 'Rong'er's Teahouse' are all named for the characters.
Food
One of the four great commercial fish of the Zhoushan grounds and one of China's first geographical-indication seafood trademarks. Fresh enough to steam, it is sweet rather than fishy and lacks the bony grit of beltfish from elsewhere — steamboat operators call it the best-tasting beltfish in the world, and here at least it is nearly true.
Zhoushan waters are a main home of the large yellow croaker: fine flesh, high in protein and with a medicinal reputation. Fresh, it goes braised, stewed, stir-fried or salted, and salt-pickled croaker with pickled greens is the Dinghai dish you serve a guest. Salt-cured and dried it becomes 'croaker xiang', the base of the celebrated croaker-and-pork bake.
The most distinctive local dish on a Dinghai table: dried salt-cured croaker cooked together with pork until both go tender, the dried-fish fragrance bleeding into the meat and the pork's sweetness into the fish. Two flavours, each doing the other a favour.
The wind-dried fish the southeast-coast fishermen love most, here made from sea eel. In the depth of winter, during the eel season, the fish is gutted and hung in the shade to dry — the batch dried in that season is tagged 'xinfeng', new wind, and is reckoned the best of the year.
Fine-textured, blue-white and mineral-rich, cooked this way and that: steamed, fried, halved over bean paste, or stir-fried with rice cakes, pickled greens or tofu. On every coastal table from autumn onward, and impossibly sweet when it is fresh.
Zhoushan's bamboo shrimp grow in cooler water than their southern cousins, so they take longer, which the locals say makes them sweeter and more tender; the flesh is pale and the shell blue-green. Excellent cold, and the standard makings of a prawn nigiri.
A shelled creature unique to Putuo Mountain, eaten only in August, shaped like a Buddha's outstretched hand. Sweet and rich but not cloying when boiled — a genuine sea delicacy and one you will not find anywhere else.
The live seafood at Zhoushan is endless — croaker, striped shrimp, big lobster, sea crab, clams, mussels and every shell in between. If it came off a boat that morning, it is on someone's table by night, and the price, outside the holiday peaks, is gentle.
Where to eat
The main event
The stall row on Bingang Road in Shenjiamen, given over to fresh fish, shrimp, crab and shellfish and cooked simply to keep the sea taste. It runs the length of the ten-li harbour: eat your way through the day's catch while looking through the mast-forest to the open water beyond. At night it is loud, lit and packed.
Fixed prices
Central Shenjiamen, 2 km from the pier, with a wide range of seafood and good cooking — but the real point is that it prices everything clearly and does not play the overcharging game, so you can eat without watching your wallet. A safe first meal if you are wary of harbour pricing.
The old name
One of Shenjiamen's most solidly established restaurants, mostly seafood, good food and a good room; a reliable choice for a group or a treat. Higher priced than the stalls but properly done.
The experience
Eating the temple vegetarian meal is part of any pilgrimage to Putuo Mountain — you are not here for the flavour, you are here for the ritual. Strangers share a table, the conversation is free, and the food is filling in the manner of a people's commune: cabbage-and-vermicelli soup, tofu, potato, sometimes preserved greens fried with bean dregs, changing with the day. Finish your bowl — and in summer the hall is air-conditioned, which is a kindness.
On the island
One of the more dependable island kitchens: fresh, mostly live seafood, professional service, reasonable prices for what it is. Good for a proper meal between the sights on Zhujiajian.
When you want a change
Jiangzhe cooking rather than pure seafood, with notably good desserts, a quiet and slightly refined room and attentive service — the place to go when you have eaten fish for three days straight.
Where to stay
Best base
If you are backpacking, stay near Shenjiamen: it sits between the seafood harbour, the passenger piers and the coach station, so food, bed and the next boat are all within a few minutes, and it is the easiest place to leave from for the other islands. Bingang Road and Donghai East Road are lined with hotels from about ¥150 to ¥500 a night.
Sand-sculpture base
On Zhujiajian in the middle of the Ten-Li Golden Sand scenic area, right by the International Sand Sculpture Festival grounds. Its own courtyard, quiet and green, with tea, clay work, sculpture, carving, billiards and a general invitation to slow down. One minute's walk to Golden Sand beach, ten minutes to the Guanyin statue and Puji Temple by road.
Out on the isles
On Dongji, built against the hill and facing the water, keeping the plain character of a fishing family's house. Book it if you are staying on the eastern isles — the point is to eat the seafood of the day while the blue water and the breakers are right in front of you.
Comfort
In the middle of the Putuo East Port development zone, next to the district government and looking across to the 5A Putuo Mountain, the 4A sand-sculpture Zhujiajian and the wuxia island of Taohua — and a very short walk from the famous Shenjiamen night market. Supermarkets, malls and banks all round it.
Shopping
Also called the Zhoushan aquatic products centre market and the city's first designated tourist seafood shopping centre: 15,000 sq m and close to a thousand stalls, from live shellfish to salted and dried fish. The single best place to buy seafood provisions before you leave.
A Buddhist tea grown on Foding (Buddha Summit) on Putuo Mountain and historically reserved for the great masters: rolled and downy, not quite a spiral and not quite a brow, green and glossy, brewing to a bright yellow-green with a clean, mild, refreshing taste. The jar smells distinctively of tea the moment you open it.
Every kind of live seafood is the first-choice purchase, alongside the local sea vegetables — kelp, stone-ear, southern nori and more. In the height of the summer fishing season the fresh catch is at its best and the prices are at their most decent.
The southeast-coast fisherman's standby: white xiang, croaker xiang, cuttlefish xiang, triple-alum jellyfish, shrimp skin and dried shrimp — salted, dried and wind-cured in the old way. Light, keeps well, and turns a home kitchen into a Zhoushan kitchen for a month.
Beyond the sea: Putuo narcissus, goose-neck barnacles when in season, silkworm jellyfish, kelp, mussels and the city's white xiang and myn-dried xiang are the standard takeaways. Buy the narcissus bulbs if the season is right.
The International Seafood City on Shenjiamen's Yushi Street handles the bulk of it; the harbour-side stalls are convenient but priced for tourists. If you are carrying fish sauce or dried goods home, ask the stall to vacuum-seal them — most will, for a few yuan.
Getting there
Putuoshan Airport (HSN) on Zhujiajian is a 4D regional airport with connections to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Qingdao, Nanjing and more. It sits 1.2 km from Shenjiamen and 2.5 km from Putuo Mountain — ten minutes by road to the ferry — and is reached from the airport by shuttle or taxi. Phone 0580-6260716.
Three main long-distance stations run to the mainland. Shenjiamen Putuo station (Donghai Middle Road, 0580-3012011) serves Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo; Banshengdong station (Bingang Road, near the pier, 0580-3013573) runs a bus to Ningbo every half hour from 06:30 to 16:40 and eight coaches to Hangzhou East station daily; Dinghai station (Huancheng South Road, 0580-2381010) runs 24 buses a day to Ningbo and six high-speed coaches to Shanghai's Xujiahui and Taopu Road.
Yadanshan pier is the main link to the mainland, facing Ningbo's Baifeng: 43 crossings a day from 01:30 to 23:20, 50 minutes, ¥15 a head (vehicles ¥55–120 by size). Dinghai port handles the longer Shanghai sailings. From Shenjiamen's Banshengdong pier the fast boats and ferries fan out to Putuo Mountain, Taohua, Dongji and the rest. Schedules shift with season and weather — confirm the day before.
On the main island the Ding-Shen bus links Dinghai and Shenjiamen every half hour in about 40 minutes, and bridges and buses connect the main island to Zhujiajian, the airport and the main beaches. Beyond that, everything is by boat — the outer islands mostly keep one scheduled ferry or fast boat each way per day, and a few extra at summer weekends. Taxis on land flag at ¥8 for the first 2.5 km then ¥1.80 a km.
Practical
Sung, in the local etiquette: the sea has its own grammar, and the fishermen notice when you get it right.
| No trains | There is no railway to Zhoushan and none planned; the cross-sea bridge carries road traffic only. Fly, coach or ferry. |
|---|---|
| Boat timetables move | Ferry times change with season, weather and tide. Check the day before you plan to change island. |
| Typhoon season | July to September brings tropical storms that can stop the ferries; winter brings strong winds. Book flexible summer accommodation. |
| Putuo Mountain ticketing | Seasonal gate ticket plus separate small incense tickets at each temple; free for locals except on the three great incense days. |
| Fishermen's taboos | Do not say 'fan' (to turn over) or 'xia' before a boat trip — the fish is 'turned' or 'rowed over', and dumping something in is 'boiled', not 'dropped'. |
| Chopstick manners | Do not tap your bowl with chopsticks, do not stand them upright in rice, and do not lay them across the bowl at the end of a meal — all three carry bad-luck meanings at sea. |
| Hospital | Zhoushan Hospital, 238 Renmin North Road, Dinghai, 0580-2064699; Putuo People's Hospital, 90 Gongxia Road, Shenjiamen, 0580-3030880. |
Festivals
November
The island's big religious tourism event, built on its Guanyin heritage: a grand Dharma assembly, Buddhist concerts, pilgrimages, a lotus-lantern fair, seminars and a Buddhist culture exhibition. It draws Guanyin devotees, monks and pilgrims from across China and overseas.
Tip Book accommodation far ahead; this is the busiest fortnight after the New Year period.
July–November
Held on Zhujiajian each year with a competition-and-display format: sculptors from around the world take a single annual theme and work it in sand, with float parades, island performances and seafood tastings alongside. It is why Zhujiajian is called the birthplace of Chinese sand sculpture.
Tip The sculptures are best seen early in the season before rain softens them; combine with the evening programme at South Sand.
July–October
A food festival run out of Shenjiamen harbour: seafood stall showcases, a seafood month, a folk arts fair and the Shengsi mussel festival among much else, all aimed at the thing Zhoushan does better than anywhere — cooking what came off the boat.
Tip Go hungry and go late; the stalls are busiest and best after nine.
April
A spring tea festival on Putuo Mountain with a different theme each year: tea-garden performances, monks discussing Buddhist tea, tea poetry and calligraphy, picking and roasting competitions, tea riddles, tasting and charity events. The Buddhist tea is grown on the summit and was once reserved for the great masters.
Tip The festival is the moment to buy the tea — you can taste before you commit.
Background
Zhoushan is a prefecture-level city of Zhejiang and one of only two island-based prefecture cities in China. Its 1,390 islands — a fifth of the country's total — make up 22,000 sq km, of which only 1,440 sq km is land. Its four districts and counties are Dinghai, Putuo, Daishan and Shengsi, home to about 1.1 million people who receive some six million visitors a year.
People have lived here since the Neolithic, and Zhoushan was a base in the Opium War — the British occupied it in 1840 under Captain Charles Elliot, and the Treaty of Nanjing briefly ceded it as security, though Britain returned it in 1846. Sun Yat-sen visited in 1916 and wrote about Putuo. The city became a prefecture-level municipality in 1987, opened its port to foreign vessels the same year, and has grown on fishing, shipping and — increasingly — tourism.
The religious heart of the archipelago is Putuo Mountain, one of the four great Buddhist mountains and the court of Guanyin, its shrines honoured since the Tang and radiating out through the maritime Silk Road to the rest of Southeast Asia and to Japan and Korea. Every temple here, large or small, enshrines Guanyin, which is why the islands are nicknamed the hometown of Guanyin — and why every November the culture festival fills the island.
For most of its history Zhoushan was boat-only, which kept it quiet and idiosyncratic. Since the 1990s that has changed: more than twenty cross-sea bridges now tie the main islands to the mainland, and the Zhoushan bridge cluster is the largest in the world and the biggest island-to-mainland link in China. The ferries remain, but Zhoushan is no longer an island you can only reach by water — which is exactly the tension the place is living through now.
Travel with them
Jin Yong
The wuxia novel that made Taohua Island famous, as the home of the East Heretic Huang Yaoshi. In April 1994 Jin Yong visited Zhoushan and confirmed that the Peach Blossom Island of the book was based on the real one — read a few chapters and the island's film set becomes a treasure hunt.
Xu Rongmu
A travel-essay book that treats the archipelago through its history, culture, Buddhism, ecology, landscape and folk customs — a slow cultural tour rather than a beach guide, with practical transport, lodging, dining and shopping notes appended for the trip itself.
Lu Yi
A track from Lu Yi's album, chosen deliberately for sand-sculpture travellers: put it on as you drive across the bridge to Zhujiajian, and it does what a good trip soundtrack should.
shot on Putuo
A feature film built around the legend of the Japanese monk Huie, who came to Tang China between 842 and 864 to request a Guanyin image and was blown back to Putuo by contrary winds, leaving the statue behind. Watch it before visiting the temple that the story named.
The questions visitors ask us most about Zhoushan, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Three days gets you the checklist: Putuo Mountain, Zhujiajian and Shenjiamen. Four or five is where the trip turns into a holiday, because the outer islands — Dongji, Shengsi — are each a full day of travel and the best of what Zhoushan has. Two days is possible but rushed; one is not worth the crossing.
Putuoshan Airport (HSN), a 4D regional airport on Zhujiajian island, just 1.2 km from Shenjiamen and ten minutes by road from the Putuo Mountain ferry — it flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Qingdao and Nanjing among others. There is no railway and no plan for one; the cross-sea bridge is a road bridge only.
¥140 per person in January and December, ¥160 from February to November, and ¥200 over the Spring Festival first five days and the May and October holiday dates. Students pay half, over-70s free. The temples' incense tickets are separate and cheap (¥5 at Puji and Fayu, ¥6 at the Guanyin statue), and a cable car to Huiji Temple is extra.
Partly. The main island and Zhujiajian are joined by bridge, and the restaurant strip, the sand sculpture and Mount Daqing are all reachable by road and bus. But Putuo Mountain, Taohua, Dongji, Shengsi and every other island require a ferry or fast boat, and their schedules change with weather — so if you are boat-averse, plan around the two bridged islands.
Seafood, at Shenjiamen. The night market runs the length of the harbour and charges about ¥126 a head for whatever came off the boats. For a sit-down meal with fixed prices try Gaojiazhuang on Donghe Road (0580-3025777, about ¥124) — it is honest about pricing. Order the beltfish, the swimming crab, and in August the goose-neck barnacles that Putuo Mountain is known for.
The water is warmest and bluest from June to October — and that is also when the typhoons arrive, which can shut the ferries for a day or two. May and October are the sweet spot: mild, dry and quiet. Winter is cold, grey and empty, with strong winds that also disrupt sailings.
Yes, but target it tightly. From Ningbo the Yadanshan ferry crosses to the main island 43 times a day in 50 minutes for ¥15; from there reach Zhujiajian by bus and spend the day on South Sand with a seafood dinner at Shenjiamen. Do not try to add Putuo Mountain to a single day — it needs its own.
Not much outside hotels and the bigger sights, and less than in Hangzhou or Shanghai. The main attractions have English signage and the airports and piers are workable, but write your island and pier names in Chinese for drivers and boat staff, and carry a translation app — especially for the smaller outer islands.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
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Wuhan
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Three towns, two rivers and the best breakfast in China — a huge, blunt river city of bridges, lakes and cheap, brilliant street food.
Changsha
City guide · 12 tours
Hunan's loud, young capital: a 3,000-year-old city that eats chilli-hot food, stays up all night and treats foot massage as a civic duty.
Fenghuang Ancient Town
City guide · 12 tours
The stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's 'Border Town' — glowing lanterns, stepping stones and the best two nights in western Hunan.
Lushan
City guide · 12 tours
A cloud-wrapped granite mountain with a Victorian hill station on top, waterfalls in three tiers, and the mist that Su Shi said you could never see through.
Wuyuan
City guide · 12 tours
China's 'most beautiful countryside' — dozens of white-walled Huizhou villages strung along streams and terraced into the hills, and two weeks a year of gold.
Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan)
City guide · 12 tours
The South Great Peak: a pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits where the temples run all the way to the top, and the sunrise over the cloud sea is the whole point.
Huangshan
City guide · 12 tours
Yellow Mountain: 82 granite peaks of twisted pines and grotesque rock, a sea of cloud that changes by the hour, and hot springs at the foot.
Wudang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The Taoist first mountain of China — a gilded bronze hall on a 1,612 m summit, temples hung off cliff faces, and the birthplace of tai chi.
Luoyang
City guide · 12 tours
Thirteen dynasties, 100,000 Buddhas carved into a river cliff, China's first Buddhist temple — and a whole city that turns peony-pink every April.
Yuntai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO geopark in Henan where red-stone gorges squeeze a river to a slot, a 314 m waterfall drops in one plunge, and every path leads to another pool.
Rizhao
City guide · 12 tours
A low-key Shandong beach town where the sun rises straight out of the Yellow Sea, the sand runs 60 km and a seafood dinner costs less than a coffee in Shanghai.
Yantai
City guide · 12 tours
A northern Shandong port of fairy-tale cliffs, wine cellars and long golden beaches — where emperors once hunted the elixir of life and China's wine industry still begins.
Lianyungang
City guide · 12 tours
A working Jiangsu port with a myth in the middle of it — the Flower-Fruit Mountain of Journey to the West, a sea causeway to a big island beach, and some of the cheapest seafood on the coast.
Sanqing Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical forest of granite pillars in Jiangxi — the Python Out of the Mountain, the Goddess of the East Sea, two cable cars and a cliff-hugging walkway at 1,660 metres.
Tianjin
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's port city next door — a river of 24 bridges, 2,000 colonial villas, and the best street breakfast in northern China.
Datong
City guide · 12 tours
A frontier capital of carved Buddhas — the Yungang Grottoes, a temple pinned to a cliff, and the oldest wooden tower in China.
Taiyuan
City guide · 12 tours
Shanxi's provincial capital and noodle heartland — the spring of Jinci, two Ming pagodas, and a museum that explains the whole province.
Pingyao
City guide · 12 tours
China's best-preserved ancient walled town — a Ming wall, the first Chinese bank, and two temples of painted clay just outside the gates.
Wutai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
China's foremost Buddhist mountain — fifty-plus temples in one valley, crowned by five flat-topped peaks up to 3,058 m.
Hulunbuir
City guide · 12 tours
China's finest grassland — a 263,000 km² sweep of steppe, birch forest and border river, best driven with the windows down.
The Forbidden City
City guide · 12 tours
Beijing's 600-year imperial palace — 8,700 rooms behind a 72-hectare wall, and the largest surviving wooden palace complex on earth.
Sanya
City guide · 12 tours
China's only true winter-sun coast — four very different bays, a coral island and a 108 m sea Buddha, all at 18° north.
Haikou
City guide · 12 tours
Hainan's capital is the island's living city — 600-year-old arcade streets, a volcanic village, and a morning-tea-to-midnight food culture.
Beihai
City guide · 12 tours
24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
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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