City guide · Guizhou
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.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
Before I saw Huangguoshu I kept wondering what 'the first waterfall in Asia' actually felt like. It stayed mysterious, solemn, trapped in Baidu image searches. Then I stood in front of it. It is genuinely towering — it's the waterfall from the animated forest, the blood of the earth.
'The Blood of the Earth — Huangguoshu Waterfall', traveller journal
They say if you haven't seen Huangguoshu you haven't been to Guizhou, and that's not far off. I passed through Guizhou a dozen times over the years and visited the falls three times — every visit felt different.
'China's Greatest Waterfall — Huangguoshu', traveller journal
You hear Huangguoshu before you see it. The roar carries through the trees long before the gorge opens up, and then there it is — a curtain of white water 77.8 metres high and 101 metres wide, throwing spray high enough to soak the viewing platform. Every Chinese schoolchild has read about this waterfall in their textbook, which is why it is crowded, famous, and genuinely worth the trip.
What makes it unusual is not just the size. Huangguoshu is the only major waterfall on earth you can walk around completely: up top, down below, head-on, from either flank, and most memorably from behind, through the Water Curtain Cave cut into the rock at the waterfall's waist. Standing in that dripping tunnel, with the water thundering past an arm's length away and rainbows flickering in the mist outside the cave windows, is the memory people take home.
The falls sit in a pocket of karst country in western Guizhou, an hour and a half from Guiyang, where the landscape is all limestone pinnacles, sinkholes and stone villages. Add Tianxingqiao's water-carved rock gardens and Doupotang's wide, growling cascade and you have a full day. Add the Tunpu villages — Ming dynasty garrison settlements where the locals still wear 14th-century-style clothing — and you need two.
Huangguoshu
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Huangguoshu is 77.8 m high and 101 m wide, the third-largest waterfall on the planet after Niagara and Victoria — but the only one anywhere you can view from above, below, front, back, left and right. Duck into the Water Curtain Cave and you watch the torrent from behind, through six windows cut in the rock.
The 180 yuan high-season ticket covers three separate scenic areas — the Great Waterfall, Tianxingqiao and Doupotang. Tianxingqiao alone has stone-forest water walks, the Tianxing Cave and the Silver Chain Falling Pool, a stair-step cascade that is the most delicate fall in the whole group.
A path in the Tianxingqiao stone garden is laid with numbered stepping stones, one for every day of the year. People hunt down their birth date and photograph it. It jams up badly by mid-morning, so walk this stretch first, before the tour coaches arrive.
Doupotang, where the 1986 TV adaptation of Journey to the West filmed its famous river-crossing scene, is the widest-crested fall in the group at 105 m across and 21 m high. You can no longer walk on the crest, but the pool below is full of waterbirds that pose shamelessly for cameras.
The area around Anshun is home to over 200,000 Han Chinese descended from Ming-dynasty garrison troops. At Tianlong Tunpu and the Yunfeng Bazhai villages they still wear Ming-style robes and perform Dixi opera in carved wooden masks — the 'living fossil of Chinese drama'.
Itineraries
Everything inside the Huangguoshu ticket plus Longgong cave, done at a sensible pace with the crowds dodged. Best for first-timers who want the headline sights without rushing.
Buy the 50 yuan shuttle pass (or split a 200 yuan chartered car if there are four of you) and start at Tianxingqiao the moment the gates open — the birthday-stone path and the Silver Chain Falling Pool are unbearable once the coaches land. Work through the stone forest, then ride to the Great Waterfall.
Walk down rather than take the 50 yuan round-trip escalator if your knees are fine; you get the full reveal of the drop as you descend. Photograph it from the top of the gorge first for the wide shot, then go down and through the Water Curtain Cave — rain cover for your camera, not a poncho, is the thing you actually need. Lunch is at the snack street on the canyon rim above the falls.
Stops: Tianxingqiao stone forestSilver Chain Falling PoolHuangguoshu Great WaterfallWater Curtain CaveDoupotang
Twenty-seven kilometres from Anshun, Longgong is the only 5A-rated karst cave in Guizhou and the longest water cave in China — 1,260 m of the route is done on a boat through an underground river. The Longmen Flying Waterfall inside the cave drops over 50 m and is the largest underground fall in the country.
Tickets are 150 yuan, half price for students, and the sightseeing lift is another 50 yuan. In the afternoon the lift queue gets long; if you are reasonably fit, climb the stairs instead. Shuttle buses run from Anshun West bus station every 30 minutes.
Stops: Longgong water caveLongmen Flying WaterfallXuantang scenic area
Head east to Tianlong Tunpu, a Ming garrison village on the old Shunyuan post road, where the residents are descendants of Zhu Yuanzhang's southern garrison troops and still dress in Ming-style wide-sleeved robes. The 60 yuan ticket includes the Dixi opera performance at the Yanwu Hall — roughly ten minutes long, staged every 30 minutes except at 12:30.
If you want the less commercialised version, go to Yunfeng Bazhai instead: the 70 yuan combined ticket covers eight fortified villages, of which Yunshantun and Benzhai are the best preserved. Walk the 1.5 km stone path from Benzhai to Yunshantun. In March the rape flowers around Yunshantun are worth the detour on their own.
Stops: Tianlong TunpuYanwu Hall Dixi performanceYunfeng BazhaiYunshantunBenzhai
Slower, more rural, with the stone-village and batik country west of the falls and a whitewater rafting afternoon. Best if you have a car or a driver and want the scenery without the ticket gates.
Give the main fall a full morning rather than an hour. Arrive at opening, take the wide shot from the rim, then descend and spend real time in the Water Curtain Cave watching the rainbows form over Rhino Pool — in good light you get a double rainbow, and it moves.
After lunch at the canyon-rim snack street, walk Doupotang in the late afternoon when the light softens and the waterbirds come out. Stay overnight near the scenic area rather than pushing back to Anshun.
Stops: Huangguoshu Great WaterfallRhino PoolWater Curtain CaveDoupotang
Shitouzhai, 40 yuan, is a Buyi village where every wall, roof, lane and courtyard is built of stone — no brick or tile anywhere, and even the milling equipment is cut from rock. It is also a batik centre: you can watch women wax-drawing and dyeing by hand, and buy a piece for anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred yuan depending on size.
In the afternoon, run the Huangguoshu rafting route 6 km downstream of the main fall: 158 yuan, over 30 m of total drop and 12 rapids, the biggest single drop more than 4 m. The karst peaks along the bank run to a thousand metres and it is common to see rain falling on the summits while the valley below is in sunshine. Rafting in rain is considered the classic version.
Stops: ShitouzhaiBatik workshopsHuangguoshu rafting
Drive west to Hongya Tianzhu on Shaijia Mountain, about 50 km from Anshun — a 100 m long, 30 m high pink rock face covered in some twenty-odd red characters that no one has convincingly deciphered. Scholars from the Ming dynasty onwards, including Japanese and German researchers in the Guangxu era, have tried and failed; the local government carved six of the twenty-plus historical copies into the rock around it so you can compare for yourself.
It is about 2 km from Dishuitan waterfall, so combine the two and drive back through the stone villages. If you are self-driving, be honest with yourself about the roads — Guizhou mountain routes are full of 180-degree hairpins and steep gradients, and they are not the place to learn.
Stops: Hongya TianzhuDishuitan waterfallStone villages on the return drive
Sights
The headline act
Seventy-seven point eight metres high and 101 m wide, the largest waterfall in China and the third largest in the world. The water volume is at its peak from May to October, when the river comes over the lip in a solid roar you hear before you see anything. It is the only major waterfall on earth with viewing platforms on all six sides.
Tip The ticket covers the Great Waterfall, Tianxingqiao and Doupotang across two days, so do not throw it away after day one. Walk down instead of taking the escalator — the descent gives you the reveal, and the climb back is the only hard part.
Walk behind the falls
Cut into the waist of the Great Waterfall, this is the route that puts you behind the water. Six windows, five chambers, three springs and six passages run through the rock, with named features including the Hanging Cactus, the Ancient Banyan Roots, the Vine Curtain and the Waterfall-Touching Platform. Looking out through the falling water, the green hills, the tea houses and the tiny figures on the far bank dissolve into a blur.
Tip Every window frames a different view of Rhino Pool, and in the right light you get a moving double rainbow. You do not need a disposable raincoat — you will not get that wet — but you absolutely need to protect your camera.
Stone forest and water gardens
Where the Great Waterfall is about power, Tianxingqiao is about intricacy: dense stone pinnacles, heavy vegetation and water threading through all of it, combining mountain, water, forest and cave in one area. It splits into three linked zones — the Natural Bonsai Garden, the Tianxing Cave and the Water Stone Forest. The birthday stones are here, one carved stone for every day of the year.
Tip Guided groups usually stop at Tianxing Lake — the Journey to the West film location — and never reach Tianxing Cave or the Silver Chain Falling Pool. If those are the parts you want, go independently.
The prettiest fall in the group
Barely ten metres high, but shaped like a funnel with a trough-shaped plunge pool below. The raised stone bosses around the rim overlap like upturned lotus leaves, and the water spreads evenly across each leaf before spilling over as thousands of fine silver chains into the pool. It is the most delicate waterfall in the whole Huangguoshu cluster.
Tip In the winter dry season the flow shrinks so much it is not worth the walk. Come between May and October.
The widest crest, and a TV landmark
At 105 m across and 21 m high, Doupotang has the widest crest of any fall in the Huangguoshu group, and it is where the 1986 Journey to the West filmed its river-crossing sequence. Locals call it the Roaring Waterfall because before a flood it emits a low rumbling growl. The pool beneath is stocked with waterbirds that put on a show for visitors.
Tip Small children love the birds here. Pair it with the Great Waterfall in the same afternoon — it is a short ride between them.
Food
Pork intestine, cubes of fresh blood curd and thin egg noodles in a scarlet chilli-oil broth, finished with chopped spring onion. The noodles stay springy, the intestine is soft rather than chewy, and it is the standard Anshun breakfast — a bowl costs CNY 10–15. Eat it before 9am at any street stall near the station.
The most argued-about dish in Guizhou. Skin-on dog is singed, scraped and simmered slowly with a dozen local herbs and spices until it holds its shape but gives way under the spoon. Yellow dogs are considered the best, black second. If you eat dog, this is the version to judge the whole cuisine by; a hotpot runs CNY 50–80 per person.
Sticky-rice flour is steamed over a tall tin kettle, then stirred into water-chestnut starch with boiling water and topped with rose sugar, sesame, walnut, peanut and candied winter melon. Soft, warm and sweet — a CNY 5 street snack you will want twice.
An Anshun breakfast classic: rice flour cooked to a smooth paste, a spoon of local 'yinzhi' seed stirred through, and chunks of crisp-fried glutinous rice cake dropped in. Crunchy outside, molten inside, about CNY 8 a bowl.
Made from sweet buckwheat grown on the Guizhou plateau, sliced or scraped into strips and dressed with chilli oil, fried soybeans, peanuts and Anshun fermented bean curd. Cooling, slippery and faintly nutty — the best thing you can eat here in July.
Where to eat
Dog meat hotpot
Locals claim people drive hundreds of kilometres for this table, and it is only a short hop from the waterfall gate. The hotpot comes with mint thrown in, the meat is flame-singed first so the skin has real bite, and the chilli is the best thing on the table. Add soybeans and order rice.
Farmhouse fish
Nothing fancy to look at, but it is close to the scenic gate and the cooking is honest. The qingbo fish is the reason to come — firm flesh, clean river flavour, sliced and served in a light broth. You pay by weight, so confirm the price before it goes in the pot.
Quick lunch
Right at the top of the gorge above the main waterfall, a row of stalls sells noodles, fried potatoes, grilled corn and cold drinks. It is the only food inside the core zone, so eat here between the waterfall and Doupotang rather than doubling back to the gate.
Evening eating
If you are heading back through Anshun to catch a train, skip dinner at the falls and eat here instead — it is a walk from the railway station. Dozens of stalls, everything from changwang noodles to grilled skewers and rice tofu, and you can eat well for CNY 30.
Sleeping
Budget, inside the park
The single best-value bed inside the scenic area, directly opposite the ticket hall. Rooms come with broadband and a computer, and the owner is genuinely helpful about routing your day around the tour groups. Book ahead in July and August — this place fills first.
Mid-range villa hotel
A villa-style hotel barely five minutes from the park entrance, with its own restaurant, a pool and Wi-Fi throughout the public areas. Rooms are the most comfortable in the immediate area and it is the obvious pick if you are travelling with children or parents.
City base, best transport
A short walk from Anshun railway station and the south bus terminal, which matters more than it sounds: the earliest buses to the falls leave from there. Simple singles start around CNY 60 and doubles around CNY 110, and the value is hard to beat.
Getting there & around
There is no airport at the falls itself. Huangguoshu Airport (formerly Anshun Airport) sits 45 km from the scenic area and 6 km from Anshun city, with flights to Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Kunming and Jinan. Summer is peak season, so discounts are thin — book when the fare looks reasonable rather than waiting for a sale that never comes.
Huangguoshu has no railway station of its own. Anshun is the practical railhead: multiple trains a day link Guiyang and Anshun in about 1 hour 10 minutes for CNY 15.5, and from Anshun station buses leave constantly for the falls. This is the cheapest and most reliable way in if you are already in Guiyang.
From Guiyang, the Jinyang bus station runs direct services to Huangguoshu in high season — roughly every half hour between 07:30 and 12:45, CNY 55, about 2.5 hours. If you are coming straight off a flight, take the airport bus to Anshun (CNY 60), cross the road to Anshun South Bus Station and pick up the Huangguoshu express (CNY 20), getting off at the Huangguoshu New Town ticket centre.
The three sections — Tianshengqiao, the Great Waterfall and Doupotang — are spread out and you cannot walk between them. A CNY 50 all-you-can-ride shuttle pass covers the loop and suits solo travellers and couples, though buses only leave once enough people have gathered, so build in waiting time. Groups of three or four do better chartering a car inside the park for around CNY 200, which you can negotiate down when it is quiet — you set the pace and skip the queueing.
Shopping
Billed as the 'first dye of the East' and over 2,000 years old, worked mainly by Miao and Bouyei hands. Anshun batik runs to fine lines and deep colour — landscapes, birds, fish, flowers, court ladies, antique motifs — often over-dyed in red, yellow and brown. Prices move with size, from a few tens of yuan to several hundred. You can watch the wax being drawn at Shitou Zhai near the falls and buy on the spot.
Dixi is Anshun's own folk opera, and the masks worn on stage are the souvenir worth the luggage space: sharply carved, plain in technique, deliberately rough in style. Unlike the batik, this is a piece you buy to keep, not to use.
Also called bobosu, or 'melts-at-the-mouth crisp'. Wheat-yellow, sweet, and it dissolves rather than chews, leaving a long sesame perfume in the mouth. Cheap, light and impossible to break — the default gift for people you like but do not like enough to carry batik for.
The kitchen knife, the scissors and the leather knife, made in Anshun for a century and famous for even steel, a keen edge and long wear. Buy them in the city rather than at the falls, and check them into hold luggage — they will not pass a security tray.
Practical
Guizhou's mountain roads are stacked with 180-degree hairpins and steep, blind corners. If you are not used to driving them, or not confident about your own nerve, do not rent a car — take the shuttle, a chartered car or a small group tour instead. For a full day-by-day plan covering the falls, Longgong and the Tunpu villages, see our Huangguoshu tour packages and Huangguoshu private tour options.
| Tickets | Peak season (March–November) CNY 180; low season (December–February) CNY 160. One ticket covers the Great Waterfall, Tianshengqiao and Doupotang. Students pay half with a valid card. |
|---|---|
| Opening hours | The scenic area runs roughly 07:00–18:00 in peak season; Tianshengqiao's cable car is CNY 10 per person, one way. The Doupotang viewing platform is the first thing to close. |
| Cash and cards | Anshun city has all the major banks. Inside the scenic area there is one Agricultural Bank ATM at the visitor centre — it is the only one, so draw cash before you go in. |
| Medical | A small first-aid room sits at the exit of the Great Waterfall. Anything more serious means Anshun: Xixiu District First People's Hospital, 47 Tashan East Road, tel. 0853-3223561. |
| Weather | Subtropical karst, 600–1,500 m, frost-free all year, averaging 14–16°C. Annual rainfall tops 1,300 mm. Summer and autumn bring the biggest water and the best spectacle; winter shrinks the falls but keeps the valley green. |
| What to wear | Shoes with grip. The paths around the falls and through the Water Curtain Cave stay wet, and the spray zone soaks cameras faster than it soaks people. A plastic poncho is unnecessary; a cloth to wipe your lens is not. |
| Timing your day | Start at Tianshengqiao's Birth-Stone Path before 09:00 — it jams solid once the coaches arrive. Tour groups usually stop at Tianxing Lake and never reach the Silver Chain waterfall or Tianxing Cave, so if you want those, go independent. |
Background
Huangguoshu sits in a classic karst belt at 600–1,500 m, with over 1,300 mm of rain a year and an average temperature of 14–16°C. There is no frost all year and no real winter, but the falls are seasonal animals: in the summer and autumn rains the river hits its annual high and the water goes over the lip in a single roaring sheet — locals call the sound 'thunder'. In the dry winter months the flow shrinks dramatically and the cascade thins into a much quieter, prettier trickle. If you came for the postcard image, come between June and October.
The first written record of the falls is the 15th-century Guizhou Tujing Xinzhi, but the description everyone quotes is by Xu Xiake, the Ming dynasty geographer who passed through on 23 April 1638 on his way to Yunnan and wrote of water 'like ten thousand bolts of silk' tumbling over rocks shaped like lotus leaves. Two centuries earlier, Zhu Yuanzhang had garrisoned troops here from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to hold the southwest; their descendants, the Tunpu people, still live in stone-walled villages around Anshun wearing Ming-style wide-sleeved robes and performing Dixi opera, the 'living fossil of Chinese drama'. You can visit them at Tianlong Tunpu or the less-commercialised Yunfeng Bazhai. The region is also Buyi and Miao country — Shitou Zhai nearby is famous for batik, and Huashixiao is China's first protected Buyi village.
Further reading
Directed by Zhao Wei, 2013, 132 min
Zhao Wei's directorial debut follows a group of university students through love and loss. The small town where the leads grew up was shot in Anshun, the hometown of one character is set in the old stone village of Shitou Zhai, and the dreamlike bridge at the end is the Balinghe Bridge at Guanling — all within an hour of the falls. Watch it on the train down and the karst scenery will look familiar before you arrive.
Dai Mingxian
A 'ukiyo-e' portrait of Anshun society in the 1940s — its food, festivals, street characters, officials and dialects — by an author who studied under Shen Congwen and Wang Zengqi. Short, plain sentences, a strong sense of place, and over a hundred photographs including rare old shots of the town. The best single thing to read to understand what you are looking at when you leave the waterfall.
Sung by Song Zuying
Song Zuying, a Miao singer, recorded a whole repertoire of Guizhou landscapes; this one is written to match the sheer scale of the fall. It is unashamedly grand, and after you have stood on the viewing platform and felt the spray it stops sounding like an exaggeration.
The questions visitors ask us most about Huangguoshu, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Summer and early autumn — July to October — when monsoon rain swells the river and the falls run at full volume. High-season tickets (March–November) cost CNY 180. Winter is the dry season: the flow shrinks dramatically, the ticket drops to CNY 160, and the falls look thin, though the surrounding karst hills stay green.
Buses leave Guiyang's Jinyang long-distance station roughly every half hour from 07:30 to 12:45, cost about CNY 55, and take around 2.5 hours. Alternatively take a train from Guiyang to Anshun (about 70 minutes, CNY 15.5) and catch a connecting bus from Anshun South Bus Station (CNY 20, every 20 minutes, 07:00–19:00). Huangguoshu has its own small airport, mainly linking Beijing and Chongqing.
Yes. One ticket covers the Great Waterfall, Tianxingqiao and Doupotang, and it is checked separately at each entrance, so don't throw it away. High season (March–November) is CNY 180, low season (December–February) CNY 160, and students pay half. The escalator at the Great Waterfall is extra: CNY 50 return or CNY 30 one way.
Independent travel gives you the full site. Group tours typically stop at Tianxing Lake (the Journey to the West filming spot) and skip Tianxing Cave and the Yinlianzhuitan waterfall entirely — if those matter to you, go on your own or hire a car. A private car inside the park runs about CNY 200, and the shuttle bus pass is CNY 50.
Yes — the Water Curtain Cave runs along the cliff behind the falls, with six cave windows offering framed views out through the water. You will get wet, so bring a light rain jacket or buy a cheap poncho, and keep your camera in a plastic bag. The cave is slippery and often crowded; go early in the day.
There are hotels inside the scenic area, but they are pricey. Cheaper guesthouses cluster around the entrance, typically CNY 60–200 a night, and you can view the room before agreeing on a price. Many visitors prefer to base themselves in Anshun, where rooms near the train station start around CNY 30–50, or return to Guiyang, which has the widest choice.
Plan this trip
The same places, with a driver, an English-speaking guide and the tickets already bought.
City guides
Dalian
City guide · 15 tours
The Northern Pearl — China's most romantic coastal city.
Shenyang
City guide · 12 tours
Where the Qing dynasty began — an imperial palace, a warlord's mansion and the cheapest good food in the northeast.
Changbai Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano on the North Korean border, a jade-green crater lake at 2,189 m, and hot springs on the way down.
Kunming
City guide · 12 tours
China's Spring City — a mild plateau capital of flowers, markets and the Stone Forest, with gulls on the lake in winter.
Dali
City guide · 12 tours
A walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a great lake — wind, flowers, snow and moon, and life at a slower speed.
Shuhe
City guide · 12 tours
The quiet version of Lijiang — a Tea Horse Road village of canals, stone bridges and slow afternoons, 4 km from the crowds.
Lijiang
City guide · 12 tours
A UNESCO Naxi old town of canals and cobbles beneath a 5,596 m snow mountain — the cultural heart of north-west Yunnan.
Xiamen
City guide · 12 tours
A subtropical island city of temples, fishing-village lanes and the best street food in Fujian — with the car-free islet of Gulangyu a 20-minute ferry away.
Gulangyu
City guide · 12 tours
A car-free island of colonial villas, pianos and cats, twenty minutes off Xiamen — and the one place where the trick is simply to stay the night.
Fuzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,200-year-old capital of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-city, where the Ming lanes of Sanfang Qixiang meet the dockyard that built China's modern navy.
Lugu Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,680 m lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border, home to China's last matrilineal people, pig-trough canoes and a great deal of doing nothing.
Xishuangbanna
City guide · 12 tours
China's tropical south — rainforest, wild elephants, Dai villages and the Mekong, wrapped around the gateway city of Jinghong.
Shangri-La
City guide · 12 tours
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Nanchang
City guide · 12 tours
Jiangxi's 'hero city' on the Gan River — one great Tang pavilion, a 160-metre Ferris wheel, and the best claypot soup you will eat in China.
Hefei
City guide · 12 tours
Anhui's 2,000-year-old capital: the hometown of China's model judge, a moat-turned-garden ring, and the fast rail gateway to Huangshan.
Hongcun
City guide · 12 tours
A 900-year-old Hui village laid out as an ox, with water running to every door and a mirror-still crescent pond at its heart.
Wuhan
City guide · 12 tours
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.
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.
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.
Related reading
Visas
Do I Need a Visa for China? Requirements, Costs and How to Apply
China's entry rules changed more in the last three years than in the previous twenty. Here is exactly who needs a visa, what it costs, how long it takes and which passports now walk straight through.
9 min read
Visas
China's 240-Hour Visa-Free Transit: Who Qualifies and How It Works
Ten days in China with no visa application, no fee and no fingerprints — if you hold the right passport and leave for a third country. Here is the rulebook, port by port.
8 min read
Money
Paying in China: Alipay, WeChat Pay, Cards and Cash
Roughly nine in ten urban payments in China now run through a phone. Set up two apps before you fly, carry a modest cash float, and you will never be stuck at a till.
8 min read
Transport
China's High-Speed Rail: How to Book, What It Costs, How Fast It Goes
The fastest way to cross China is also the most pleasant. Here is how to book a ticket with a foreign passport, what the three classes actually give you, and how to survive a Chinese station at rush hour.
9 min read
Planning
Best Time to Visit China: Month by Month, Region by Region
China is the size of Europe, so 'the best month' depends on where you stand. Here is the month-by-month answer for the north, the Yangtze valley, the south and the plateau.
8 min read
Planning
What to Pack for China: The Complete 2026 Checklist
Twenty thousand steps a day, three climate zones and a phone that has to do everything. This is the list we give our own travellers, minus the things they never used.
7 min read
Food
Chinese Food Culture: Eight Cuisines, One Table
There is no such thing as Chinese food. There is Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Shandong — and knowing which one you are eating changes everything.
8 min read
Traditions
Chinese Tea Culture: Six Classes, One Pot, Two Fingers
Tea in China is not a beverage category, it is a social technology: it fills silences, seals deals and sets the pace of a meal. Here is how to sit down in one and not look lost.
7 min read
Traditions
Chinese Festivals: The Calendar, the Dates and the Crowds
Lunar dates mean the calendar moves every year — and two of the festivals move several hundred million people at once. Plan around them or plan into them, but never by accident.
8 min read
Etiquette
Chinese Etiquette: What Matters, What Does Not, and Why
Most etiquette advice for China is either obvious or wrong. These are the dozen behaviours that actually change how you are treated, and the reasoning behind each.
7 min read
Free itinerary design, a revised plan within one working day, and nothing charged until you approve the final version.
