City guide · Yunnan
A Tibetan town at 3,300 m in Yunnan's Diqing prefecture — monasteries, grassland, prayer wheels and cold thin air.
Reviewed by our Beijing team Updated 2026-10-10
The short version
City guide
Photographs from the coast, and what other travellers wrote afterwards.
It is so beautiful that 'beautiful' alone does not cover it. Its vastness and its stillness gave me a feeling of going back to something I had lost. I cannot find the right words — Shangri-La, in Tibetan, means 'the sun and moon in the heart'.
Traveller note — 'Footprints in the Clouds: Yunnan's West'
On the drive you pass Tibetan houses, square and grand, with flags on the roof: one flag for an ordinary Buddhist household, two for a family of standing, and three for a house that has produced a living Buddha.
Traveller note — 'Into Shangri-La: A Pilgrimage in the Clouds'
Shangri-La is a name borrowed from a 1933 novel, James Hilton's Lost Horizon, and pinned onto a real town in 2001 — and for once the marketing holds up. At about 3,300 m, this is true Tibetan highland: white houses with painted eaves, yaks on the grassland, a great monastery across the valley, and air so clean and thin that the whole quality of the light changes.
The town itself, Dukezong, is a Tibetan old town on the old tea-horse road, its stone lanes looping up a small hill to a 21 m gilded prayer wheel — the largest of its kind, and heavy enough that visitors are invited to help turn it clockwise for good fortune. Fire damaged part of the old town in January 2014 and it has been rebuilt; the rhythm of daily life has since shifted to the streets of the new town around it, but the atmosphere survives.
Across the valley stands Songzanlin, the 'little Potala', the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, founded in 1679 and still home to hundreds of monks. Beyond it is the plateau's real landscape: Pudacuo National Park with two lakes and old-growth forest, and the Napa Lake grassland, which floods in summer and dries to pasture by winter, with Shika Snow Mountain behind it.
Deeper into Diqing, the road west runs four hours to Deqin and the Meili Snow Mountain range, whose peak Kawagebo has never been summited. The sunrise over its summits — the 'golden mountain' — is the sacred sight of the region, and the reason a lot of people come this far at all.
Shangri-La
Seven things that are worth rearranging a day for.
Highlights
Yunnan's largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery, built in 1679 and laid out like the Potala Palace in Lhasa, which is why everyone calls it the 'little Potala'. Two main colleges, vivid murals, gilded statues and a climb through monks' quarters — allow half a day and dress for the cold.
A Tibetan old town on the tea-horse road, rebuilt since the 2014 fire, climbing a hill to a 21 m gilded prayer wheel — said to be the world's largest, worth 1.24 million mantras a turn. Join the crowd hauling it clockwise, then lose yourself in the stone lanes below.
Two plateaus in one park — Bita Lake and Shudu Lake — with old-growth forest, marsh meadows and clear water at 3,500–3,800 m. It is the easiest and best introduction to the plateau's nature; go in the morning and expect sun and cold within the same hour.
Napa, just west of town, is a seasonal lake and grassland — flooded late summer, dry pasture in winter, with horses and yaks in between. Behind it, a two-stage cable car climbs Shika Snow Mountain to 4,500 m, where eight peaks show on a clear day.
Four hours west at Deqin, the Meili range rises to the 6,740 m peak of Kawagebo, one of the eight sacred mountains of Tibet and never climbed. The classic sight is from Feilai Temple at dawn, when the first light turns the summit gold.
The plateau is also something you eat and watch: butter tea and tsampa, a bubbling yak-meat hotpot, and the Guozhuang circle dances that fill the squares after dark. Earn them first — get the altitude settled, then eat.
Suggested itineraries
Shangri-La is a base rather than a route: most people arrive from Lijiang, do the town and the park, then push further west. The last itinerary folds a full Lijiang–Lugu–Shangri-La road trip into one line.
If you are only passing through, this is the pair that matters.
Take bus 3 or a taxi out to Songzanlin Monastery and give it the morning — the two main halls, the murals and the walk up through the monks' houses.
Return to the Dukezong old town for the afternoon and evening, and climb to the great prayer wheel to turn it once for luck. Eat a yak hotpot and watch the square dances after dark.
Stops: Songzanlin MonasteryDukezong old townPrayer wheel
The comfortable version: acclimatise, then the park, then the grassland and the snow mountain.
Arrive and keep the afternoon gently paced — you are at 3,300 m and this is the day that decides the rest of the trip. Do the old town, the prayer wheel and an easy dinner.
If you feel well, fit in Songzanlin in the late afternoon when the light softens; if not, save it for the morning.
Stops: Dukezong old townPrayer wheelSongzanlin Monastery
Take the park bus or a chartered car to Pudacuo and give it the day: the shuttle and boardwalks around Bita Lake and Shudu Lake, through forest and meadow.
Return to town in the afternoon and rest before the evening. The park is high and big, so do not add anything else to the day.
Stops: Pudacuo National ParkBita LakeShudu Lake
Head west to the Napa Lake grassland in the morning, and ride out across it if the horses are working.
Take the two-stage cable car up Shika Snow Mountain to 4,500 m for the panorama of eight peaks, then come back to town to leave or stay on.
Stops: Napa LakeShika Snow MountainCable car
The grand north-west Yunnan loop, starting in Lijiang, dropping to the lake, and finishing on the plateau.
Land in Lijiang and take three unhurried days: Lashi Lake and Shuhe old town, then the Dayan old town itself — the canals, the Mu family mansion, the bars and the food.
Stops: Lashi LakeShuheDayan old town
Drive the winding road to Lugu Lake and stay in Lige. Take a pig-trough canoe at dawn, walk the Grass Sea and the Walking-Marriage Bridge, and circle the lake by car.
Stops: Lugu LakeLige PeninsulaCaohai
Return to Lijiang and continue north to Shangri-La in about 4 hours, climbing onto the plateau. Settle into Dukezong and visit Songzanlin on the first full day.
Stops: Shangri-LaDukezongSongzanlin Monastery
Spend the eighth day at Pudacuo National Park and the ninth on the Napa Lake grassland and Shika Snow Mountain, then fly out from Diqing (DIG) or drive back to Lijiang.
Stops: PudacuoNapa LakeShika Snow Mountain
Sights
Ticket prices in China change without much notice, and the altitude here makes some of these harder than they look. Treat the prices as a guide and pace yourself.
Monastery · The 'little Potala'
The largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, founded in 1679 and built up a hillside in imitation of the Potala Palace, from which comes its nickname. Two main colleges — Zhacang and Jikang — sit at the top, with vivid murals, gilded statues and treasures including Tangka scrolls and gold lamps. It is still an active monastery, so dress and behave accordingly.
Tip Go early or late rather than at midday — the light is better, the tour groups thinner, and the climb less tiring while it is cool.
Old town · Landmark
The Tibetan old town on the tea-horse road, its lanes climbing around a small hill crowned by a 21 m gilded prayer wheel — one of the largest in the world, and heavy enough that turning it takes a crowd, which is the point. The old town was partly destroyed by fire in January 2014 and rebuilt; the streets below are now a mix of shops, guesthouses and Tibetan homes.
Tip Join the wheel in the evening, when the crowd is biggest and the locals are out — and go round clockwise, as many times as you like.
Lake · Old-growth forest
The first national park in mainland China, combining the Bita Lake and Shudu Lake areas into one plateau reserve at 3,500–3,800 m. It takes in almost every plateau landscape at once — mirror-still alpine lakes, rich pastures, wetlands in flower and old forest where birds and animals live — and the boardwalks keep you off the fragile ground.
Tip Do not skip the boardwalks to save time — the lakes and the forest are the point, and the shuttle alone will not show you the park. Book the return transport the night before.
Grassland · Seasonal lake
A seasonal lake and grassland just west of town on the road to Deqin, which fills with water in late summer and drains to a broad pasture by winter and spring. It is the place for horses, yaks, and the classic view of the grassland backed by Shika Snow Mountain — 'the wind bends the grass and you can see the cattle'.
Tip Horse-riding is the way to cross the grassland, but agree the price and the loop before you mount, and be gentle with the altitude — this is not the day to gallop.
Sacred peak · Cable car
A mountain behind the Napa grassland whose name means 'the hill with the deer', and which rises through gorges, glacial lakes and meadows to a summit plateau at 4,500 m. On a clear day the view takes in eight surrounding snow peaks, including Meili, Jade Dragon and Haba.
Tip At 4,500 m the air is thin and the temperature drops hard — go slowly at the top, and if you feel a headache coming on, come back down rather than push on.
Sacred range · Sunrise
Four hours west at Deqin, the Meili range runs for thirteen peaks, each held to be a mountain deity, and rises to Kawagebo at 6,740 m — the highest point in Yunnan, one of the eight sacred mountains of Tibet, and famously unclimbed after a 1991 expedition was killed by an avalanche. The classic viewpoint is Feilai Temple on the hillside at Deqin, at dawn.
Tip You do not have to pay for the Feilai Temple viewing platform — in Deqin, plenty of ordinary places and guesthouses have a good enough angle on the range at dawn, and some are better.
Eating
Tibetan cooking is built on barley, yak and butter — designed for cold and altitude rather than for delicacy. The hotpot is the thing to order, and butter tea is the thing to at least try.
The dish to order on a cold plateau evening: a pot of yak meat with vegetables simmered at the table, rich and warming. Yak is a semi-wild highland animal and the meat is leaner and more savoury than beef; a group should order one big pot and add vegetables.
The indispensable Tibetan drink: tea brewed strong, then churned with butter, salt and spices into a thick, savoury liquid, kept warm on the fire all day. Most first-timers find it strange, and most people who stay a week end up missing it.
Roasted barley flour, the staple of the Tibetan table, mixed with butter tea and kneaded by hand into a ball. It is filling, portable and everywhere at altitude; try it properly made rather than as a novelty.
A Tibetan speciality whose name means 'grains of pearl': buckwheat dough cut into pieces, tossed with dried cheese and brown sugar and fried in butter. Sweet, sour, bitter and rich at once — the dish for New Year and honoured guests.
Yak milk is turned into dried cheese and butter, sold in strings and blocks at markets and used in everything from tea to tsampa. The dried cheese curd, chewy and slightly sour, is the local snack to carry in a pocket.
The Tibetan barley spirit, pale and mild, served in small cups at every table and toast. It goes down easily, which is exactly the risk at 3,300 m — take it slowly, or skip it on your first day.
Where to eat
Phone numbers are local landlines; add +86 and drop the leading 0 if calling from abroad. Old-town kitchens are simple and cheap; the hotpot places fill up early.
Tibetan · Snacks
A small, well-regarded Tibetan snack house near the old town's central square, serving the everyday cooking of the plateau — tsampa, dried yak, cheese and simple dishes — at low prices. The easiest place to try several Tibetan things at once.
Hotpot · Yak
A busy hotpot house that does proper yak meat and butter tea, and the place locals point you to for a big, warm, shared meal on a cold day. It charges by the head, so you know where you stand before you order.
Tibetan · Old town
A Tibetan restaurant tucked into the old town's Pijiang slope, with hearty portions, reasonable prices and a menu of yak, barley and butter dishes. Good for a slow evening after the prayer wheel and the square dances.
Dessert · Tea
The old town is dotted with Tibetan bakeries selling fried pastries and the butter-fried 'basa' cakes made for festivals, and with teahouses where sweet milk tea costs a few yuan and you can sit out a cold afternoon. Cheap, warm and very local.
Sleeping
Staying in Dukezong puts you in the middle of the atmosphere, but it is the highest and the cobbles are hard work; the new town is lower, flatter and easier on the first night. Book ahead in summer and the October holidays.
Luxury · Tibetan villas · from ¥1,500
A five-star resort of Tibetan-style villas built from natural local materials, with modern comfort inside and traditional furnishings — a way to experience the plateau without giving up anything. It sits higher than the town, so a minority of guests notice the altitude more here.
Boutique · Mountain views · from ¥1,000
A four-star boutique lodge near Songzanlin Monastery, next to the bus stop for line 3, with wide rooms and a balcony looking at the monastery, the fields and the mountains. Free Wi-Fi; the views are the reason to stay.
Full-service · from ¥1,000
A big, well-equipped hotel on Changzheng Road with complete facilities, an indoor courtyard pool and a good buffet breakfast, plus a welcome beauty bag with lip balm and sunscreen for the dry air. Free airport pickup, which is worth a lot on arrival.
Tibetan guesthouse · from ¥260
A purely Tibetan-style guesthouse at the foot of Guishan Hill in the old town, with underfloor heating — rare in Dukezong and a gift in winter — plus a sun terrace on the upper floor with Tibetan furniture and a view over most of the old town. Simple but genuinely warm.
Hostel · from ¥45/bed
A quiet courtyard hostel in the middle of the old town, decorated in the local Tibetan style, with the usual hostel friendliness and several buses and tourist vehicles leaving for Songzanlin, Napa and Shika from close by. A cheap, central base.
Getting around
The town is small and walkable; the sights need wheels. At this altitude, a chartered car for the outlying sights is money well spent.
Diqing Shangri-La Airport (DIG) is 5 km from town, with domestic routes to Kunming, Chengdu, Chongqing, Lhasa, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. There is no airport bus, so take a taxi, and note the flight search quirk below.
The classic approach from Lijiang is by road, with frequent departures and some of the best scenery in Yunnan along the way. Longer routes connect Kunming, Dali, Deqin and Sichuan.
Six bus lines run inside the town and to the near sights, all cheap and mostly useful, with line 3 the one that reaches Songzanlin. Buses run roughly 06:00–18:00.
Cheap and plentiful, with a low flagfall, but drivers outside the town rarely use the meter, so agree a price first. Useful for Songzanlin and the airport at any hour.
The sensible way to reach Pudacuo, Napa, Shika and especially Meili. Cars can be chartered by the day, or rented if you hold a Chinese-recognised licence. Roads to Lijiang and Deqin are good tarmac, though winter snow can close the Deqin road for days.
Shopping
The mountains yield herbs, the workshops carved wood and silver — and the one famous product, caterpillar fungus, is where the fakes are. Buy the modest things and enjoy them.
The Diqing workshops make beautiful everyday things — wooden bowls, boxes, tsampa containers, carved tables — in plain and precious grades, sometimes distinguished into men's and women's forms. They are light, traditional and genuinely useful; the bowl is the traveller's honest souvenir.
Silver, copper and gemstone ornaments with strong Buddhist symbolism — rings, amulets, silver prayer boxes — sold across the old town. Designs are meaningful as well as decorative, but prices vary hugely, so compare before you buy.
Saffron, snow lotus, fritillary and other highland herbs are sold everywhere, along with Tibetan incense and yak butter tea ingredients. Buy from a shop you trust, and treat the more expensive herbs the way you would any pricey purchase.
Cordyceps — 'winter worm, summer grass' — is the prized and very expensive herb of the plateau, gathered above 3,000 m and sold at wildly varying prices. Fakes are common; unless you know the trade, buy elsewhere or not at all.
Practical
Area code 0887. The old town has pharmacies for altitude remedies; the main hospital is close to it. Save these before the road takes you out of signal.
| Emergency (police / ambulance / fire) | 110 · 120 · 119 |
|---|---|
| Diqing prefecture people's hospital | Cicika Street, near the old town · 0887-8222022 |
| Prefecture post office | Changzheng Road / Xiangyang Road junction · 0887-8225653 |
| Airport | 0887-8229797 |
| Altitude remedies | Rhodiola, Gaoyuan'an or ginseng tablets — pharmacies in the old town stock them |
| Pudacuo National Park | Enquiries 0887-8232533 · rescue 0887-8232529 |
| Altitude | Town about 3,300 m · Shika summit 4,500 m · Meili's Kawagebo 6,740 m |
| Cash | Banks with ATMs cluster on the two main streets; keep cash for villages and tea houses |
Tips
At 3,300 m, do not walk fast, do not run, and do not carry heavy bags on the day you arrive. Rest, water and light meals for the first few hours are the best investment you will make all trip.
It is tempting and it is a trap — once you depend on a can on day one, many people find they cannot stop. Save it for a genuine emergency, and let your body adapt the slow way.
The dry thin air and fierce UV chafe skin and lips fast, even under cloud. Pack a windproof down layer, sunglasses, a hat and lip balm; and drink more water than you think you need.
A long hot shower and a night of drinking both make altitude sickness more likely. Take it easy with both for the first day or two, and you will enjoy the rest of the trip far more.
Songzanlin is a working monastery, not a museum. Dress modestly, do not point your feet at statues, ask before photographing, and walk clockwise around shrines and prayer wheels.
Pudacuo's park bus and the chartered cars to Meili fill up, and the Meili drive needs an overnight. Sort your transport the night before, especially in summer and the October holidays.
Background
Shangri-La sits in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan's only Tibetan prefecture, at the junction of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. It is the southern extension of the Tibetan plateau and the deep belly of the Hengduan mountains, with the land falling from north to south through three great ranges — the Meili, Yunling and Zhongdian snow mountains — with the Lancang and Jinsha rivers cutting between them. The average elevation across the prefecture is about 3,380 m, and more than half of it lies above 3,000 m, making it the highest administrative area in Yunnan.
The climate is temperate to subarctic, with an average of about 5–13°C across the year, intense solar radiation and a sharp dry season and wet season. The extremes are dramatic: Kawagebo, the highest peak in Yunnan, reaches 6,740 m, while the lowest point in the prefecture is only 1,480 m — a range of more than 5,000 m within one small area. That vertical spread is why the flora and the scenery change so fast as you drive.
The name Shangri-La comes from James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizon, which describes a hidden, peaceful valley at the western end of the Himalayas whose people follow Tibetan Buddhism. The word became so desirable that several places claimed it, and in 2001 the Yunnan town of Zhongdian won the argument and renamed itself — citing its Tibetan name, 'the sun and moon in the heart', as evidence that it matched the book.
Underneath the literary name, this is a living Tibetan world. Tibetans are the majority of the prefecture, Tibetan Buddhism shapes daily life from the layout of the house to the flags on the roof — one for an ordinary Buddhist household, two for a family of standing, three for a house that has produced a living Buddha — and the great monasteries of Songzanlin and Dongzhulin still anchor the towns. Naxi, Lisu, Yi and other peoples live alongside them, and a surprising French-Catholic church at Cizhong, planted in the Lancang valley in the early twentieth century, remains one of the odder relics in the mountains.
Travel with them
Not guides — the novel that invented the name and the Chinese works that have kept the idea alive.
James Hilton, 1933
The novel that gave the world the word. A plane crash strands its passengers in a hidden Himalayan valley of monasteries, snow peaks and long life, and although Hilton never set foot in China, his description of a peaceful Tibetan valley is exactly why a real town in Yunnan claimed the name decades later.
Kim Roseberry
An American photographer's black-and-white meditation on the idea of Shangri-La — not the colourful postcard, but the making of the name itself, and what lies behind the beautiful face of a place that has been dreamed about for ninety years. A thoughtful counterpoint to the brochures.
Dir. Ding Naizheng
A Chinese film in which a grieving Taipei mother comes to Shangri-La and is guided through its landscapes by a mysterious boy, eventually finding her way back to herself. Melodramatic, but it captures the way the region has long been cast as a place of spiritual repair.
Zhu Jing / Rexidao
Two very different settings of the same idea: Zhu Jing's bright, expansive pop version, and the Tibetan singer Rexidao's traditional-inflected recordings. Put them on as the road climbs onto the plateau and the name suddenly sounds less like a slogan.
The questions visitors ask us most about Shangri-La, answered plainly.
Prices and practical details are reviewed every month by our Beijing team and updated the day a rule changes.
Some people feel it, most do not. At about 3,300 m, a minority of visitors get a headache, a poor first night's sleep or breathlessness on stairs. Take the first afternoon very gently, drink plenty of water, eat lightly, skip alcohol for a day or two and do not race up slopes. If you are going higher — 4,500 m on Shika Snow Mountain, or 4,000 m+ near Meili — give yourself a full day at town altitude first.
Most people come by road, about 4 hours from Lijiang (buses leave every 40 minutes from 07:30, roughly ¥42–59), or fly straight into Diqing Shangri-La (DIG), 5 km from town, with a 1-hour hop from Kunming. Flying is faster, but the road climbs through some of Yunnan's finest scenery, so many travellers do the road one way and fly the other.
Altitude medicine such as Rhodiola can help if you start it a day before you climb, and most travellers carry a small oxygen can as insurance. But do not start breathing oxygen on arrival — the dependence can be hard to shake, and many people who use it on day one find they need it constantly afterwards. Rest, water and time are the real treatments; save the can for an emergency.
Layers and sun protection, whatever the season. It is cold highland — a down jacket for evenings and the snow mountains, a windproof shell, sunglasses, a hat and a strong lip balm, because the dry thin air and fierce UV chafe skin fast. Bring any altitude medicine you might want, and note that it is cold enough that most guesthouses in the old town are heated and many have underfloor warmth.
May to June, when wildflowers carpet the grassland, and September to November, when the rains have gone and the skies are at their clearest for the golden light on Meili. July and August are the wet season but pleasantly cool; winter is bright and bitter, with snow and almost no visitors. It never gets hot here — the seasons are about rain and cold, not temperature.
If you have come for Tibetan culture and high mountain scenery, it is worth the extra 4 hours from Lijiang. Lijiang is a gentler, lower, Naxi town; Shangri-La is the plateau — a different landscape and a different people. The altitude is the cost of entry, and the reason to plan the first day slowly. If you have time, the drive on to Deqin and Meili Snow Mountain is the best thing in the whole prefecture.
About 4 hours west by road, to the town of Deqin, from where the classic view of the range is at Feilai Temple on the hillside above. The drive is its own trip and needs an overnight — the point is the dawn light on the summit of Kawagebo, and you want to be there before sunrise. Allow two days if you are going and returning by road.
Plan this trip
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24 km of fine white sand on one side, a volcanic island of coral and lava on the other — plus a 19th-century arcade old street in between.
Nanning
City guide · 12 tours
Guangxi's green capital is a gateway to Detian Falls, Beihai and Vietnam — and a genuinely excellent food city if you let it slow you down.
Guangxi
City guide · 12 tours
One autonomous region, a dozen landscapes — limestone peaks and rice terraces in the north, a Vietnam border and a warm gulf coast in the south.
Huizhou
City guide · 12 tours
A free West Lake, a Taoist mountain and 200 km of white-sand coast — the Pearl River Delta's most underrated weekend.
Beidaihe
City guide · 12 tours
Northern China's classic beach escape — one sunrise headland, 10 km of calm swimming water, and a bird flyway overhead twice a year.
Shanhaiguan
City guide · 12 tours
The town where the Great Wall stops being a rumour of mountains and walks into the Bohai Sea.
Baiyangdian
City guide · 12 tours
The biggest freshwater lake on the North China Plain — and almost none of it can be reached except by boat.
Qinhuangdao
City guide · 12 tours
126 km of Bohai coast in one municipality — a working port, two famous resorts, and the only desert dunes that meet this sea.
Yesanpo
City guide · 12 tours
Gorge country where the Taihang and Yan ranges collide — 52.5 km of canyon walls, a cave that spits fish, and a river to fall off.
Zhuhai
City guide · 12 tours
The delta's slow city: a 28 km promenade, 146 islands, oysters fattened where the river meets the sea.
Wuyi Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
Nine bends of clear water, red sandstone cliffs, and the tea that made a mountain's name.
Jiuzhaigou
City guide · 12 tours
108 mineral-blue lakes in one 55 km valley — the place that ruins water everywhere else for you.
Mount Siguniang
City guide · 12 tours
Four snow peaks, three valleys, and the friendliest 5,000 m mountain in China to stand on top of.
Hailuogou
City guide · 12 tours
A glacier that comes down to 2,850 m, hot springs in the forest, and Gongga Shan filling the sky above both.
Daocheng Yading
City guide · 12 tours
Three 6,000 m sacred peaks, glacial lakes at 4,600 m and twenty hours of road — the hardest, highest payoff in Sichuan.
Shunan Bamboo Sea
City guide · 12 tours
Seventy thousand mu of bamboo over twenty-eight hills, a red sandstone corridor under a closed green roof, and a banquet made entirely of bamboo.
Dujiangyan
City guide · 12 tours
Not a monument but a machine: three pieces of engineering with no dam, still doing their job after 2,270 years.
Qingcheng Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
The mountain where Daoism was organised, and the one Chengdu escapes to when the basin turns into an oven.
Qingdao
City guide · 12 tours
Red-tiled roofs, cold beer and a granite mountain that walks straight into the sea — the easiest good time on the Yellow Sea.
Mount Tai
City guide · 12 tours
1,545 metres, 6,290 stone steps and three thousand years of emperors — the one mountain in China that is also a document.
Jinan
City guide · 12 tours
A provincial capital with 700 springs under the pavement — people still queue at the spouts to fill their kettles.
Weihai
City guide · 12 tours
1,000 km of clean coast, a free bathing beach, the island where the Beiyang Fleet died — and thousands of wild swans every winter.
Qufu
City guide · 12 tours
One family, two thousand years of steles, and a ¥150 pass that covers the lot — the easiest serious day trip in Shandong.
Penglai
City guide · 12 tours
China's immortals' coast — a Song-dynasty naval harbour you can walk for free, a mythology nobody ever found, and the ferry to 32 islands.
Changdao
City guide · 12 tours
32 islands, one causeway, a ¥150 land pass, tens of thousands of gulls and nowhere you can drive — the place where everything happens by boat.
Nanjing
City guide · 12 tours
Capital of six dynasties, capital of the Republic, and the city that eats more duck than anywhere else on earth.
Suzhou
City guide · 12 tours
Two thousand five hundred years of canals, sixty surviving gardens, and a city that shuts its gates at half past five.
Zhouzhuang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine hundred years, fourteen bridges, one ticket — and a town that only makes sense before eight in the morning.
Tongli
City guide · 12 tours
Fifteen canals, seven islets, forty-nine bridges — and a town that still gets up at dawn because it lives here.
Wuxi
City guide · 12 tours
Taihu on one side, a Grand Buddha on the next hill, and ribs sweet enough to argue about — the most underrated city on the Yangtze delta.
Yangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A city built by salt merchants who had more money than restraint — gardens, a narrow lake, and the best breakfast in China.
Zhenjiang
City guide · 12 tours
Three hills, one ferry landing, and an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — the Yangtze city people drive past.
Changzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A 2,500-year-old canal city that built a dinosaur park and refuses to apologise for it.
Wuzhen
City guide · 12 tours
A town that is two towns: the older, quieter East Zone and the lit-up West Zone you sleep inside.
Xitang
City guide · 12 tours
Nine canals, 122 lanes, one long roofed corridor — and a town that still works for a living.
Hangzhou
City guide · 12 tours
A lake in the middle of a city, a tea village in the hills, and two thousand years of getting the mood right.
Xixi Wetland
City guide · 12 tours
Ten square kilometres of marsh inside Hangzhou, and the only way into half of it is a boat.
Ningbo
City guide · 12 tours
A 7,000-year-old port with Asia's oldest private library, a free waterfront 20 years older than Shanghai's, and the best seafood before the islands.
Mount Putuo
City guide · 12 tours
A Buddhist island with no cars, three great temples and a ¥10 lunch that is the point of the place.
Qiandao Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A thousand islands that did not exist sixty years ago, and the cleanest big-lake water in China.
Shaoxing
City guide · 12 tours
Two and a half thousand years of water-town China, and Lu Xun's house is free.
Zhoushan
City guide · 12 tours
1,390 islands, one road bridge in, and a harbour that lands more fish than almost anywhere on earth.
Hengdian
City guide · 12 tours
A backlot the size of a town, where the palaces are copies and the film crews are real.
Yandang Mountain
City guide · 12 tours
A volcano that weathering turned into scenery — 500-odd sights of peak, cave and waterfall across eight scenic areas.
Zhejiang
City guide · 12 tours
One small, mountainous, absurdly rich province that holds a lake, two canal towns, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano.
Hong Kong Outlying Islands
City guide · 12 tours
Two hundred-odd islands, half an hour of ferry from the financial district, and not a car on three of them.
Hong Kong Shopping
City guide · 12 tours
A duty-free port where the tag starts lower, two citywide sale seasons knock a third off, and every mall sits on an MTR exit.
Macao
City guide · 12 tours
Four hundred years of Portuguese streets, a fake Venice under a painted sky, and the best egg tart in Asia.
Urumqi
City guide · 12 tours
The city furthest from the sea, with a snow range on its doorstep and dinner starting at nine.
Hong Kong SAR, China
City guide · 11 tours
A harbour skyline you already know by heart, dim sum trolleys at dawn, and 260 islands an hour from the neon.
Taiwan, China
City guide · 11 tours
Night-market alleys, high-mountain railways, and a coastline that changes character every hundred kilometres.
Qinghai Lake
City guide · 12 tours
A 4,400 sq km inland sea at 3,200 m, ringed by rapeseed gold, prayer flags and the best cycling road in China.
Mount Emei
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,099-metre Buddhist summit you can reach by cable car before lunch — and a mountain full of monkeys that will absolutely rob you.
Beijing
City guide · 11 tours
Six centuries of imperial red walls, a Great Wall you can climb before lunch, and the best roast duck on earth.
Taipei
City guide · 11 tours
A 24-hour bookstore, a night market that never stops sizzling, and a city that apologises when you bump into it.
North Xinjiang
City guide · 11 tours
Alpine lakes the colour of poured enamel, a village of log cabins under birch trees, and the last tear the Atlantic ever sheds.
Lanzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A city split in half by the Yellow River, where beef noodles are a breakfast ritual and the Silk Road still runs through the streets.
Mount Hua
City guide · 11 tours
Five granite peaks, one plank road bolted to a cliff face, and a sunrise that justifies the 2am start.
Dunhuang
City guide · 11 tours
A desert oasis where Buddhist cave art survived a thousand years and a crescent lake refused to dry up.
Gannan
City guide · 11 tours
433 kilometres of the Yellow River's first bend, a 3.5 km prayer-wheel circuit, and Tibetan grasslands almost nobody has commercialised yet.
Sichuan–Tibet Highway
City guide · 11 tours
2,142 kilometres of cliff-edge switchbacks, four of China's most beautiful mountains, and a road the Tibetans walk on their knees.
Kangding
City guide · 11 tours
The town that gave Asia its most famous love song, a 7,556m sacred peak on its doorstep, and the last real Tibetan town before the road climbs to Lhasa.
Lhasa
City guide · 12 tours
A city of prayer wheels and butter lamps at 3,700 metres, where the sun shines 3,000 hours a year and the world's highest palace watches over it all.
Nyingchi
City guide · 11 tours
Tibet's greenest corner — peach blossom valleys, a 7,782 m peak that hides from almost everyone, and the world's deepest canyon.
Namtso
City guide · 11 tours
A 1,920-square-kilometre sheet of impossible blue at 4,718 metres, ringed by snow peaks and prayer flags.
Chongqing
City guide · 12 tours
A vertical city of fog, cable cars and cliff-side stilt houses, where the火锅 never stops boiling and the night skyline outshines Hong Kong.
Qiandongnan
City guide · 11 tours
A thousand Miao households stacked up a mountainside, drum towers and wind-rain bridges in Dong villages, and a 600-year-old Ming garrison town on the road to Guiyang.
Libo
City guide · 11 tours
Emerald rivers threading through karst peaks, a 600-metre forest growing out of a riverbed, and China's largest wild plum grove.
Guiyang
City guide · 11 tours
China's summer capital at 1,100 metres, where the nights run on sour fish soup, street-side barbecue and mahjong that never quite stops.
Zhenyuan
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,000-year-old river town where the Wuyang River carves an S through the mountains and every lane hides a story.
Huangguoshu
City guide · 11 tours
Asia's biggest waterfall, and the only one on earth you can walk behind, above and around — plus 600-year-old Ming dynasty villages a short drive away.
Harbin
City guide · 11 tours
Minus 30 degrees, a frozen river you can walk across, and a cathedral built by Russians who never went home.
Yunnan
City guide · 11 tours
Snow mountains, tropical rainforest, twenty-five minorities and a plate of rice noodles — all in one province.
Shanghai
City guide · 11 tours
A 1920s waterfront of colonial banks facing a science-fiction skyline, soup dumplings you eat with a straw, and 20 million people moving like clockwork.
Zhangjiajie
City guide · 11 tours
Three thousand sandstone pillars straight out of Avatar, a glass skywalk bolted to a cliff, and a cable car that leaves from downtown.
Guangzhou
City guide · 11 tours
A 2,200-year-old trading port where dim sum is a religion, colonial islands sit beside 600-metre towers, and the food never stops.
Guilin
City guide · 11 tours
Karst peaks rising straight out of a green river, rice terraces carved into mountainsides, and the best bowl of noodles you'll eat in China.
Shenzhen
City guide · 11 tours
A fishing village that became a megacity in forty years — and it still has 500-year-old banyans, empty beaches and dim sum worth the border crossing.
Chengdu
City guide · 11 tours
A 3,000-year-old city where the schedule is tea, mahjong and hotpot — and the pandas are just the opening act.
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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