Cities and provinces

China destinations: 126 places worth planning around

Each guide below covers what to see, how long to stay, which month to come, how to arrive and which tours pass through, written by people who run trips there.

The short version

Most first trips to China combine three places: Beijing for the imperial north, Xi'an or Chengdu for history and pandas, and Shanghai or Guilin for contrast. Give each city two to three days and the country starts to make sense.

126 destination guides, each with tours, day tours and practical transport detail.
Every guide names the province it sits in, which helps when you are booking trains.
Hangzhou sits in Zhejiang; you enter Qinghai through Xining, and Tibet through Lhasa.
Two to three days per city is the honest answer almost everywhere.

All destinations

Browse every destination guide

Ordered the way most trips are built, with the classic first-trip cities first. Each one links to the tours, day tours and guides that cover it.

Beijing Beijing Municipality · 6 tours Beijing is China's capital and the most efficient place to start a first trip: the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven and the hutong

Xi'an Shaanxi · 6 tours Xi'an is the capital of Shaanxi Province and where the Silk Road began. Forty kilometres east of the city, 8,000 terracotta warriors have stood in for

Shanghai Shanghai Municipality · 7 tours Shanghai rewards two days: one for the colonial Bund and the museums, one for old-town gardens, food and the French Concession. Add a third for a cana

Chengdu Sichuan · 4 tours Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province and the gateway to the panda reserves, the Leshan Giant Buddha and Jiuzhaigou. In the city itself the Cheng

Guilin Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region · 2 tours Guilin is in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and it gives you the landscape Chinese painting was invented to describe: limestone karst peaks ris

Hangzhou Zhejiang · 2 tours Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, is built around West Lake — willow banks, causeways and pagodas that poets have been writing about for 1,2

Zhangjiajie Hunan · 1 tours Zhangjiajie is in Hunan Province and looks like nowhere else in China: more than 3,000 quartzite sandstone pillars, some over 300 m tall, standing in

Tibet Tibet Autonomous Region · 1 tours The Tibet Autonomous Region is entered through Lhasa, its capital, and it is the one destination in China that requires planning rather than booking:

Yunnan Yunnan · 4 tours Yunnan Province is entered through Kunming, its capital, and it is the most varied province in China — 25 of the country's 56 ethnic groups, snow moun

Sichuan Sichuan · 2 tours Sichuan Province is entered through Chengdu, its capital, and it holds more variety than any other province in China: giant pandas in the bamboo fores

Qinghai Qinghai · 2 tours Qinghai Province sits on the north-eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and is reached through its capital, Xining. It offers Qinghai Lake, Kumbum Mona

Gansu Gansu · 1 tours Gansu Province is the 1,600 km corridor that carried the Silk Road between China and Central Asia, and it is entered through Lanzhou, its capital. Wes

Xinjiang Xinjiang · 4 tours Xinjiang is China's largest region — 1.66 million km², roughly one sixth of the country — and the desert half of the Silk Road. You reach it through i

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region · 4 tours The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is entered through Hohhot, its capital, three hours north-west of Beijing. From there the Xilamuren and Gegentala

Guangzhou Guangdong · 1 tours Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province and the best city in China to eat. Dim sum halls open at 06:00, roast goose is hung in windows by noon,

Shenzhen Guangdong · 4 tours Shenzhen is the youngest big city in Guangdong Province and the hinge of the Greater Bay Area: 40 years ago it was a fishing village of 30,000, today

Harbin Heilongjiang · 4 tours Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang and the coldest big city in China, which is precisely the point: from late December it hosts Ice and Snow World,

Dalian Liaoning · 4 tours Dalian is Liaoning's port city at the tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, and the closest thing northeast China has to a beach holiday. The 30 km Binhai Ro

Shenyang Liaoning · 4 tours Shenyang is the capital of Liaoning and the old Manchu imperial city, and it holds the Mukden Palace — the second-largest surviving imperial palace in

Changbai Mountain Jilin · 4 tours Changbai Mountain is a 2,744 m volcanic massif on the China–North Korea border, and its crater lake, Heaven Lake (Tianchi), lies at 2,189 m — the high

Kunming Yunnan · 4 tours Kunming is the capital of Yunnan and China's 'Spring City', set at 1,890 m where the average temperature sits near 15°C all year — it has no real wint

Dali Yunnan · 4 tours Dali is a walled Bai town between a 4,000 m mountain and a 250 km² lake, and the phrase locals use for it is 'wind, flowers, snow, moon'. Two days cov

Shuhe Yunnan · 4 tours Shuhe is a 1,000-year-old Naxi village 4 km north of Lijiang's old town, and it is the calm version of Lijiang: same stone lanes and canals, a fractio

Lijiang Yunnan · 4 tours Lijiang is a UNESCO-listed Naxi old town of canals and cobbles below Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, at 2,400 m, and it is the cultural heart of north-west

Xiamen Fujian · 4 tours Xiamen is China's breeziest seaside city — a subtropical island of 5.3 million where the car-free colonial islet of Gulangyu, a palm-lined coastal roa

Gulangyu Fujian · 4 tours Gulangyu is a 1.87 km² car-free island twenty minutes by ferry off Xiamen, and the single most-visited sight in Fujian — colonial villas, China's only

Fuzhou Fujian · 4 tours Fuzhou is the 2,200-year-old capital of Fujian, and the quieter, greener counterweight to Xiamen — a city of banyan trees and mountains-within-the-cit

Lugu Lake Yunnan · 4 tours Lugu Lake is a 2,680 m highland lake on the Yunnan–Sichuan border and the homeland of the Mosuo, one of China's last matrilineal peoples — reached in

Xishuangbanna Yunnan · 4 tours Xishuangbanna is China's tropical south — a Dai prefecture on the Laos and Myanmar borders, wrapped around the Mekong and centred on the gateway city

Shangri-La Yunnan · 4 tours Shangri-La sits at about 3,300 m in Diqing, the only Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Yunnan, and it is the high plateau that the word itself conjures

Nanchang Jiangxi · 4 tours Nanchang is the capital of Jiangxi and the city where the People's Liberation Army was founded in 1927 — a 2,200-year-old river port whose Tang-dynast

Hefei Anhui · 4 tours Hefei is the capital of Anhui and a 2,000-year-old city built at the meeting of two rivers — best known as the hometown of Bao Zheng, the incorruptibl

Hongcun Anhui · 4 tours Hongcun is a 900-year-old Hui-style village in the hills below the Yellow Mountains, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — laid out in the shape of an ox

Wuhan Hubei · 4 tours Wuhan is central China's river capital of 13.7 million people, built where the Yangtze and its biggest tributary, the Han, collide — give it 3 days. T

Changsha Hunan · 4 tours Changsha is Hunan's capital of 10.5 million, a 3,000-year-old city that eats, drinks and stays up later than almost anywhere in China — give it 2 days

Fenghuang Ancient Town Hunan · 4 tours Fenghuang Ancient Town is the stilt-house river town of Shen Congwen's novel 'Border Town' and one of the most photographed places in China — give it

Lushan Jiangxi · 4 tours Lushan is a 1,474 m cloud-wrapped mountain in northern Jiangxi whose cool 22°C summer and 90-odd peaks of waterfalls made it China's original hill sta

Wuyuan Jiangxi · 4 tours Wuyuan is a county of about 360,000 people in northeast Jiangxi, on the Anhui and Zhejiang borders, that China calls its 'most beautiful countryside'

Mount Heng (Hengshan, Hunan) Hunan · 4 tours Mount Heng in Hunan — the 'Nanyue', or South Great Peak, one of China's Five Great Peaks — is a 1,300 m pilgrimage mountain of 72 summits rising just

Huangshan Anhui · 4 tours Huangshan — Yellow Mountain — is a UNESCO granite massif of 82 peaks in southern Anhui, famous for its twisted pines, sea of cloud and the saying that

Wudang Mountain Hubei · 4 tours Wudang Mountain is the Taoist holy mountain of Hubei and a UNESCO World Heritage site, famous as the birthplace of tai chi and for the largest bronze

Luoyang Henan · 4 tours Luoyang is the ancient capital of thirteen dynasties in western Henan, and it holds three of the great sights of central China — the Longmen Grottoes

Yuntai Mountain Henan · 4 tours Yuntai Mountain is a UNESCO Global Geopark in Xiuwu county, Jiaozuo, Henan — a maze of red-stone gorges, spring-fed pools and the 314 m Yuntai Sky Wat

Rizhao Shandong · 4 tours Rizhao is a small, easy-going seaside city on the Shandong coast where 60 km of golden beach face the Yellow Sea and the dawn gives the place its name

Yantai Shandong · 4 tours Yantai is a coastal city on the northern side of the Shandong peninsula, known for two things above all: the seaside 'fairyland' of Penglai, home of t

Lianyungang Jiangsu · 4 tours Lianyungang is the Jiangsu port at the foot of Flower-Fruit Mountain — the mountain of the Monkey King in Journey to the West — and the eastern termin

Sanqing Mountain Jiangxi · 4 tours Sanqing Mountain is a UNESCO-listed granite peak forest in north-east Jiangxi, where a stone python rises out of a rock gorge and the 'Goddess of the

Tianjin Tianjin · 4 tours Tianjin is a municipality of about 13.6 million on the Bohai coast, and it is worth a full day or two rather than a rushed stopover — it sits 30 minut

Datong Shanxi · 4 tours Datong is a city of 3.1 million in northern Shanxi, and it holds two of China's most extraordinary sights: the Yungang Grottoes, a UNESCO site of 51,0

Taiyuan Shanxi · 4 tours Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi and a city of 5.3 million, and most travellers use it as the hub for Pingyao, Mount Wutai and Datong — but it earns a

Pingyao Shanxi · 4 tours Pingyao is China's best-preserved ancient county town, a UNESCO World Heritage site with a 6 km Ming-dynasty wall, 2,800 years of history and the firs

Wutai Mountain Shanxi · 4 tours Wutai Mountain (Wutai Shan) in Shanxi is the head of China's four sacred Buddhist peaks and the earthly seat of Manjushri, with more than 50 temples p

Hulunbuir Inner Mongolia · 4 tours Hulunbuir is the great grassland of Inner Mongolia — 263,000 km² of steppe, forest and river, about the size of the UK, and the finest grass country i

The Forbidden City Beijing · 4 tours The Forbidden City is Beijing's imperial palace — 980 surviving buildings and around 8,700 rooms within a 72-hectare walled compound, and the largest

Sanya Hainan · 4 tours Sanya is China's tropical beach capital, on the southern tip of Hainan island, and the only place in the country with genuinely warm sea and sun in th

Haikou Hainan · 4 tours Haikou is Hainan's capital and its living city, on the north coast facing the mainland — the place to understand how the island actually works. Its 60

Beihai Guangxi · 4 tours Beihai is Guangxi's Gulf of Tonkin coast, 200 km south of Nanning, and it pairs one of China's best beaches with a volcanic island worth a night of it

Nanning Guangxi · 4 tours Nanning is the capital of Guangxi and the gateway most travellers pass through on the way to somewhere else — Detian Falls, Beihai, or Vietnam. It des

Guangxi Guangxi · 4 tours Guangxi is China's karst-and-coast province, one region that holds Guilin's limestone peaks, a 1,600 km Gulf of Tonkin coastline and the Vietnam borde

Huizhou Guangdong · 4 tours Huizhou is a 2-day city break on the eastern edge of the Pearl River Delta, and its centrepiece — West Lake — is free. Between the lake, the Taoist mo

Zhuhai Guangdong · 4 tours Zhuhai is China's slow, green coastal city, pressed against the Macau border, and 2 to 3 days is enough to enjoy it: the 28 km Lovers' Road and the Fi

Wuyi Mountain Fujian · 4 tours Wuyi Mountain is Fujian's UNESCO World Heritage landscape and the birthplace of rock tea (yancha), and 3 days is the right shape: one for the Nine-Ben

Beidaihe Hebei · 4 tours Beidaihe is Hebei's classic seaside resort on the Bohai coast, roughly 380 km from Beijing and about 2 hours by high-speed train, and it earns its fam

Shanhaiguan Hebei · 4 tours Shanhaiguan is the Great Wall town where the Ming dynasty's eastern defence line met the sea, about 300 km east of Beijing and 17 km from Qinhuangdao

Baiyangdian Hebei · 4 tours Baiyangdian is Hebei's great freshwater lake, a 366 km² patchwork of lotus fields and reed channels about 2 hours from Beijing, and you see almost all

Qinhuangdao Hebei · 4 tours Qinhuangdao is Hebei's Bohai port city, a municipality of 3.1 million with 126 km of coastline, and it is the frame around Beidaihe and Shanhaiguan ra

Yesanpo Hebei · 4 tours Yesanpo is Hebei's canyon country where the Taihang and Yan mountains meet, about 100 km from Beijing, and it is built around four areas: the Baili Go

Jiuzhaigou Sichuan · 4 tours Jiuzhaigou is a 55 km Y-shaped valley in northern Sichuan holding 108 travertine lakes and waterfalls, and it packs more colour into one day than any

Mount Siguniang Sichuan · 4 tours Mount Siguniang is a cluster of four linked snow peaks in western Sichuan — the highest, Yaomei Feng, stands 6,250 m — reached through the base town o

Hailuogou Sichuan · 4 tours Hailuogou is a glacier that comes down to about 2,850 m — low enough to walk near it without mountaineering — beneath Gongga Shan, the 7,556 m 'King o

Daocheng Yading Sichuan · 4 tours Daocheng Yading is a nature reserve in western Sichuan built around three sacred snow peaks — Xiannairi at 6,032 m and Yangmaiyong and Xianuoduoji at

Shunan Bamboo Sea Sichuan · 4 tours The Shunan Bamboo Sea is a 120 sq km forest of bamboo in southern Sichuan's Yibin, holding 58 bamboo species across more than 70,000 mu of hills — the

Dujiangyan Sichuan · 4 tours Dujiangyan is a working irrigation system in Sichuan built between 256 and 251 BC by Li Bing and his son, still controlling the Min River after some 2

Qingcheng Mountain Sichuan · 4 tours Qingcheng Mountain is a 1,260 m peak 68 km from Chengdu where Zhang Daoling founded the Way of the Celestial Masters in AD 143, making it one of the b

Qingdao Shandong · 4 tours Qingdao is a port city on the Yellow Sea where German colonial red roofs, the Tsingtao brewery and the sacred sea-mountain Laoshan all sit within an h

Mount Tai Shandong · 4 tours Mount Tai is the most sacred of China's Five Great Mountains, a 1,545 m granite massif beside the town of Tai'an that emperors climbed to address heav

Jinan Shandong · 4 tours Jinan is the capital of Shandong and the 'City of Springs' — about 700 natural springs well up inside the city, feeding a lake at its centre and the c

Weihai Shandong · 4 tours Weihai is a coastal city at the eastern tip of the Shandong peninsula with about 1,000 km of shoreline facing Korea across the Yellow Sea, and 3 days

Qufu Shandong · 4 tours Qufu is the home town of Confucius and one of the four sacred cities of the world, where a ¥150 combined ticket (¥185 on public holidays) covers the C

Penglai Shandong · 4 tours Penglai is the coast the Chinese imagination gave to the immortals, and the package is a small one: Penglai Pavilion on its red cliff (¥100 for a thro

Changdao Shandong · 4 tours Changdao is Shandong's only island county: 32 islands strung across the Bohai Strait, reached by a 40-minute ferry from Penglai for about ¥23, and wor

Nanjing Jiangsu · 4 tours Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu and one of China's four great ancient capitals — capital of six dynasties from 229 AD and of the Republic after 1927

Suzhou Jiangsu · 4 tours Suzhou is the classical garden city of the Yangtze delta — founded in 514 BC, still laid out over the canals of the 12th century, and about 30 minutes

Zhouzhuang Jiangsu · 4 tours Zhouzhuang is a 900-year-old canal town in Kunshan, Jiangsu, called the first water town of China — more than 60% of its houses are still Ming or Qing

Tongli Jiangsu · 4 tours Tongli is a water town in Wujiang, Jiangsu, cut by fifteen canals into seven islets joined by forty-nine bridges — every house is on the water and eve

Wuxi Jiangsu · 4 tours Wuxi is the city on the north shore of Taihu Lake where a ¥105 peninsula of cherry orchards, a ¥210 Grand Buddha and a free Ming-dynasty old town all

Yangzhou Jiangsu · 4 tours Yangzhou is the city on the Grand Canal that the whole of China has been told to visit in the third lunar month — a compact old town of canals, salt-m

Zhenjiang Jiangsu · 4 tours Zhenjiang is the city on the south bank of the Yangtze where 3 hills and 1 ferry landing carry an unreasonable share of Chinese literature — Jinshan,

Changzhou Jiangsu · 4 tours Changzhou is the 2,500-year-old city on the Shanghai–Nanjing corridor that built a dinosaur park and an animation park next to a Tang temple with the

Wuzhen Zhejiang · 4 tours Wuzhen is a 1,300-year-old canal town in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, and the most finished water town in the Yangtze delta — 7,000 years of settlement histor

Xitang Zhejiang · 4 tours Xitang is a canal town in Jiashan, Zhejiang, and the most lived-in of the big water towns — nine rivers meeting in the town, 122 stone lanes and the c

Xixi Wetland Zhejiang · 4 tours Xixi Wetland is a 10.08 sq km stretch of urban wetland in western Hangzhou, Zhejiang — the first park in China to hold city, farming and cultural wetl

Ningbo Zhejiang · 4 tours Ningbo is a 7,000-year-old harbour city on China's east coast and the mainland gateway to Mount Putuo, and 2 days covers the headline sights — Tianyi

Mount Putuo Zhejiang · 4 tours Mount Putuo is a small sacred island in the Zhoushan archipelago off Zhejiang and one of China's four great Buddhist mountains, the home of Guanyin —

Qiandao Lake Zhejiang · 4 tours Qiandao Lake is a man-made reservoir of 1,078 islands in Chun'an county, Zhejiang, 129 km west of Hangzhou — the water that made the Nongfu Spring slo

Shaoxing Zhejiang · 4 tours Shaoxing is a 2,500-year-old water city in Zhejiang, 50 minutes by train from Hangzhou, and two days covers it for around ¥600–1,000. Lu Xun's former

Zhoushan Zhejiang · 4 tours Zhoushan is China's archipelago city in Zhejiang, made of 1,390 islands, and 3 to 4 days covers the Buddhist island of Putuo Mountain, the sand and sc

Hengdian Zhejiang · 4 tours Hengdian is the studio town of Dongyang in Zhejiang and the largest film backlot in Asia — nicknamed China's Hollywood — where 2 days covers the Qin P

Yandang Mountain Zhejiang · 4 tours Yandang Mountain is a 120-million-year-old rhyolite volcano in Yueqing, Zhejiang, a 5A-rated world geopark with more than 500 sights across eight scen

Zhejiang Zhejiang · 4 tours Zhejiang is the smallest of China's most-visited provinces — a little over 100,000 sq km carrying 54.4 million people — and 9 days is the honest lengt

Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, China · 4 tours Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China and one of the easiest great cities in Asia to travel — 5 days covers Victoria Peak, the Star Fe

Hong Kong Outlying Islands Hong Kong SAR, China · 4 tours Hong Kong's 260-plus outlying islands are the quiet half of Hong Kong SAR, China — the nearest are 30 minutes by ferry from the Central piers, and 2 d

Hong Kong Shopping Hong Kong SAR, China · 4 tours Hong Kong is a duty-free free port, which is why shopping in Hong Kong SAR, China runs roughly 20–30% below mainland prices on international brands —

Macao Macao SAR, China · 4 tours Macao is a compact, walkable destination — Macao SAR, China measures about 33 sq km, and 2 full days cover the UNESCO-listed old centre, the Taipa vil

Taipei Taiwan, China · 4 tours Taipei is the natural first stop on any trip to Taiwan, China, and 4 to 5 days covers it well: the National Palace Museum's 650,000-piece collection,

Kaohsiung Taiwan, China · 4 tours Kaohsiung is the laid-back harbour metropolis of Taiwan, China, and 2 to 3 days covers it well: the Formosa Boulevard MRT station with its 4,500-piece

Taiwan Taiwan, China · 4 tours Taiwan, China rewards a full island loop, and 12 days is the classic length: Taipei, Taichung, Sun Moon Lake, Alishan, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Kenting and

Urumqi Xinjiang · 4 tours Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang and the city furthest from any ocean on Earth — the sensible first stop in the region, with 3 days covering the free

North Xinjiang Xinjiang · 4 tours North Xinjiang is the scenery half of Xinjiang — the saying runs 'south Xinjiang for culture, north Xinjiang for landscapes' — and the classic way to

Qinghai Lake Qinghai · 4 tours Qinghai Lake is worth 2 days by car or 4 days by bicycle: it is China's largest inland saltwater lake at 4,489 sq km, sitting at 3,200 m on the Tibeta

Mount Emei Sichuan · 4 tours Mount Emei is worth 3 days: the 3,099 m Golden Summit delivers sunrise, sea of clouds and the 48 m Samantabhadra bronze, the mid-mountain monkey reser

Lanzhou Gansu · 4 tours Lanzhou is worth 2 full days: it is the only provincial capital the Yellow River runs straight through, and the birthplace of the beef noodle that con

Mount Hua Shaanxi · 4 tours Mount Hua is worth two days, not one — the mountain rises to 2,154.9 m and has five peaks, and the headline sights (the Plank Road in the Sky, the Spa

Dunhuang Gansu · 4 tours Dunhuang is a Silk Road oasis in Gansu, western China, where 735 painted cave shrines at the Mogao Caves, a crescent-shaped lake that has held water f

Gannan Gansu · 4 tours Gannan is the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of southern Gansu, a 3,000 m plateau of monasteries and grassland reached overland from Lanzhou, and 6 day

Sichuan–Tibet Highway (G318) Sichuan · 4 tours The Sichuan–Tibet Highway is the southern G318 route between Chengdu and Lhasa — 2,142 km crossing 14 high passes and four great rivers (Jinsha, Lanca

Kangding Sichuan · 4 tours Kangding is worth 3 days: it is the gateway town of Ganzi Tibetan Prefecture in western Sichuan, sitting at 2,600 m on the 318 highway, and it packs a

Lhasa Tibet · 4 tours Lhasa is worth 4 days: the Potala Palace (CNY 200 peak season), Jokhang Temple (CNY 70) and the free Barkhor kora sit within walking distance of each

Nyingchi Tibet · 4 tours Nyingchi is Tibet's low-altitude, forested southeast — average elevation around 3,100 m, which makes it one of the gentlest places in Tibet to acclima

Namtso Tibet · 4 tours Namtso is the highest saltwater lake in the world at 4,718 m, about 240 km north of Lhasa — reachable only by road, with no scheduled bus and no airpo

Chongqing Chongqing · 4 tours Chongqing deserves 2 to 3 full days: the city core — Jiefangbei, Hongya Cave, Chaotianmen and the Ciqikou old town — is dense, walkable in parts and l

Qiandongnan Guizhou · 4 tours Qiandongnan is worth 6 days: it packs the largest Miao settlement on earth (Xijiang, 1,000 households, CNY 100 entry), the Dong drum-tower village of

Libo Guizhou · 4 tours Libo is a small county in southern Guizhou whose karst water scenery — the Seven-Arch Bridge (Xiaoqikong) scenic area and the Maolan primeval forest —

Guiyang Guizhou · 4 tours Guiyang is worth 2 full days: it is a 6.2-million-person highland capital at 1,100 m that stays around 24°C in July, and its best sights — Qianling Pa

Zhenyuan Guizhou · 4 tours Zhenyuan is a 2,000-year-old river town in eastern Guizhou, and 1–2 days is the honest number — the Wuyang River loops through the old town in a giant

Huangguoshu Guizhou · 4 tours Huangguoshu is worth 2 days: the main waterfall is 77.8 m high and 101 m wide, the third-largest in the world and the only one you can walk behind thr

Not sure where to start?

First time in ChinaBeijing, Xi'an, Shanghai: the three that explain the rest.Pandas and foodChengdu and Sichuan, with a panda morning you can volunteer at.Landscape firstGuilin's karst rivers and Zhangjiajie's sandstone pillars.High and remoteEntering Tibet by rail from Qinghai, which is gentler on the altitude.Desert and Silk RoadGansu's Hexi Corridor, from Lanzhou west to Dunhuang.Travelling with childrenTwelve days paced for ages 5–15, without 5 a.m. wake-ups.

Frequently asked questions

Which cities should I visit on a first trip to China?

Start with Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai: three cities, 8 to 10 days, linked by high-speed rail in 4.5 to 6 hours. That triangle covers imperial China, the Qin dynasty and modern China, and every intercontinental flight lands in one of them.

How many days do I need for China?

Ten days covers the classic Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai triangle at a comfortable pace. Fourteen days lets you add Guilin or Chengdu; 21 days adds Tibet or the Silk Road. We advise against more than five cities in 14 days.

How do I link the cities together?

High-speed rail handles most of it: Beijing–Xi'an 4.5 hours, Xi'an–Chengdu 3 hours, Shanghai–Hangzhou 1 hour. Fly the long legs — Chengdu–Lhasa 2.5 hours, Beijing–Guilin 3 hours. We plan routes in one direction, never back to the start.

Which month is best for visiting China?

April–May and September–October give 15–25°C and the clearest skies across most of China. July–August is hot and humid but is the best window for Tibet and Inner Mongolia. January–February is cold, quiet and 20–30% cheaper.

Is China safe for foreign travellers?

Violent crime against foreigners is rare; the realistic risk is pickpocketing in crowded stations. Tap water is not for drinking, so we supply bottled water daily. Traffic is the main hazard, which is why we drive licensed vehicles only.

Do I need a permit for Tibet?

Tibet requires a Tibet Travel Permit in addition to your Chinese visa; we apply on your behalf about 20 days before entry, and you cannot board the flight without it. Everest Base Camp and Ngari require a second and third permit.

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Free itinerary design, a revised plan within one working day, and nothing charged until you approve the final version.

China destinations: 126 places worth planning around

Most first trips to China combine three places: Beijing for the imperial north, Xi'an or Chengdu for history and pandas, and Shanghai or Guilin for contrast. Give each city two to three days and the country starts to make sense.

Not sure where to start?

Frequently asked questions

Explore next

All destinations

Multi-day tours

Day tours

Practical reading

Tell us your dates.We'll do the rest.

Tell us your dates.
We'll do the rest.