Author: karl

Most China itineraries sprint between Beijing, Xi’an, and Shanghai and call it a trip. This Qingdao travel guide is for the traveler who wants to slow down on a real…

Most people land in Beijing or Shanghai and never make it to the city that once ruled them both. This Nanjing travel guide is for the traveler who wants the…

If your mental image of China is all skyscrapers and bullet trains, this Suzhou travel guide is the correction you didn’t know you needed. An hour west of Shanghai by…

The night I finally understood Lijiang Old Town, I was sitting on a stone slab beside a trickling canal, watching steam rise off a bowl of yak-meat noodles, with the…

Most travelers rush through Yunnan chasing Lijiang’s crowds or Shangri-La’s altitude. They miss the one place that actually lets you exhale. Dali Yunnan sits in a bowl between the 4,000-meter…

If you’re sketching out a Yunnan itinerary and want a base that never gets uncomfortably hot or brutally cold, this Kunming travel guide is for you. Sitting at roughly 1,890…

If you have ever seen one of those Chinese landscape paintings with impossibly green hills rising straight out of a misty river, you were probably looking at Guilin and Yangshuo….

Most first-time visitors to China fly into Beijing or Shanghai and never make it west. That’s a real mistake. This Xi’an travel guide is for the traveler who wants the…

If you want one Chinese city that rewards slowing down, this Hangzhou travel guide is for you. Marco Polo called it “the City of Heaven,” and the nickname still fits….