Kashgar is the last big city on the old Silk Road before the road simply runs out into the desert, and it is the most atmospheric place in Xinjiang, China to sleep. The old town is a living mud-brick labyrinth of blind alleys, wooden shutters, and sun-baked flat roofs; the bazaar is one of the largest and oldest in Central Asia; and the whole city sits under the grey hulk of the Pamirs, which are visible in clear weather from hotel rooftops forty kilometres away.
Choosing where to stay here is simpler than in most Chinese cities and stranger than all of them. You can sleep inside a Uyghur courtyard house with a grape arbour and no aisle, or you can sleep in a business hotel with a glass lobby and a mountain view on the highway. Both are legitimate. This guide is what we tell readers who ask us which one.
Where to stay in Kashgar: old town or new town
Inside the old town (老城). Courtyard guesthouses converted from traditional flat-roofed houses, mostly on the lanes around 艾提尕尔广场 (Id Kah Square) and the 高台民居 (High Terrace). Rooms are modest — a bed, a carved cupboard, a small window onto the courtyard — and a double runs ¥180–400 in season, ¥120–260 in winter. What you buy is sound: the morning call is the call to prayer, the street is a minute away, and the roof terrace is where you will eat apricots at 8 p.m.
The new town (新城) and 北京大道. Modern hotels, including the domestic chains (Atour, All Season, HanTing) and one or two international-brand properties, at ¥260–500 for a solid four-star in peak season and ¥150–280 off-season. Everything is new, everything is soundproofed, and everything is a taxi ride of fifteen minutes from the old town.
The highway hotels near the airport. Twenty minutes out, cheap and functional, useful only for a late arrival or a dawn flight out toward the Pamirs.
The encyclopaedia entry on Kashgar is worth a read before you arrive: it explains the city’s twin history as a garrison town and a caravan market, which is exactly the duality you will feel walking from a hotel lobby into a lane where a man is still repairing a cart with a hand brake.
The old-town hotels we recommend
For the best hotels in Kashgar, we send most people to a courtyard guesthouse rather than a chain, and we have a shortlist we rebuild each year. The ones we rate highest are the family courtyards on the western edge of the old town, where the owners run a six-or-eight room house, grown grapes over the veranda, and a genuine Uyghur breakfast of 馕 (tandoor flatbread, ¥3–5), 奶茶 (salt tea, ¥6–10), and 包子 (steamed mutton buns, ¥8–15). Ask for the room with the window onto the lane rather than the one facing the courtyard wall; the lane has life, and life is the reason you came.
Two practical notes. First, the old town’s lanes are narrow and the tuk-tuks cannot reach most guesthouse doors — expect to walk the last 100–300 metres through the bazaar, which is the best possible welcome. Second, mud-brick walls are thick and cool, so an old-town room in July is often cooler than a new-town one running its air conditioner; in January both need heating, and the old houses heat with coal stoves that the guesthouse will light for you if you ask before 6 p.m.
The new-town hotels earn their keep for three reasons we keep meeting: lift access, actual showers with consistent pressure, and a supermarket. If you are travelling with small children or with anyone who needs a gym, book the chain on 北京大道 and take a taxi in each morning — the taxi ride is ¥15–25 and takes fifteen minutes through streets that are worth seeing anyway.
Stay two nights inside the old town and one in a new-town hotel, because the bazaar is most alive between 7 and 10 a.m. — arriving on foot from a courtyard door beats any hotel transfer service in the city.
What Kashgar hotels actually cost
Prices here are lower than the rest of China’s popular destinations, and that surprises readers who assume Xinjiang is expensive. In peak season (June, September, October) expect:
- Old-town courtyard double: ¥180–400, sometimes ¥500 for a renovated room with a private bathroom on the roof.
- New-town four-star or chain: ¥260–500, with ¥400–600 for the top business property in town.
- Airport-adjacent economy: ¥120–200.
- A suite in a restored courtyard house: ¥600–900, and there are only a handful, so book them in February for a September trip.
In November through March, everything drops 35–50%. We have had a very good courtyard guesthouse room for ¥160 in December, which remains one of our best-value nights in the whole of China.
Seasons, and the one festival to avoid
Kashgar sits at 1,290 metres, which takes the edge off the summer heat and makes the winter genuinely cold but walkable. June and July bring 35–38°C and the apricot and melon season — the 喀什 瓜 (Kashgar melons) are the reason to come in June. September and October are perfect: clear air, the Pamirs visible from the rooftops, 25–28°C in the day and 10°C at night. November to March is quiet, cheap, and hard on your fingers. Our best time to visit China guide lays out the national picture; the regional version in Xinjiang, China rewards anyone who comes outside the summer.
The thing to avoid is the overlap of a major local religious holiday with peak season, when the city fills and some old-town guesthouses close for family observances. Ask your hotel rather than a forum — local owners know the dates months ahead, and they will tell you honestly.
Eating around your hotel
Kashgar is the one city in China where a hotel restaurant is the wrong choice at least twice a day. 羊肉抓饭 (mutton pilaf, ¥18–30 a plate) is the dish to learn: rice cooked in mutton fat, carrots and onion, topped with a whole piece of fried mutton, and served with 酸奶 (¥5–8). 烤包子 (sizzling tandoor buns, ¥4–6 each) come out of the clay oven blackened and dripping. 缸子肉 (a whole mutton shank in a steel teapot, ¥20–35) is the local lunch. 烤羊肉串 run ¥4–8 a skewer, and the best ones are 25 skewers a plate at the 喀什 夜市 near 艾提尕尔.
If your courtyard guesthouse does breakfast, eat it on the roof. If it does not, the 馕 shop at the end of the lane sells flatbread all day, and a family in the old town will point you to the right one. Our Kashgar old town guide maps the lanes and the rooftop spots worth climbing.
Learn two numbers before you arrive — 两百 (liǎngbǎi) and 十五 (shíwǔ) — because the bazaar below your guesthouse still counts cash and the right change makes every early-morning purchase easy.
Getting there, and combining it with the rest of Xinjiang
Kashgar Airport (KHG) is on the south side of the city, 10–15 minutes from the old town by taxi, and the new high-speed rail station is a 20-minute drive east. Trains from Urumqi take about eleven hours — long, but the scenery is the reason people do it once. Flights from Urumqi run 1h40m and are the sane option if your time is short.
Most itineraries use Kashgar as the launch point for the Pamirs, the Karakoram Highway toward Pakistan, and the 喀什–塔什库尔干 (Tashkurgan) leg at 3,200–4,500 metres. If you are linking cities, our Kashgar travel guide covers the loop in full, our Xinjiang travel guide covers the province, and our China travel guide for first-timers sorts out payment apps, SIM cards, and the ID registration every foreign guest will be asked for.
[IMAGE: A rooftop terrace above the Kashgar bazaar with terracotta rooftops and the Pamirs beyond | alt=”Kashgar rooftop terrace bazaar view Pamirs Xinjiang China”]
Practical things we learned the hard way
Carry small notes: the old-town bakeries and the bazaar stalls still count cash, and the nearest ATM is sometimes 500 metres away in the new town. Learn to say 两百 (liǎngbǎi, “two hundred”) and 十五 (shíwǔ, “fifteen”) before you get to the market. Register your residence at the hotel desk on arrival — in Xinjiang, China this is a legal requirement and the front desk will do it from the passport scan.
Water is safe in hotels but the tap tastes of lime; buy bottles. Sun is brutal in June even at 1,290 metres, and the mud-brick lanes offer shade for exactly one side of the street at any hour, so pick your direction early. And do plan to be on a rooftop at 9 p.m. in September, when the light off the mud walls goes rose and the whole old town smells of melon and woodsmoke.
Final thoughts
Kashgar is a city you sleep inside rather than visit. The old town’s mud walls, the call to prayer, the stack of melons outside your door at 7 a.m. — none of it arrives through a tour bus window. We would book the smallest courtyard guesthouse we could find, take the roof, and then spend two nights in a new-town hotel before flying out, because that pairing gives you the city and the practicalities and nothing in between.
Book an old-town courtyard for the first and last night of your Xinjiang leg, and leave the middle of the trip for the Pamirs — Kashgar is the place in China where the hotel you choose decides how the whole journey feels.