China Tea Tour Guide: From Hangzhou Longjing to Fujian Oolong
Tea in China is not a drink so much as a landscape, a calendar and a social code. Follow it and you end up in terraced hills above West Lake…
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Yangzhou Travel Guide: Jiangsu’s Classical Gardens and Slender West Lake
For a thousand years Yangzhou was one of the richest cities in China, a salt-trade capital where the Grand Canal meets the Yangtze. Poets wrote about its moonlit bridges; merchants…
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Manzhouli Travel Guide: Inner Mongolia’s Russian Border Town
There is nowhere else in China quite like Manzhouli. Pastel façades with onion domes line the main street, shop signs run in Chinese, Russian and Mongolian, and a 30-metre matryoshka…
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Yanji Travel Guide: Jilin’s Korean-Flavored Border City
Step off the train in Yanji and the first thing you notice is the signage: every shopfront, street sign and bus stop carries Korean script above the Chinese. This is…
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Tai’an Travel Guide: Gateway to Mount Tai, Shandong
Most travelers arrive in Tai’an for one reason: the mountain that rises straight out of the city’s northern edge. Mount Tai (Taishan) is the foremost of China’s Five Great Mountains,…
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Kangding Travel Guide: Sichuan’s Tibetan Gateway Town
This Kangding travel guide covers the mountain town where the Sichuan basin ends and the high plateau begins. Kangding sits at about 2,560 metres in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in…
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Ili Travel Guide: Xinjiang, China’s Grassland and Apricot Valley
This Ili travel guide covers the greenest corner of Xinjiang, China — a wide river valley in the far northwest where the Tianshan opens toward Central Asia and catches enough…
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Korla Travel Guide: Xinjiang, China’s Pear Capital
This Korla travel guide introduces the greenest city in southern Xinjiang, China — a riverside oasis at the foot of the Tianshan where the Peacock River runs through the middle…
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Hami Travel Guide: Xinjiang, China’s Melon and Desert Town
This Hami travel guide covers the first real oasis you reach when you enter Xinjiang, China from the east. Hami — historically Kumul — sits where the Gobi ends and…
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Luoping Rapeseed Guide: Yunnan’s Sea of Yellow Canola Flowers
This Luoping rapeseed flower guide covers one of the most photogenic short trips in southwest China: a county in eastern Yunnan where, for about four weeks each late winter, roughly…
