Most foreign visitors to Xinjiang, China head straight for Kashgar or the Tianchi lake above Urumqi. In our experience, the travelers who leave understanding the region’s scale are the ones…
When travelers talk about Qinghai’s salt lakes, they usually mean Chaka or Qinghai Lake itself. In our experience, the most photogenic stop on the whole northwest loop is the one…
Most visitors to China’s northeast chase the Ice Festival in Harbin or the snow town of Xuexiang. In our experience, the travelers who remember the trip most fondly are the…
Ask most foreign travelers to name a destination in Inner Mongolia and they will say Hohhot or the Hulunbuir grasslands. In our experience, though, the small county of Ergun in…
Most foreign visitors first hear the name Nagqu as a train stop between Xining and Lhasa, and then never get off. In our experience sending travelers along the Qinghai-Tibet railway,…
Most visitors to Hainan never leave the coast, which is exactly why Baoting rewards the ones who do. This green, mountainous county in the interior of the island is home…
Dongxing is a small, sunlit border city in southern Guangxi, separated from Vietnam by the narrow Beilun River and linked to the town of Mong Cai by a single cross-border…
Suifenhe is a compact, intensely Russian-flavored border city in southeastern Heilongjiang, where the railway from Vladivostok climbs over the watershed into China. Walk the main street and you will hear…
Erenhot sits at the northern edge of Inner Mongolia, a dusty, wind-scoured border town where the Gobi Desert meets the railway line to Mongolia. Most foreign travelers have never heard…
A tourist visa rarely survives contact with a real China trip. We have watched countless travelers land planning ten days, then after a few nights in Chengdu or a slow…