Zhengding Travel Guide: Ancient Temple Town and Nine-Storey Pagodas
Most visitors to Hebei fixate on Shijiazhuang as a transit point and never look 15 km north, which is exactly why Zhengding stays so calm. I took a client there…
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Linhai Travel Guide: Jiangnan Great Wall and Ziyang Old Street
I tell travelers who’ve done the famous walls of the north that Linhai will quietly correct their assumptions. This county-level city in southeast Zhejiang was the old prefectural seat of…
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Zhuji Travel Guide: Xi Shi’s Hometown and Wuxie Waterfalls
Most travelers blow through Zhuji on the train and never know what they missed. I almost did, the first time, treating it as a change at Shaoxing — until a…
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Haining Travel Guide: Qiantang River Tidal Bore and Salt Town Streets
Most visitors to the Yangtze delta never hear the river before they see it. I mean that literally: the Qiantang River tidal bore arrives as a wall of white water…
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Anji Travel Guide: Bamboo Seas and White Tea Hills
If you’ve only ever seen Zhejiang as the West Lake and the canals of Hangzhou, Anji is the province’s green lung, and it surprised me the first time I drove…
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Qinghai Gansu Loop Travel Guide: The Great Northwest Circle Drive
A Qinghai Gansu loop itinerary is, for my money, the single best road trip in northern China — a roughly circular route through two provinces that stacks alpine lakes, salt…
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Hubei Cuisine Travel Guide: Chu Flavours and Yangtze River Fish
A proper Hubei cuisine guide has to start with a correction. Most foreign visitors who “eat Hubei food” have actually only eaten Wuhan food — the hot dry noodles and…
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Beijing Olympic Park Travel Guide: Bird’s Nest and Water Cube
A Beijing Olympic Park guide should be clear about what this place is: a purpose-built sports and leisure complex in the north of the city, anchored by two of the…
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Yiwu Travel Guide: The World’s Wholesale Market and Old Canal Streets
A Yiwu travel guide has to begin with a number that sounds fake until you stand in it: the International Trade City covers more than 5.5 million square meters across…
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Best Hotels in Dalian: Seaside Stays, Squares and Russian Architecture
When clients email me asking about the best hotels in Dalian, I almost never start with a name. I start with a map. Dalian is a long, narrow peninsula city…
