Attractions

The first time I saw Namtso Lake, Tibet, China, I stopped talking. We had driven for hours through a windswept valley, the road climbing past prayer-flag-draped passes, and then the…

Most first-time visitors to Beijing fixate on Badaling. It’s the postcard image, the one with the cable car and the crowds three-deep on every step. I went there once, squeezed…

The first time I stood on the Jiankou Great Wall, the wind nearly took my hat off and the wall beneath my boots was a pile of fractured grey bricks…

The first time I stood at the foot of the Simatai Great Wall after dark, I genuinely thought I had wandered onto a film set. The wall above me was…

The first time I stood on the Great Wall, it was at Badaling, shoulder-to-shoulder with three hundred other people photographing the same tower. Impressive, but it felt like a museum…

Standing on the viewing platform at Huangguoshu, I felt the ground actually tremble. A wall of water 81 meters (266 ft) high and 101 meters (331 ft) wide was hurling…

The first time I stood on the shore of Qinghai Lake, the wind off the water was so cold and clean it felt like it had never touched another person….

Standing at the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwest Gansu, China, the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang stopped me in my tracks the first time I walked into Cave 96…

I still remember the first time I stood on the fourth overlook at Zhangye Danxia and watched the late-afternoon sun slide across the hills. The sandstone in front of me…

I still remember the first time I stepped off the shuttle bus at the Five Flower Lake (Wuhua Hai) in Jiuzhaigou. The water was so clear and so unnaturally turquoise…