Where to Go in China
14 destinations that define China right now — from viral Xiaohongshu obsessions to places even seasoned travellers have not heard of. Picked by locals, not algorithms.
Forget the postcard China. The real country lives in misty mountain towns, neon-lit river valleys, desert oases, and ancient kiln cities where the world's porcelain was born.
The Social Media Icons
The two destinations dominating every feed — and for good reason.
Chongqing
The world's largest inland city has become China's most viral destination. A cyberpunk metropolis of layered bridges, cliffside trains, and hot pot fumes that drift through entire neighbourhoods. The Hongyadong stilt houses glow golden at dusk, the monorail cuts through a residential building at Liziba, and the night views from Nanshan rearrange your sense of what a city can look like.
Zhangjiajie
The quartz-sandstone pillars that inspired Avatar's floating mountains are not CGI — they are real, and they are staggering. Wulingyuan's 3,000+ vertical spires rise through mist like something geologically impossible. The Glass Bridge stretches 430 metres across a canyon 300 metres deep. Come for the photos, stay for the vertigo.
The Ancient & Soulful
Cities where history is not behind glass — it is the street you walk on.
Quanzhou
Once the largest port in the world — the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road — Quanzhou is now one of China's fastest-rising travel destinations. It is a living museum of stone bridges, mosques, temples, and Fujianese red-brick architecture. The Kaiyuan Temple's twin pagodas have stood since the Tang dynasty. The old city streets feel frozen in time, and the local snacks — oyster omelettes, peanut soup, meat zongzi — are worth the trip alone.
Jingdezhen
For over 1,700 years, this small Jiangxi city has been the world capital of porcelain. Today it is a quiet creative haven — studios and kilns tucked into old factory buildings, a growing community of international ceramic artists, and weekend markets where young artisans sell wares that blend Song-dynasty glazes with minimalist design. You can throw your own bowl, walk through the Ancient Kiln Museum, and drink tea from cups that have been made here for centuries.
Datong
The Yungang Grottoes — 45 caves holding 51,000 Buddhist statues carved into sandstone cliffs — are China's finest collection of Buddhist cave art, predating Longmen and Mogao in sheer sculptural ambition. An hour away, the Hanging Temple (Xuankong Si) clings to a cliff face as it has for 1,500 years, a gravity-defying marvel of ancient engineering that mixes Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian worship in a single structure.
The Mountain & Mist
Landscapes that have inspired Chinese poetry for millennia — and still stop you mid-sentence.
Guilin & Yangshuo
The karst peaks rising from the Li River are the landscape on every Chinese painting you have ever seen — except here they are real, draped in mist at dawn and glowing amber at sunset. Yangshuo is the base: cycle through rice paddies, bamboo-raft down the Yulong River, climb Moon Hill for the view, and eat beer fish (啤酒鱼) at a riverside restaurant. It is China's most iconic natural scenery, and it delivers.
Lijiang & Shangri-La
The Yunnan circuit that every traveller dreams of: cobblestone streets and wooden bridges in Lijiang's Dayan Old Town, the snow-capped Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, then north through Tiger Leaping Gorge — one of the deepest river canyons on Earth — to Shangri-La, where Tibetan prayer flags flutter against 4,000-metre peaks. This is the China that feels like another country entirely.
Mount Fanjing
A Buddhist sacred mountain in Guizhou that feels like it belongs in a Miyazaki film. The Red Cloud Golden Summit — a narrow rock spire split in two by a deep crevice, with a tiny temple balanced on each half — is connected by a bridge so thin it looks drawn in ink. Cloud sea, rare snub-nosed monkeys, and 8,000 steps to the top. This is China's newest UNESCO natural heritage site, and it is still refreshingly uncrowded.
The Desert & Vast
Where the scale of China rewires your sense of distance and time.
Dunhuang
The Mogao Caves hold 1,000 years of Buddhist art — 492 grottoes, 45,000 square metres of murals, 2,400 painted sculptures — carved into a cliff at the edge of the Gobi Desert. Nearby, the Mingsha Sand Dunes sing when the wind blows (the "Singing Sands" phenomenon), and Crescent Moon Spring is an oasis that has not dried up in 2,000 years. Spend a night in a desert camp under stars with zero light pollution. This is the Silk Road at its most cinematic.
Chengdu
Yes, the pandas — at the Chengdu Research Base you can see baby pandas tumbling over each other like drunk toddlers, which alone justifies the trip. But Chengdu is more than its bears. It is the capital of shenghuo (生活) — life lived slowly, over tea in bamboo-chair parks, Sichuan opera in centuries-old teahouses, and hot pot so numbing it rewires your tongue. The Jinli old street, the Wuhou Shrine, and day trips to the Leshan Giant Buddha make Chengdu a city that rewards staying longer than you planned.
The Alternative Circuit
A Xiaohongshu-born trend: Chinese cities that feel like somewhere else — safer, cheaper, and often better.
Yanji
Yanji is where China meets Korea — bilingual street signs in Chinese and Korean, restaurants serving cold noodles (冷面) and Korean BBQ that rival anything in Seoul, and a growing number of visitors who have realised this border city delivers the Korean cultural experience at a fraction of the cost. Yanbian University, the bustling night markets, and the mountain scenery of Changbai Shan nearby make this one of the most surprising city breaks in China.
Xishuangbanna
Tropical China? Yes — and it is stunning. Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan borders Laos and Myanmar, and the Dai minority culture, rainforest climate, golden temples, and night markets feel closer to Chiang Mai than Beijing. The Starlight Night Market in Gaozhuang is pure sensory overload — grilled river fish, mango sticky rice, tropical fruit you cannot name. Wild elephants still roam the rainforest reserves. It is China's best-kept tropical secret.
Harbin
The Russian Empire built this city, and it shows — onion-domed Saint Sophia Cathedral, cobblestone Zhongyang Street lined with Baroque and Art Nouveau buildings, and winter temperatures that drop to −30°C. The Harbin Ice Festival (January–February) is the world's largest: entire cathedrals, castles, and slides built from blocks of ice carved from the frozen Songhua River, illuminated in neon colours at night. In summer, Harbin becomes a breezy beer-garden city with live music on the riverbank.
The Photographer's Secret
One place the pros keep quiet about.
Xiapu
China's most photographed coastline, and most visitors have never heard of it. Xiapu's mudflats at dawn are a photographer's dream — bamboo poles planted in tidal patterns, fishing nets catching golden light, small boats drifting through reflections of rose and amber. The S-shaped sandbars at Shajiang, the seaweed-drying racks at Xiaohao, the sunrise at Beiqi — each location has its moment when the light is perfect. You do not need to be a photographer to be rendered speechless. Bring a camera anyway.
Where the locals actually go
These 14 destinations represent something the guidebooks often miss: China as it is right now. The trends shift fast — what was niche last year is mainstream this year. We update this list quarterly based on real ground intelligence from our network of local partners, Xiaohongshu data, and actual traveller feedback. No algorithms, no sponsored content. Just honest recommendations from people who live here.
Beyond the list — travel with locals who know
EVENTURUS designs small-group journeys (2–8 people) to the China you will not find on your own. Hand-picked local guides, off-menu restaurants, and the confidence of knowing someone has your back in a country where everything works differently.
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