Routes
Yunnan: Backpacking China's Most Beautiful Province
Lijiang's old town, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-La — the route through China's southwest that feels like another country.
By Julien Marchetti · 7 July 2026 · 9 min read
Yunnan is the China that travellers fall for: Himalayan foothills, a dozen ethnic minorities, ancient towns of canals and cobbles, and food that borrows from Southeast Asia as much as from Beijing. It is also, by Chinese standards, easy.
Start in Kunming and take the train to Dali — an old walled town under the Cangshan mountains, facing the crescent of Erhai lake. Two days of cycling the lakeshore and drinking coffee in converted Bai courtyards, then the bus to Lijiang: touristy, yes, but get lost in the old town's back canals at dawn and you will forgive everything.
The highlight is Tiger Leaping Gorge, two days of guesthouse-to-guesthouse hiking on a trail cut into cliffs a vertical kilometre above the Yangtze. Sleep at the Halfway House, whose cliff-edge terrace might be the best hotel view in Asia, and descend to the river at Tina's if the ladders are open.
Finish in Shangri-La at 3,200 metres: Tibetan prayer wheels, the great Songzanlin monastery, and yak hotpot against the cold. Acclimatise a day before hiking, bring cash for the small towns, and come in spring or autumn — Yunnan means 'south of the clouds', and it earns the name.
