After our adventure discovering the Yuanyang rice terraces in Yunnan, here we are in Guangxi province, ready to explore the area around Guilin! On the agenda: dramatic karst peaks, (more) terraced rice paddies, and a return to bigger cities. Enjoy the journey with us!
We took this trip to Guilin back in 2013, but the article has been completely reviewed and updated as of October 2025. If you notice any price changes or have additional information that might be helpful, please don’t hesitate to leave us a comment!
Visiting Guilin
Guilin is a major Chinese city, and from what we’ve heard from other travelers, many find it rather unappealing and prefer to head straight to Yangshuo or even Xingping. Here’s the thing though – opinions about a city can be formed pretty quickly, and they often depend heavily on which neighborhood you’re staying in. For instance, we weren’t particularly charmed by Beijing, but we met plenty of travelers who left completely smitten with it. As for Guilin, we stayed in the center, near the Li River (Lijiang River) and the two pagodas. And that’s probably one of the reasons we genuinely loved this city! Here’s a quick practical guide to help you plan your visit.
Oh, and in Guilin, we also stumbled upon our first real bakery with absolutely incredible croissants. I’ll admit that probably contributed to giving this city a special flavor after nearly two months of eating rice, yak, and oil-drenched vegetables!
What to do in Guilin?
Tip: Stay on the main island, around Shanhu Lake and up to Mulong Lake! All the points of interest are concentrated there. To help you get your bearings, here’s a city map. The dotted line shows the recommended walking route. Plan on a good full day to cover everything.
Stroll through Zhengyang Pedestrian Street
Guilin was a pleasant surprise for us, as we were expecting to find a drab, charmless city. In the end, we really enjoyed wandering around the pedestrian area near the pagodas. Indeed, Zhengyang Pedestrian Street is the heart of downtown Guilin. Don’t miss the chance to discover the street food there – we absolutely loved it! On the map above, Zhengyang is located just to the right of Shan Lake and the central square.
Discover Elephant Trunk Hill
Located in Xiangshan Park, Elephant Trunk Hill is Guilin’s iconic symbol! On the banks of the Li River, this rock formation takes the shape of an elephant’s trunk dipping right into the water, hence its English name. Entry is free and the trail is just over 1 km long.
Walk around Shanhu and Ronghu Lakes and the pagodas
Right nearby, don’t miss the two Sun and Moon pagodas on the shores of Shanhu and Ronghu lakes! The pagodas can be visited (35 yuan per person) and are even connected by a tunnel. If you can, take a stroll at dusk to see them light up. For your information, this area is also called “the zone of two rivers and four lakes.”
Admire the karst landscapes from Diecai Park
North of downtown, take the trail (less than 2 km) to gain some elevation. You’re guaranteed a view of the surrounding area and those karst formations! On the map, Diecai Park is located below Mulong Lake (Diecai Hill). It’s a great spot for sunrise and sunset!
Take a bamboo raft cruise on the Li River
We recommend the activity but not this particular location! In our opinion, for a Li River cruise, it’s best to leave from Xingping – you’ll have more peace. We’ll tell you about that experience a bit further down.
So, we didn’t actually visit this reed flute cave… But based on our experiences in more authentic caves – the caves of Ha Long Bay on land, the caves of Vang Vieng, Konglor Cave, and even Phong Nha in Vietnam – we wouldn’t necessarily recommend Reed Flute Cave. We know that Asians love putting colored lights everywhere, and that’s the case here. Anyway, for 90 yuan, we think there are better things to do in the area.
Visit the Longji Rice Terraces
Not tired of rice terraces after Yuanyang, we decided to check out the Longji rice terraces, about 2.5 hours by road from Guilin. Since there’s plenty to share about this area, head to the middle of the article for visiting tips!
Visit Daxu
Daxu is a tiny village located 20 km from downtown Guilin. You can explore it in less than half a day, but you’ll be immersed in historical China. Here, the buildings are old, authentic, and (still) far from the flourishing tourism industry. Several sites with traditional architecture can be visited throughout the village: the Daxu mosque, the historic street, the tombs… A popular activity is picking strawberries on Maozhou islet!
Where to stay in Guilin?
In Guilin, we stayed in a small guesthouse very close to the pagoda and Shanhu Lake. The wide avenues along the small canal and the trees absolutely everywhere really charmed us! That address no longer seems to exist, but we found equivalent accommodations. For comfort, Guilin Cyan Box Guest House and Lakeside Inn offer dorm beds and/or double rooms for a really small price. They’re very well located for exploring downtown on foot. Bonus: the Lakeside Inn overlooks the river directly!
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How to get to Guilin?
By plane
Guilin Airport is located about twenty kilometers from downtown. If you’re coming from a province other than Guangxi, this might be the fastest option! For example, a Beijing-Guilin flight takes 3 hours, and a Chengdu-Guilin flight takes about 2 hours and 40 minutes.
By train
Getting to Guilin was when we took our longest train journey since the start of our trip through China! Yes indeed, 22 hours by train to reach Guilin from Kunming! That’s quite a haul, but ultimately it went pretty smoothly. As we explained in the article about different means of transportation in China, we took hard sleepers, an economical option that’s still very comfortable!
Good news for you! Now there are high-speed trains that make the Kunming-Guilin journey in just 4.5 hours! Well, the overnight trains still exist and still take 17 hours though ;).
Note: Honestly, we can only recommend taking the train rather than the bus to get to Guilin. To reach downtown from the station, take bus 22.
Visiting the Longji Rice Terraces in Longsheng
After our misadventure in Xingping and a good half-dozen showers and double laundry sessions, we finally got rid of that smell that was following me around. We continued our journey to the Longji rice terraces, called the Dragon’s Backbone terraces because of their shape. This region is home to numerous ethnic minorities (Miao, Dong, Yao, and Zhuang), who shaped this landscape over 650 years ago!
These rice terraces are located in the Longsheng region, about 2.5 hours by bus north of Guilin and are famous for being truly impressive! Since they’re quite extensive, there are 3 distinct areas around the villages of Longji, Ping’an, and Jinkeng (or Dazhai). We chose to stay 2 days around Dazhai, in the village of Tiantouzhai to be precise, just a 2-minute walk from the rice terraces! It’s the least touristy area because it’s harder to access compared to Ping’an, a more developed village that’s popular with tourists. Honestly, it would be a shame to stay just one day, in our opinion – there’s so much to see and explore in this area.
Note: A cable car (paid) has been installed at Dazhai… When we told you that Chinese people don’t like to walk! However, it’s quite far back from Tiantouzhai, which is another reason we’d advise against staying in Dazhai.
To help you navigate this large area, here’s a map of the Longji rice terraces.
How to get to the Longji rice terraces
The city of Guilin is the ideal starting point to reach the terraces, located 3 hours from the city. You can either make the journey on your own or opt for a guided tour (economical if there are several of you). There’s no direct transportation to Tiantouzhai. First, you need to take a bus from Guilin bus station to Longsheng, then a local minibus from Longsheng to the rice terraces. In total, the trip costs about 100 yuan. It might be possible to get off before Longsheng, at Heping, the gateway village to the rice terraces, where the visitor center is located, but we’re not certain about that.
Where to stay
To visit these terraces, we stayed in a guesthouse located in the village of Tiantouzhai, next to the Dazhai terraces. This probably isn’t the most conventional village because you absolutely have to walk 40 minutes from the bus stop to reach the guesthouse. But trust me, the tranquility and the location right in the middle of the rice terraces are more than worth the small effort! Note: Now, private cars and minivans can drop travelers directly in Tiantouzhai – no more need to walk through the fields.
Our guesthouse was the Dragon’s Den; it no longer seems to exist. We found the same amenities at Happy Live hotel, just steps from the rice terraces and a somewhat hidden hiking trail ;).
Best time to visit the Longji rice terraces
The rice terraces are filled with water between May and September, so it’s different from Yuanyang! This is because the rice harvest happens later in Guangxi province, in October and November. As a result, the terraces are empty and dried out in winter, between December and March. Peak rice growth, when the terraces are very green, occurs between July and September.
Tickets
As you might expect, entry to the Longji rice terraces is paid – 100 yuan per person. For the cable car, the price is 50 yuan per person one way.
Hiking trails
A traveler we met at the Yuanyang rice terraces had told us that the Guilin rice terraces were much more impressive. We’ll have a hard time really judging, given that for the first time since the start of our trip, we really had bad luck with the weather!
We stayed 2 days in the village of Dazhai, but unfortunately, so did the rain and fog. It had to happen to us eventually, and despite more than temperamental weather, we still went out for some lovely walks in the rice terraces. Anyway, we enjoyed this little stay, but we can easily imagine that the spectacle is even more striking in good weather!
A very beautiful 10 km trail connects Tiantouzhai and Ping’an for a 4-hour hike through the most beautiful viewpoints over the rice terraces. Count on 6 hours max with breaks. If we could do it again (with good weather as a bonus), we would have spent one night in Tiantouzhai, then done this hike to the Ping’an terraces, where we would have stayed before heading back to Guilin. And if you haven’t had enough, head on foot the next day to the ancient and typical village of Longji, less than 3 km from Ping’an.
Download the GPX track for this hike.
Along the way, you might encounter Yao women, whose distinctive feature is their long hair! It’s several kilos of hair (cut or not) that they gather into a clever mix of braids and buns.
Visiting Xingping, the alternative to Yangshuo
If you’ve been following our adventures for a while, you must have noticed that big cities generally aren’t our thing. Or at least never for very long. So we pretty quickly decided to head further south to escape the frenzy of Guilin a bit.
We’d heard a lot about Yangshuo as being THE town to visit in the region. But here’s the thing – Yangshuo, a small village that still had only a few hundred souls just a few years ago, has developed at lightning speed! And while looking for a guesthouse, we mainly came across descriptions like “close to bars and nightclubs,” “atmosphere guaranteed with the lounge bar on the terrace,” “two steps from the shopping street and bars,” etc.
A bit scared at the idea of ending up in the local Ibiza, we started looking for plan B! It didn’t take us long to stumble upon Xingping (Xingpingzhen), which promises all the charms that made Yangshuo famous a few years ago, but with fewer hotels and no nightclubs. And that’s exactly what we needed! Xingping is located between Guilin and Yangshuo, on the banks of the Li River. We didn’t see Yangshuo 10 years ago, but we can easily imagine that it must have looked like Xingping today. We absolutely loved this little village, especially since we found one of the best guesthouses of our entire trip!
How to get to Xingping?
To get to Xingping, it is ideal to leave from Guilin. There are direct buses covering the 100 km. Every day, 6 buses make the trip (7:20 a.m., 10:40 a.m., 11:40 a.m., 1:20 p.m., 4:40 p.m., 5:40 p.m.) from Guilin South Station. Expect to pay 40 yuan per person for a 2-hour journey.
If you want to go a bit faster, take the train from Guilin (Guilin North Railway Station) to Yangshuo. The trip takes about 25 minutes for a ticket at 70 yuan minimum. To check schedules or book online, visit this website. Then, to go to Xingping, you’ll find plenty of buses from the Yangshuo bus station. They leave about every 20 minutes from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. The trip takes 45 minutes and bus tickets cost at least 15 yuan.
Otherwise, this guided excursion takes you around Xingping for a day, departing from Yangshuo.
What to do in Xingping?
In total, we stayed 4 days in Xingping and it was perfect!
Visit the old town and head to the 20 yuan bill viewpoint
Although Xingping has developed in recent years, the old town is a must-see with its cobblestone streets and typical houses. Don’t miss a stroll northeast of the village, along the river. After a 10-minute walk, you’ll arrive at the iconic viewpoint you see on 20 yuan bills!
Climb to the top of Laozhai Hill
We were right by the Li River, but more importantly, at the foot of one of those famous karst mountains! Indeed, right next to our guesthouse, a trail leads to the top of Laozhai Hill, and despite the absence of bright sunshine, this viewpoint (free!) is not to be missed! We’re warning you, it’s a steep climb: 230 m of elevation gain over 600 m to the summit! Count on 30-40 minutes of walking to get to the top and enjoy a breathtaking view. This spot is perfect for sunrise as well as sunset. Well, yes, that’s the advantage of these peaks – the view at the top is essentially 360°! We went there late in the day and here’s the result in photos ;).
Take a cruise on the Li River
Getting on a boat and sailing on the Li River while passing between the karst formations is a classic of tourism in the region. You have a choice between getting on a bamboo raft or boarding a tourist boat. Anyway, impossible to miss a must-do like this one!
The bamboo rafts
These bamboo boats are small bamboo rafts powered by gasoline that go up and down the Li River nicely and slowly. One morning, we found ourselves embarked on one of these rafts for a 2-hour ride on the river. Honestly, there’s no denying it – it’s really great! We opted for the one-way option, so our boat took us from Xingping to Yangdixiang, from which point we walked back to our hotel. If you opt for the round trip, the raft will turn around after 25 minutes at the Nine Horse Mural Hill, north of Mashan.
Anyway, it was a great 4-hour walk, taking our time (we even had time to goof around with jumps!). Count on at least 200 yuan per person for the one-way trip to Yangdi, 100 yuan for the round trip.
Tip: Leave as early as possible! We’ll explain why just below.
Motor boats
From the riverbank, we were also able to observe the parade of big cruise ships coming directly from Guilin. Between you and me, if you come to this area, avoid them as much as possible! More than 100 people crammed on a platform trying to take a photo without having on it the ship ahead of us or the one behind us – it’s honestly difficult… And the prices are inflated… The raft ride isn’t cheap, but it’s definitely worth it!
And if you’re not the early morning type (like me), I guarantee it’s worth making the effort! We left at 9 a.m. and it was already borderline… Indeed, from 10 a.m., the river fills up with all these little boats – you’d almost see traffic jams forming! Before that, you’ll (almost) feel like you’re alone in the world :).
Rather than doing as we did – walking back up – you can also combine the raft with a bike ride along the banks of the Li River or the Yulong River, which is less frequented. You can also organize everything yourself or go through a guided excursion from Guilin or Xingping.
Your guide will probably take you past the cormorant fishermen. Like the fake fishermen of Inle Lake, they stage themselves for tips. This ancient technique is no longer practiced today.
Hike to the summit of Xianggongshan
Xianggongshan (Xianggong Hill) is one of the most impressive viewpoints in Xingping! The catch is that access is paid – 60 yuan per person… If you’re going for sunrise, we recommend coming early – it’s quite a popular spot!
Another way to discover the area is to take the boat from Xingping to cross the river (5 yuan per person). From there, head out on the small paths that wind through the countryside and tea plantations before coming back by boat. Download maps.me so you don’t get lost ;). Don’t miss the viewpoint from Mount Damian! Little known, it’s perfect for sunrise (and you’ll have fewer people than at Xianggongshan).
If you want to leave for the day, then we’d recommend doing this big 21 km loop. Here’s an example of a hike you can do. To download the GPX track, click here.
Stroll along the Li River
If a boat tour doesn’t tempt you or if your budget is tight, then why not take a tour along the river on foot, by bike, or by scooter (electric or not)? You’ll be even less crowded on dry land than on the water! The secondary road between Xingping and Yangshuo is quite popular with two-wheeler enthusiasts, both bikes and scooters. You need to join the road on the opposite bank from Xingping. In total, the one-way trip to Yangshuo is just under 30 km for 4-5 hours by bike.
Go to the hairdresser
How could we forget that Xingping was Ben’s first hairdresser stop since we left home! After a shampoo done horizontally, the hairdresser tried hard to give him a cut that resembled the photo we’d shown her. Well, in the end, Ben ended up with a haircut close to Will Smith’s back when he played in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but that’s just a detail :).
We had a good laugh! Especially since once back at the hotel, I tackled the heavy task of correcting the cut with – wait for it – a Swiss Army knife! YEAH! Anyway, don’t be surprised if you see Ben wearing a cap in the next photos!
Attend the Impression Liu Sanjie show in Yangshuo
So, we didn’t do it, but Impression is quite a unique show since it takes place outdoors, on the Li River with the karst mountains as a backdrop! World-renowned, this sound and light show features more than 600 performers! It’s directed by Zhang Yimou, who also directed the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics!
The show lasts 1 hour and recounts the legend of Liu Sanjie, a singer whose songs reflect the harmony between humans and nature. To get there, head to the confluence of the Li and Yulong rivers, a 30-minute walk from downtown Yangshuo. Book your ticket online and select your section (B1 and B2 are the best seats for an overall view).
Visit a fishing village and Tengjiao Convent
For our third day in Xingping, we decided to go for a walk on the other side of the bank to reach a fishing village (we think it’s Shawan), then head to Tengjiao Convent, supposedly magnificent. In the end, we never saw the convent; the fishing village, yes… Well, almost!
Reflexes
A few meters from the first stop of this day (the fishing village, that is), we saw a small orchard. Thinking we had to cross it to reach the village, we set off on what would mark the end of the walk. After a few dozen meters, we realized it wasn’t the right path. So I decided to pull out our little map of the region. During our various treks in China, we often saw signs saying “No walking while watching and no watching while walking.”
Yeah, I should have remembered that damn sign better. With my nose buried in the map, I kept walking, vainly trying to figure out where we were, when suddenly I heard a crack, more precisely under my feet… I didn’t have time to say anything – the bamboo floor gave way under my feet! In a flash, I found myself in a sort of well up to my waist! In my fall, my only reflex was to protect our camera that I had around my neck. So it’s with complete dignity that I fell with one hand raised to spare our camera.
What you could call a shitty day
Fortunately, I had another reflex when falling – grabbing onto the edge of the well with my free hand. Indeed, I was in this kind of water up to my waist, but I clearly wasn’t touching the bottom yet. So it was with outrageously ridiculous screams that I alerted Ben, who arrived at top speed to rescue… our camera! Anyway, once out of my improvised little pool, I definitely felt that something was off. Ah, there it is! It wasn’t a water well I’d fallen into, but a manure pit that served as fertilizer for the orchard!
Anyway, pursued by a delicious little scent of manure, we hurried to finally reach the famous village. From there, we found a kind fisherman who agreed to take us directly back to Xingping for 100 yuan. Smelling like manure is one thing, but I’ll let you imagine the state of my shoes after such a bath. So barefoot and with my pashmina as a makeshift skirt, I presented myself at our hotel reception to beg them to let me do a load of laundry with the detergent. Good thing embarrassment doesn’t kill, as they say!
Where to stay in Xingping?
We only have one address to recommend – This Old Place! And don’t be fooled by the name – this accommodation is a little gem! The terrace is incredible, the location perfect, it’s comfortable… In short, it’s one of our favorite hotels!
The People’s Republic of China, like many other countries in the world, requires a visa to enter the territory. To obtain this precious pass, you need to be able to prove a number of things: accommodation reservations, exit ticket from the country… One of the essential points for obtaining the visa is also having travel insurance. If you don’t have one yet, feel free to check out our selection of the best travel insurance options.
Do you also have stories of travel mishaps? Don’t hesitate to let loose in the comments! I’ll feel less alone :). Clumsiness, you really got us!
With that, we’ll see you soon for the end of our Chinese adventures as well as the China budget trip, the first country of our world tour!
P.S.: To prepare for your trip to China, we’ve written a complete guide with all the practical tips!
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