Where to Go on a Second Trip to China
You have done Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai. Four routes for the return visit — southwest karst, Yunnan, the Silk Road and the southeast coast — with the practical reason to choose each.
The first trip to China is chosen for you. Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, maybe Chengdu — the route is standard because the sights are famous and the transport is easy, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The second trip is harder, because nobody writes about it. Search results are saturated with first-timer content, and the honest answer to "where next" depends on what you liked about the first trip, which no generic list can know.
So this guide is organised by that question rather than by geography. Four routes, each with the kind of traveller it suits, the transport reality, and a workable ten-to-twelve day shape.
First, the thing that changes on a second trip
You already know how the country works. You have Alipay set up, you have used 12306, you know what a real-name booking is and you have survived a Chinese train station. That competence is worth more than it sounds.
It means you can go to places where the infrastructure is thinner and the English is scarcer, and it means you can move slower without feeling like you are wasting the trip. Both are the point of a second visit.
It also means one specific constraint changes: you can no longer assume the 240-hour visa-free transit area covers you. The policy applies to 24 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and it explicitly excludes Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Gansu and Jilin. Three of the four routes below stay inside the permitted area. One does not. That is called out where it matters.
Route 1: Guilin, Yangshuo and the Guizhou karst
For you if: the first trip was all cities and you want landscape.
This is the most direct correction to a first trip made of museums and palaces. Southern China's karst — limestone towers, rivers, terraced fields — is the scenery that appears on the back of the ¥20 note, and it is a completely different country from Beijing.
Shape, 11 days:
| Days | Where |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Guilin, arrive and orient |
| 3–5 | Yangshuo |
| 6–7 | Longji rice terraces |
| 8–10 | Guizhou: Kaili and the Miao/Dong villages |
| 11 | Guiyang, depart |
Base in Yangshuo, not Guilin city. Guilin is the transport hub; Yangshuo is where the landscape actually is. Three nights there gives you a Li River trip, a cycling day through the Yulong River valley, a climb up Moon Hill or Xianggong Hill for the view, and one weather buffer.
That buffer matters. This region gets serious rain and the river scenery is the entire reason you came. Build in the spare day rather than hoping.
The Longji terraces near Longsheng are two to three hours from Guilin by road. Stay overnight in Ping'an or Dazhai — a day trip means you see the terraces in flat midday light and miss the reason people photograph them.
Guizhou is the part that makes this a second-trip route rather than a first one. Kaili and the surrounding Miao and Dong villages — Xijiang, Zhaoxing, Basha — have limited English and irregular transport, and are among the most rewarding places in eastern China. Guiyang connects to Guilin by high-speed rail in about two and a half hours and has a full airport.
Transit-policy note: Guangxi and Guizhou are both inside the 240-hour permitted area.
Route 2: The Yunnan loop
For you if: you want variety in one province and are comfortable with altitude.
Yunnan does in one province what most itineraries need three to achieve: a subtropical capital, a lake town, a Naxi old town, a Tibetan plateau edge, and — if you push further — rainforest on the Laos border.
Shape, 12 days:
| Days | Where | Altitude |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Kunming | ~1,900 m |
| 3–5 | Dali | ~2,000 m |
| 6–8 | Lijiang | ~2,400 m |
| 9–11 | Shangri-La | ~3,200 m |
| 12 | Fly out of Shangri-La or back to Kunming | — |
The order is not aesthetic. It is an acclimatisation ladder. Kunming to Dali to Lijiang to Shangri-La climbs roughly 1,300 m in stages, which is how you avoid arriving at 3,200 m with a headache that costs you two days.
Do not reverse it. Do not fly straight into Shangri-La from sea level and start walking.
Transport: Kunming to Dali is about two hours by high-speed train. Dali to Lijiang is another 1.5 to 2 hours, around ¥80. Lijiang to Shangri-La is roughly three to three and a half hours by bus or chartered car — there is no fast rail on that leg and the road is mountainous.
There is a direct Kunming–Shangri-La bus of about nine hours for roughly ¥280. Do not take it. It skips the acclimatisation and it skips the two best towns on the route.
In Dali, stay in the old town or at Xizhou rather than Xiaguan, which is the modern city and the transport node. In Lijiang, Dayan old town is the famous one and the most touristed; Shuhe is quieter; Baisha is a village. Pick according to tolerance.
Shangri-La is where altitude becomes real. Songzanlin Monastery, the old town, and the grasslands. Take the first day slowly, drink more water than feels necessary, and skip alcohol on the arrival night.
Transit-policy note: Yunnan is inside the 240-hour permitted area.
Route 3: The Silk Road, Xi'an to Dunhuang
For you if: the first trip's history stopped at the Terracotta Army and you want the rest of it.
This is the Hexi Corridor — the desert route west out of central China, with Buddhist cave complexes, the western end of the Great Wall, and terrain that looks nothing like anywhere else in the country.
Shape, 10 days:
| Days | Where |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Xi'an (or start at Lanzhou) |
| 3–4 | Zhangye — Danxia landform, Giant Buddha Temple |
| 5 | Jiayuguan — the Ming fort at the Wall's western end |
| 6–8 | Dunhuang — Mogao Caves, Mingsha Shan, Crescent Lake |
| 9–10 | Fly out of Dunhuang, or continue to Urumqi |
The whole corridor is served by the Lanzhou–Xinjiang high-speed line, which is what makes this route practical now in a way it was not fifteen years ago. There is a direct service from Xi'an to Dunhuang of around eleven hours calling at Lanzhou, Xining, Zhangye and Jiayuguan. Broken into legs: Xi'an to Zhangye is roughly six hours, Lanzhou to Zhangye two to three, Zhangye to Dunhuang four to five.
Dunhuang is the point of the trip. The Mogao Caves hold over a thousand years of Buddhist wall painting and sculpture, and access is controlled — visitor numbers are capped, entry is by timed tour with an assigned guide, and the number of caves you see depends on the ticket type. Book well ahead through the official reservation channel and check what the current ticket categories include, because they have changed more than once.
Dunhuang railway station sits about 12 km from the town and 16 km from the caves. City buses run roughly every 30 minutes from around 08:30 to 18:00 for about ¥8; a taxi is about ¥35 and 20 minutes.
⚠ Transit-policy note: Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang are not in the 240-hour visa-free transit area. If you are relying on that policy, this route is off the table — Zhangye, Jiayuguan and Dunhuang are all in Gansu. You need a tourist visa for this one. Check the current position with the entry checker and the National Immigration Administration before booking.
Season: May to October. Winter in the Hexi Corridor is severe and several sites reduce hours or close.
Route 4: The southeast coast
For you if: you want cities again, but different ones, and you would like to eat well.
Fujian and coastal Guangdong get a fraction of the foreign visitors that the standard route does, and the food alone justifies the trip.
Shape, 11 days:
| Days | Where |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | Xiamen and Gulangyu |
| 4–5 | Fujian tulou (Nanjing or Yongding county) |
| 6–7 | Chaozhou or Shantou |
| 8–10 | Guangzhou |
| 11 | Depart Guangzhou, or continue to Hong Kong |
Xiamen is a coastal city with a walkable old quarter and Gulangyu island offshore, a pedestrian-only former international settlement reached by ferry. Ferry tickets for foreign visitors are booked separately from the local resident service — check which pier you need before you turn up.
The tulou — the round rammed-earth communal buildings of the Hakka — are two to three hours inland from Xiamen. Stay overnight in one rather than doing the coach day trip. The buildings are still lived in and the difference between visiting at 11:00 with fifty other people and waking up inside one is the whole experience.
Chaozhou is a small walled city with what many people consider the best regional cuisine in China. It is also where you will use the least English of anywhere on this route.
Guangzhou closes it out: dim sum, the Pearl River, Shamian Island, and a major international airport. If you want to add Hong Kong, the high-speed rail from Guangzhou South to Hong Kong West Kowloon takes about 47 minutes, with immigration handled inside West Kowloon station under a co-location arrangement. Note that Hong Kong and the Mainland are separate immigration jurisdictions — crossing in that direction is an exit from the Mainland, and re-entering requires a valid basis all over again.
Transit-policy note: Fujian and Guangdong are both inside the 240-hour permitted area.
Choosing between them
If you only take one line from this guide: Yunnan is the best all-round second trip. It has the widest range of scenery and culture per travel-hour, the transport is good, the altitude ladder is manageable, and it stays inside the visa-free transit area if that matters to you.
Choose Guilin and Guizhou if landscape was the gap in your first trip. Choose the Silk Road if history was, and accept that you need a visa. Choose the southeast coast if you liked Chinese cities and want more of them at a smaller scale.
Practical differences from a first trip
English drops off fast. In Kunming, Xiamen and Guangzhou you will be fine. In Kaili, Zhaoxing, Baisha and Chaozhou you will not. Have translation working offline and keep written Chinese address cards for your accommodation.
Rail thins out. All four routes have legs with no high-speed option — Lijiang to Shangri-La, Guilin to Longji, Xiamen to the tulou. Budget for chartered cars or long-distance buses, and book the day before rather than assuming.
Accommodation registration still applies. Small guesthouses in villages sometimes handle foreign-guest registration less smoothly than city hotels. Confirm when you book that they can register a foreign passport, and read the registration guide before you go.
Domestic flights matter more. Second and third-tier cities are often better connected by air than by rail. Shangri-La, Dunhuang and Guiyang all have airports that turn an eleven-hour return leg into a two-hour one.
Official sources
- China Railway 12306, English site: https://www.12306.cn/en/
- Dunhuang Academy, Mogao Caves reservations: https://www.mgk.org.cn/
- National Immigration Administration, visa-free transit: https://en.nia.gov.cn/n147418/n147463/c183412/content.html
Permitted transit areas, ticket rules and transport frequencies change. Confirm on official channels for your dates.
Last reviewed: 30 July 2026.