Should I stay in Guilin or Yangshuo?

Both, in that order. Guilin has the transport connections, the city peaks and the cave, and it is a city. Yangshuo, four hours downriver, has the scenery everybody comes for and a fraction of the traffic. Two nights in each is the standard and it works.

Is the Li River cruise worth it?

Once, yes. Four hours from Guilin to Yangshuo through the best karst scenery in China, ending where you want to be anyway. It is expensive, the boats are full and the commentary is loud. The bamboo raft on the Yangdi to Xingping stretch is the cheaper alternative and puts you at water level.

When does the cruise not run?

When the river is too low, which is common in late autumn and winter, and after heavy summer rain when it is too high. The boats are then replaced by a bus and a shorter raft trip. Ask before you build a day around it.

What about the rice terraces?

The Longji terraces are two hours northwest of Guilin and are a separate trip: steep villages, contoured hillsides and a night in a wooden guesthouse. They are best in May and June when the terraces are flooded, or September before the harvest. Give them an overnight rather than a day.

Can I change this plan?

Yes. Copy it into the planner, cut a night if you are heading straight down to Yangshuo, or add two for the rice terraces.

Three days in Guilin: limestone peaks rising out of the traffic

Two nights by the Li River: the elephant rock and the peak in the middle of town on arrival, a cave and a park the next day, and a viewpoint before the boat or the train south.

Copy this itinerary

Length: 3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay: Guilin
Places: 6 across 3 days

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Most Chinese people have looked at Guilin every day without noticing. The hills on the back of the twenty yuan note are the Li River just south of here, and the landscape they show, thousands of separate limestone towers rising straight out of flat paddy, is the most recognisable scenery in the country.

What surprises people is that the towers are in the city too. Guilin is an ordinary provincial capital of buses and shopfronts with two hundred metre karst peaks standing in the middle of it, and you climb them on stone staircases cut centuries ago.

Guilin itself is the base rather than the destination. The river runs south from here to Yangshuo through the best of the landscape, and almost everybody who comes goes down it. Two nights is right for the city, with the boat as the next chapter.

Highlights

Elephant Trunk Hill, a rock arch on the river that genuinely does look like an elephant drinking
Solitary Beauty Peak, three hundred stone steps in the middle of town for the whole valley at the top
Reed Flute Cave, a limestone chamber lit in colours that no geologist chose
Diecai Mountain at first light, when the mist is still sitting between the peaks
Guilin rice noodles for breakfast, dressed at a counter with pickles and fried soybeans

Where to stay

Guilin, two nights

Stay near Shan and Rong lakes in the middle of town, between Zhengyang pedestrian street and the river. That puts the peaks, the restaurants and the bus stops within walking distance and the pier pickup at your door.

The area around Guilin North railway station is convenient for trains and is a twenty minute ride from the middle of town. There is no reason to sleep there unless you have a very early departure.

Day by day

Day 1 in Guilin

The elephant on the river, and a peak in the middle of town

The city's own hills are the first afternoon. Elephant Trunk Hill sits where the Peach Blossom stream meets the Li, and a natural arch through the rock leaves a shape that has been the city's emblem for centuries.

The park charges to get close. You can also see it perfectly well from the riverbank on the far side and from the walkway upstream, which is what most locals do.

Solitary Beauty Peak stands in the middle of the old princes' compound, now a university campus, and a stone staircase runs to the summit. It is a hard ten minutes and the top gives you the whole geological joke at once: a flat city with towers scattered through it.

In the evening the two lakes in the centre are lit, with a pair of pagodas standing in the water, and the walk round them is the town's own evening.

15:00
Elephant Trunk Hill
Nature
A limestone hill on the riverbank with a natural arch through its base, which from the water looks exactly like an elephant putting its trunk in the river. The park charges; the view from the bank opposite is free and nearly as good.
17:30
Solitary Beauty Peak
Historic
A single peak rising straight out of the middle of Guilin inside the old Ming princes' compound, climbed by a stone stairway cut long ago. Steep, short, and the best orientation you will get to how this landscape works.

With more time: The twin pagodas standing in the central lake are lit after dark and the circuit of the two lakes takes about an hour, ending at the pedestrian street where the noodle shops are.

Day 2 in Guilin

A cave, a hill with Tang carvings, and a park with pandas

This is limestone country and the caves are part of the point. Reed Flute is the big one, five kilometres northwest, a chamber of stalactites and columns lit in vivid colours that horrify purists and delight everybody else.

It has been visited for a very long time: there are inscriptions on the walls left by Tang dynasty travellers, which puts the tourism here at about twelve hundred years old.

Back in town, Fubo Hill rises sheer out of the river bank and holds Tang Buddhist carvings and stone inscriptions in the caves at its foot, with a short climb to a viewing platform above.

Seven Star Park across the river takes the rest of the day: a large green park built around karst outcrops, with a cave of its own and a small zoo that has giant pandas.

09:00
Reed Flute Cave
Nature
A limestone cave northwest of the city, in use as a shelter and a sight for well over a thousand years, with Tang dynasty inscriptions on the walls. The coloured lighting is not subtle and the formations are genuinely spectacular. Guided, and about an hour.
12:00
Fubo Hill
Nature
A sheer rock rising out of the riverbank with Tang Buddhist figures and stone inscriptions carved into the caves at its base, and a short climb to a platform above the water. Quieter than Elephant Trunk Hill and more interesting.
14:30
Seven Star Park
Visit
A large park across the river built around a group of karst peaks, with its own cave, Tang and Song rock inscriptions, and a small zoo where the giant pandas are. Charged separately inside, so decide what you want before you go through.

With more time: Daxu, a thousand year old town on the east bank of the Li about twenty kilometres downstream, has two kilometres of bluestone street and almost no visitors, and is a good half day if you would rather skip the zoo.

Day 3 in Guilin

The view down over the roofs, then the river south

Diecai is the highest of the city peaks and the one to climb last, because by now you can name what you are looking at. Stone stairs run up through several summits and the top platform gives you the river bending away south between towers.

Go at opening. Mist sits in the gaps between the peaks in the early morning through most of the year, and it burns off by nine.

Then leave. The cruise boats south to Yangshuo board around nine thirty at the pier half an hour out of the city, so if you are going downriver this morning belongs to the day before instead. If you are taking a train, the north station is twenty minutes away.

07:30
Diecai Mountain
Visit
A park around several peaks on the northern edge of the old town, climbed by stone staircases, with the best view in Guilin from the top and an aviary and butterfly collection on the way up. Forty minutes of steps at a steady pace.

With more time: If you are heading downstream, the four hour cruise to Yangshuo leaves mid morning from the Zhujiang pier and needs to be booked at least a day ahead in season.

Before you go

Getting there and around

High speed trains reach Guilin from Guangzhou in about two and a half hours, from Shenzhen in three, and from Shanghai in around nine. The airport is forty minutes west with flights from most Chinese cities.

The city is compact and flat and buses run everywhere for a couple of yuan. Taxis are cheap and DiDi works.

For the Li River cruise, boats leave from the pier at Zhujiang, about half an hour south of the city, and tickets are bought a day or more ahead through hotels or online. The boat lands at Yangshuo and does not come back.

The river

The four hour cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo is the classic and it is worth doing once. Book ahead in season, take the upper deck, and expect a full boat.

The cheaper and in some ways better alternative is a bamboo raft on the shorter Yangdi to Xingping stretch, which covers the most photographed section of the river at water level with a fraction of the people.

Cruises are cancelled when the water is too low, usually in late autumn and winter, and when it is too high after summer rain. Have a plan for the day if it does not run.

When to come

April to October has the water levels for the river and the green in the paddy. September and October are the best combination of weather and water.

Summer is hot, humid and wet, though the mist between the peaks after rain is the thing every painter came for. Winter is cool and grey and the river is often too low for the big boats.

Avoid the first week of October and the early May holiday, when Guilin is among the busiest domestic destinations in China.

Guilin gets treated as a transit town for the boat, and that undersells it. The peaks in the middle of the city are the same rock as the ones on the banknote, and climbing one at seven in the morning with mist in the gaps is worth as much as four hours on a crowded deck.

The boat is still why most people come, and rightly. Do the city in two days, then go downstream and let the towers close in.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

5 days · 2 cities · via GuilinFive days in Guilin and Yangshuo: down the river on the back of the banknote

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Should I stay in Guilin or Yangshuo?: Both, in that order. Guilin has the transport connections, the city peaks and the cave, and it is a city. Yangshuo, four hours downriver, has the scenery everybody comes for and a fraction of the traffic. Two nights in each is the standard and it works.
Is the Li River cruise worth it?: Once, yes. Four hours from Guilin to Yangshuo through the best karst scenery in China, ending where you want to be anyway. It is expensive, the boats are full and the commentary is loud. The bamboo raft on the Yangdi to Xingping stretch is the cheaper alternative and puts you at water level.
When does the cruise not run?: When the river is too low, which is common in late autumn and winter, and after heavy summer rain when it is too high. The boats are then replaced by a bus and a shorter raft trip. Ask before you build a day around it.
What about the rice terraces?: The Longji terraces are two hours northwest of Guilin and are a separate trip: steep villages, contoured hillsides and a night in a wooden guesthouse. They are best in May and June when the terraces are flooded, or September before the harvest. Give them an overnight rather than a day.
Can I change this plan?: Yes. Copy it into the planner, cut a night if you are heading straight down to Yangshuo, or add two for the rice terraces.