6 Days Guilin In-depth Photography Tour including Xianggong Mountain

Itinerary Details Day by Day

Day 1 Guilin Arrival

Welcome to Guilin, the most scenic city in China. Upon your arrival, be met by your local guide and escorted to your hotel in Guilin downtown.

You’ll start your Guilin tour after a break. Firstly make a visit to the symbol of Guilin landscape -  Elephant Trunk Hill. A giant rock hill vividly shapes like an elephant which is drinking water. Besides, there are many historical sites here for you to explore, such as stone carving, Buddhist temple, relic exhibition, etc. Then, drive about 7 kilometers (about 20 minutes) to next attraction -  Reed Flute Cave, a majestic underground palace with sparkling different colors. The magical Mother Nature condenses millions years of natural efforts to form the incredible stalactite, stalagmite, stone shield and stone waterfall of different sizes and shapes.

After the tour, transfer back to your hotel.

Arrival ideal: At present, there are many international and domestic flights to Guilin. Besides, you can take a high speed train to Guilin from Guiyang (about 2.5 hours), Guangzhou (about 3 hours), Changsha (about 3.5 hours), etc.

Day 2 Guilin to Longsheng & Longsheng Tour (B, L)

In this morning, you’ll be driven about 80 kilometers (about 1.5 hours) to shoot one of the most beautiful rice terraces in China - Longji Rice Terrace, an amazing feat of farm engineering rising up to 1000m high in Longsheng County. There are several featured Zhuang and Yao minority villages along the road and you’ll take a visit to the special Huangluo Yao Village, the First Village of Long Hair in the World, where you can see women in red ethnic clothes with very long hairs (the longest can reach up to 1.7 meters).

Later, continue you drive to the famous Red Yao Village - Dazhai at Jinkeng Rice Terraces. Throw yourself into the giant amazing pit of Jinkeng (Gold Pit) and begin your photographing of the layers of fancy terraces field where local ethnic peasants cultivating fresh wheat and crops into such fabulous images like paintings. Hike among the levels and go up to the Golden Buddha Peak, the best viewpoint to take great photos of the majestic panorama of the whole Jingkeng Rice Terraces with diverse kinds of shapes, like the eagle wings, phoenix, etc. Then, take the cable car downhill to continue hiking up for about 1.5 hours to your accommodation at Tiantou Village.

Have a nice sleep with the surrounding rice terraces!

Good to Know:

1. Best time to visit: Longji Rice Terrace can be visited all year round. Go mid-April to mid-June for mirror-like irrigated terrace and rice transplanting scene; go mid-June to mid-September for green terraces; go late September to early-October for golden and harvest scene.

2. Walking: In Jinkeng Rice Terraces area, you can be only dropped at the Tourist Center parking lot  and there is no sightseeing bus operating among the accommodations, viewpoints and parking lot, so you need to walk thousands of steps to your hotel and the viewpoints. Comfortable shoes are highly recommended!

3. Luggage carrying: For the aged or travelers who are lack of physical strength, you’d better hire a local porter to help carry your heavy luggage to the hotel (pay extra expense on your own).

Day 3 Longsheng Tour & Longsheng to Guilin (B, L)

In the morning, you will get up before the sunrise and go to the well-known photography location at  West Hill Music, the top 1 choice for enjoying Longji Rice Terraces. Enjoy your time to take the sunrise photo of the terrace, composed with the morning glow, shadow, mists, forests, peaceful mountainscape, etc. After the shooting, go back to your hotel and enjoy your breakfast. After some break, continue to hike to Large-scale Thousand-layer Terraces and take photos of the unbelievable scenes of countless layers of soft and bright terraced fields pouring down to the deep bottom of the village pit. And then, have some pleasant time shooting the folk custom and costumes of  Jinkeng’s Red Yao people and their featured wooden tilted houses.

After the visit, be escorted back to your hotel in Guilin City.

Evening Ideas: You can take a leisure walk around the famous city water system -  Two Rivers and Four Lakes for the amazing night views.

Day 4 Li River Cruise & Xingping Tour (B, L)

As the declaration in Chinese textbook” Guilin’s landscape is the best under heaven”, today you will explore this best landscape starting with a relaxing  Li River sightseeing cruise  from Mopanshan Pier to Yangshuo Town. Along the cruise, dazzling scenery will overwhelm your eyes like a vast endless Chinese painting of winding river, green limestone karst mountains, fascinating countryside views, amazing scene of A Painting of Nine Horses, and notable view printed on the back of the 20 RMB note. (Please note: Lunch is served by the cruise with simple local Chinese cuisine. And you can take some snacks when getting on board.)

After disembarkation at Yangshuo, drive about 1 hour (28km) to Xingping town. Start your leisure photography of Xingping Ancient Town. Take photos of its historically charming dwellings, alleys, streets and local residents. At dusk, you will go to take sunset photos of the Xingping scenic spot on Li River, one of the best places for Li River photography. Immerse into the image of shimmering Li River with surrounding hills against faint sunset lights.

Optional Li River fishing performance: since the life of local Xingping people has developed and changed, few people continue to do fishing, especially in the traditional way with cormorant, on Li River nowadays. Therefore, some local fishermen are willing to perform that to let more people know the original scenes of the traditional fishing on Li River. As asking the local fisherman with the raft with cormorant and Chinese vintage fishing lights will add more artistic atmosphere to your pictures, such as fish catching, fishing nest casting, etc., you can tell us if you are interested. Such optional performance needs extra payment and a reservation for around 1 month in advance.

After sunset shooting, drive back to Yangshuo. Accommodate in Yangshuo.

Day 5 Yulong River & Cuiping Five Fingers Mountain Tour (B, L)

In this early morning, go to shoot sunrise of Yangshuo in the Yulong River area. Take photos of notable Karst scenery against the brightening sunlight, then return to your hotel for breakfast.

After breakfast, start your impressive exploration of the best charming sightseeing and ideal countryside ease at Yulong River. Let all the refreshing scenes please your eyes and souls to the utmost. Just enjoy every moment with the Karst hills dotted around, chatting stream, rippling mountain reflection, swaying floras, patches of vivid crops, comfortable breeze... There are diverse kinds of ways for your enjoyment of the fun and beauty, including biking, hiking, bamboo rafting and driving. You can easily choose and combine your ideal way(s) and part of Yulong River. (Please tell your likes to your travel consultants before booking the tour, as the final prices will differ by activities you choose).

After the photography of Yulong River, be transferred for about 40 minutes to Cuiping Five Fingers Mountain to shoot the grand emerald Yangshuo countryside panorama like the fairy tale world and the dreamy sunset.

Then, drive to your accommodation at the foot of Xianggong Hill. Have a good sleep!

Day 6 Yangshuo Tour & Yangshuo to Guilin Airport (B)

Get up early this morning to take photos of the terrific sunrise and morning glows at Xianggong Hill, the best place for shooting the full view of Li River. Take out your camera to shoot the best photos of the beams of lights coming out from the clouds, the changing mists, winding Li River, various forms of Yangshuo Karst mountains, rural houses, boats shipping on the orange river, etc.

After the photographing, return to your hotel to enjoy breakfast. Then, be transferred to catch your flight / train to next destination. (Note: arrange your flight or train in late afternoon or early evening.)