14 Best Places to Visit in China in Spring

• Type: Minority Culture, Nature (Mountain, Lake, Ancient Town...), Historical Sites
• Best Places to Visit: Luoping Canola Flowers, Kunming (Stone Forest, Yuantong Temple, Green Lake), Dali (Dali Old Town, Erhai Lake, Cangshan Mountain), Lijiang (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Lijiang Ancient Town) , Shangri-La (Tiger Leaping Gorge, Songzanlin Monastery, Pudacuo National Park), Xishuangbanna (Water Splashing Festival)
• Recommended Trip Length: 4-8 days

Located in the southwest of China, Yunan is a popular tourist region praised as “South of the Colorful Clouds”. Whenever you travel to Yunnan, you can always enjoy very comfortable weather, more importantly, pick up various ethnic culture and natural scenarios.

In March every year, Canola flowers takes the lead to bloom in Luoping, and the amazing scene of spacious sea of flowers and distinct pyramid hills catches attention throughout the country. Kunming, “the City of Eternal Spring” suddenly turns into a huge garden city embellished by multifarious flowers, including pink begonia, white pearl blossom and violet jacaranda. The top places to visit in Kunming contains the Stone Forest with cinerous rocks of odd shapes, Green Lake where local minority people dance, sing and enjoy leisure time under sunshine.

When visiting Dali, you can visit the Cangshang Mountain and Er’hai Lake to freshen your eyes and soul, wander though Dali Ancient Town to communicate with legacy of history. Many festivals and events of Bai ethnic groups take places before and after March, so you may experience rich ethnic customs with luck. If you travel to Lijiang in spring, you can view Lijiang Ancient Town garnished by varied flowers, green weeping willows and fresh sprouts, fantastic Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and take delight in wonderful nightlife activities. In addition, during your Yunan spring tour, you may see multicolored mirror-like Yuanyang Rice Terraces and go to Xishuangbanna - “Little Thailand in China” to see the tropical forest, taste local flavors and have fun in the Water Flashing Festival.

• Type: Nature (River, Karst Mountain, Rice Terrace), Culture
• Best Places to Visit: Li River Cruise, Yangshuo Ten-mile Gallery, Yulong River, Longji Rice Terrace, West Street
• Recommended Trip Length: 3-4 days

As the old Chinese saying goes “the mountain and water scenery of Guilin is the best under heaven”. Guilin simultaneously earns high reputation in the world as the perfect embodiment of the eastern charm, the best image of idyllic realm and the most outstanding masterpiece of China’s Karst landform. Guilin in spring is beautiful like an enchanting watercolor beyond description. You can take a relaxing Li River Cruise to put yourself in the picture, feel the green river flowing into the distance quietly, view dramatic limestone Karst hills on either side. Later, you can transfer to Yangshuo, try a bamboo rafting or a biking trip along the Yulong River, see the faraway misty mountains, golden rape flower fields ashore and verdurous ripples on the water’s surface. The more than 1400-year-old West Street is a good place to glimpse the culture and history of Guilin and to eat, stroll and relax. If you’re a senior photographer, you can wait the fascinating sunset and watch special show of Cormorant fishing. When you plan a Longji Rice Terraces tour in Spring, April is the best time to shoot the blue-green seedling and spectacular water-filled fields while during May, you can seize moments of traditional farming methods.

• Type: Natue (mountains, canyons, etc.)
• Best Places to Visit: Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Golden Whip Stream, Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge, Tianzi Mountain
• Recommended Trip Length: 3-5 days

Bet you get to know Zhangjie from the world’s first 3D film - Avatar. Yet, it’s also another notable UNESCO World Heritage site in China. Without exaggeration, all travelers to Zhangjiajie will feel awestruck when viewing the peculiar sandstone peak forest and imposing Karst landform. More than 3,000 stone pinnacles rising abruptly out of the ground with hundreds of rivers flowing through, they’re great works of nature and the real Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Zhangjiajie in spring is magnificent as always, and it is more pretty when beautiful flowering and verdant trees and lawns blankets the awesome peaks in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Tianzi Mountain. As if these upright peaks have lives and are in full vitality in the spring. You can make stunning hiking in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park - the first national park in China and a world geopark, see the quartz-sandstone pillars, walk through twisting and tranquil Golden Whip Stream, watch lovely fishes swimming in bright, clean brook, challenge a trekking journey in Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, fully immerse in the fresh cool air and exuberant woods around. In April, you may meet cute azalea flowers in Tianzi Mountain.

• Type: Cultural & Historical Sites, Nature
• Best Places to Visit: Hangzhou (West Lake, Lingyin Temple, Meijia Dock Dragon Well Tea Village, China National Tea Museum), Suzhou (Lingering Garden, Tiger Hill, No.1 Silk Factory, Zhouzhuang/Tongli Water Town)
• Recommended Trip Length:  2-4 days

Suzhou is a famous national historical city with over 2,500 years of history and dubbed “the Venice of China”. Elegant classical gardens of Suzhou, peaceful water towns, magical Chinese silk and the Grand Canal are four prominent highlights of Suzhou. You can choose one or more gardens to admire the superb harmony of natural elements and artistic architectures, and tasteful life of the ancients. When spring visits Suzhou, wisteria blossom in Humble Administrator’s Garden and begonia flowers in Linger Garden color the delicately carved perforated more exquisite, which appeals to loads of tourist. Zhouhuang Water Town during the warm spring is placid and picturesque, where you can find riverside dropping willows sprout green shoots and reflect on the calm river with the black roof-tiles, white walls and stone bridges. Countryside scenery, golden seas of rape flowers and warm sunshine will help you totally forget the urban bustle. You can get spring breath and quaint scenery in Tiger Hill.

Hangzhou has been loved by poets and literati since ancient times for its beautiful scenery, mildness and sense of literature and art. When visiting Hangzhou in spring, you must want to compose verse to express your affection for the alluring sights. The best site to discover the Hangzhou’s fascination is the West Lake. Spring Dawn at Su Causeway is the most famous spring landscape in Hangzhou. By this time, the temperature is excellently comfortable, adorable flowers bloom and jade green willows drop on the banks and a balmy breeze ripples across the lake. All words will fail at such beauty. You can walk around, enjoy a biking tour or boat ride. Furthermore, you can visit Lingyin Temple to worship the Buddhist culture and go to a local tea village to physically see the verdurous terraced tea plantation, tea-picking and making processes.

If you have a tight schedule, you can make a day trip to Suzhou, or take 2 days for Hangzhou. The best suggestion is visiting them both if time allows.

▶ Learn more about: Most Popular Suzhou Tours | Most Popular Hangzhou Tours

• Type: Nature (Flowers), Culture (Ancient Villages)
• Best Places to Visit: Likeng, Wangkou, Xiaoqi, Jiangwan Villages
• Recommended Trip Length: 1 day

As temperature warms up from March, nearly ten thousands hectares of rape flowers start to bloom in the ancient villages of Wuyuan, which has been acknowledged as one of the most beautiful photography sites in China. In March and April, the terraced rape flowers spread like a golden sea, and are mingled with green leaves, trees and unique white-wall folk houses. The orderly-located ancient architectures and the golden ocean of rape flowers sketch out a serene and dreamy hideaway retreat. No wonder so many photography fans flock to Wuyuan to record the sensational natural scenery of Spring. When you walk through the traditional dwellings, overlook or steep yourself in the rape flower fields, your time will slow down, and you can feel a closer communication with the nature, experience disturbed country life to break from the outside world.

• Type: Nature (Mountains, Flowers), Culture (Ancient Villages, Historical Architectures)
• Best Places to Visit: Huangshan Mountain, Hongcun & Xidi Ancient Villages, Tunxi Ancient Street
• Recommended Trip Length:  3-4 day

With five natural spectacles (wondrous pines, grotesque rocks, amazing sea of clouds, hot spring and winter snow), Huangshan Mountain has acclaimed as China’s most beautiful mountain whose scenery surpasses the famous Five Great Mountains (Mount Tai, Mount Hua...). It is a favorite inspiration of Chinese traditional painting and literature from the ancient to modern times. When spring comes, Huangshan Mountain comes alive, the trees burst into green buds, flowers start to bloom, birds sing and fly joyfully, misty peaks seem like a Chinese ink painting. Hiking on Huangshan Mountain in spring lets you enjoy pleasant temperature, fresh air, and greater chances of seeing two seas - sublime seas of clouds and lovable flowers, such as the Magnolia and Azalea.

From March, ancient villages at the foot of Huangshan Mountain unfold broad golden seas of rape flowers. The likeable blossom sets off the aesthetic Huizhou-style architecture a truly painting and a peaceful retreat. Hongcun and Xidi Ancient Villages, two outstanding examples are the best places to witness human life in great harmony with nature. Nearby Lucun, Bishan, Tachuan, Xin’an River also present stunning golden rape flower fields.

• Type: Nature (Flowers, Mountains, Rivers, Canyon), Culture (Tibetan Villages, Religious Culture)
• Best Places to Visit: Nyingchi Peach Blossom Festival, Basum Tso Lake, Lulang Forest
• Recommended Trip Length: 2-3 days

Nyingchi is titled as “Oriental Switzerland” and “Jiangnan in Tibet”  for its exceptional verdant natural beauty that is impossible to see in other regions of Tibet. The rarely seen green scenery and higher oxygen level in Nyingchi largely benefits to altitude acclimatization and presents a different sightseeing experience. During your Nyingchi tour in Tibet, you can view dense primitive forests, majestic snow-capped mountains, giant crystal glaciers, emerald lakes, large old cypress, wooden cabins, scattered herds... an unexpected beautiful fairyland.

Every spring, specifically from March to April, Nyingchi becomes extraordinarily popular all over China, for hosting grand Peach Blossom Festival. Once then, snowy mountains standing afar, white soft clouds floating in the blue sky, myriad clumps of pink peach flowers gathering above the green fields, grand canyon studded with Tibetan houses, all compose a beautiful idyllic scenery, which easy for you to forget you’re in high-altitude Tibet.

• Type: Historical & Cultural Sites, Nature
• Best Places to Visit: Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang Museum, Luoyang Old City, Luoyang Peony Festival, Shaolin Temple
• Recommended Trip Length:  2-3 days

Luoyang in the west of Henan Province, central China is a famous Chinese ancient capital of 13 dynasties. Often mentioned as “Sister City” of Xian, Luoyang has a long history of thousands of years and innumerable cultural legacies. When traveling to Luoyang in spring, you can visit all historical sites as usual, and Longmen Grottoes and Peony are the two cultural symbols you shouldn’t miss. You can view lots of vivid Buddhist statues in Longmen Grottoes, admire centuries-old Buddhist culture and splendid traditional art and craft. A visit of the White Horse Temple - China’s first Buddhist temple helps you know where, when and how the Buddhism introduced to China.

In the warm months of April and May, the large and rich peony flower become the most high-profile scene in Luoyang. The peony, considered a symbol of elegance, notability, luxury and splendor is wildly recognized as “the King of Flowers” and the national flower of China. Its cultivation in Luoyang began in the Sui Dynasty around 1,500 ago and reached the peak in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Thus, if you tour Luoyang in spring, you can attend the Luoyang Peony Festival (held from early April to early May annually) to adore beautiful peony blossom of different kinds and colors and hear amusing folktales. Spending 1 extra day visiting Shaolin Temple and hiking the spectacular Mount Song from Luoyang is a classic and popular side trip idea for Chinese Kung Fu fans.

▶ Learn more about: Shaolin Temple Tours