Travel guides for mainland China — from the old-dynasty capitals to the southern megacities.
A working three-day Beijing plan with imperial axis on day one, Mutianyu Great Wall on day two, and hutongs plus the Summer Palace on day three. Real prices in yuan, named restaurants, metro lines and exits, queue advice, and an honest read on which sights to skip and which underrated ones are worth the detour.
A practical, opinionated walk through the 600-year palace at the centre of Beijing. Forget the central-axis death march; this is the half-day plan that gets you Meridian Gate, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Treasure Gallery, the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the Imperial Garden, and the Jingshan sunset, with subway exits, RMB prices, the 7-day booking system, and an honest opinion on which side galleries are worth your ¥10.
The Great Wall section worth taking a Beijing day trip for. Why Mutianyu beats Badaling, how to get there from central Beijing for ¥80 to ¥1,000 depending on style, what each watchtower number actually means, when the autumn light is at its best, and the cable-car-up-toboggan-down move that makes the whole day worth it.
A working map of Chinese dumplings by region , jiaozi, xiao long bao, sheng jian bao, wonton, har gow, siu mai, baozi, guotie, zongzi, and the Silk Road cousins. How each one differs, where to eat them, how to order without looking lost, and the soup-dumpling bite technique that first-timers always get wrong.
The flight into Lijiang does something odd to your sense of scale. You leave Kunming at 1,900m and 45 minutes later you are descending toward a broad basin at 2,400m, with a horizon of 5,000m peaks. This is the three-day guide for travellers who have heard Lijiang is a cute Unesco old town and have no idea what else is here: Dayan and the Naxi culture, Black Dragon Pool reflection, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain cable car at 4,506m with altitude-sickness warnings, Shuhe and Baisha, Tiger Leaping Gorge on day three.
The flat green peaks on the back of the Chinese yuan 20 note are real, and they are better on a bicycle than on a cruise boat. This is the long-form guide to Yangshuo , the Li River and the Yulong, a bamboo raft ride and a Moon Hill climb, beer fish on West Street, the Longji rice terraces as a day trip, and why you should stay in the countryside rather than in town. A weekend from Shenzhen, and possibly the best 72 hours in southern China.
If the most interesting thing you can say about Chinese food is that you have eaten sweet-and-sour pork from a takeaway carton, this is the article for you. The real map of Chinese cooking is the Eight Great Traditions , Cantonese, Sichuanese, Hunanese, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui , plus Northern Beijing, street food, and the dishes worth the flight: Peking duck in Beijing, mapo tofu in Chengdu, xiao long bao in Shanghai, and dim sum in Guangzhou. An opinionated guide to what to actually order, and where.
On my second night in Shenzhen I walked out of the Shekou metro and into what looked like a hallucination: a full-sized ocean liner moored in the middle of a paved city plaza, with a synchronised fountain show throwing jets at its hull to a soundtrack of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The full guide to Sea World Shenzhen , the retired French liner Minghua, the expat bar strip, where to eat in three tiers, and why Shekou is the neighbourhood to base yourself in for more than a weekend.
My first taxi ride in Shenzhen, the driver nodded at the Futian skyline and asked if it was bigger than London , a fair question. This is the long-form guide to a mainland Chinese city almost no foreigner writes about properly: Huaqiangbei and OCT Loft, Shekou and Sea World, Ping An Finance Centre and the border runs to Hong Kong, a three-day route that actually works, and why you should stop skipping Shenzhen on your way somewhere else.
