u/Secret_Ad_3804

I'm Chinese and I've been solo travelling around here for about ten years now. Something I notice a lot is people fly all this way and end up doing the same three cities everyone does, which is a shame, because there's so much more the moment you step off that path.

So I put together a 10 day route from places I've actually been to and liked. It's mostly the southwest, which I reckon gets badly overlooked, and even the famous cities on it I've done the way I'd actually go, not the tour bus way.

Rough idea of it:

Chengdu, 2 days. Less the Jinli and panda selfie stuff, more sitting in an old teahouse and eating your way through the back lanes.

Guiyang, 1 day. Mostly to ease in and eat. This is about where you stop running into other foreigners.

Western Guizhou, 2 days. Maling River Gorge and the Wanfenglin karst peaks. I genuinely think it beats Guilin, and there's almost nobody there.

Eastern Guizhou, 2 days. The Miao and Dong villages. I'd skip the big touristy Xijiang and just stay a night in a smaller one.

Zhenyuan, 1 day. Old town built along a river through a gorge, really nice at night with the lanterns, and hardly any tourists.

Yangshuo, 2 days to finish. It's famous, I know, but skip the bar street, rent a bike out into the countryside, and it's still gorgeous.

It all connects by high speed train.

Happy to answer anything in the comments. And even if you don't do this exact route, just build in a day or two somewhere off the usual list, it's always worth it :)

I'm Chinese and I've been solo travelling around here for about ten years now. Something I notice a lot is people fly all this way and end up doing the same three cities everyone does, which is a shame, because there's so much more the moment you step off that path.

So I put together a 10 day route from places I've actually been to and liked. It's mostly the southwest, which I reckon gets badly overlooked, and even the famous cities on it I've done the way I'd actually go, not the tour bus way.

Rough idea of it:

Chengdu, 2 days. Less the Jinli and panda selfie stuff, more sitting in an old teahouse and eating your way through the back lanes.

Guiyang, 1 day. Mostly to ease in and eat. This is about where you stop running into other foreigners.

Western Guizhou, 2 days. Maling River Gorge and the Wanfenglin karst peaks. I genuinely think it beats Guilin, and there's almost nobody there.

Eastern Guizhou, 2 days. The Miao and Dong villages. I'd skip the big touristy Xijiang and just stay a night in a smaller one.

Zhenyuan, 1 day. Old town built along a river through a gorge, really nice at night with the lanterns, and hardly any tourists.

Yangshuo, 2 days to finish. It's famous, I know, but skip the bar street, rent a bike out into the countryside, and it's still gorgeous.

It all connects by high speed train.

I wrote the whole thing up properly, the actual spots, which trains, where to stay and what to eat.

Happy to answer anything in the comments. And even if you don't do this exact route, just build in a day or two somewhere off the usual list, it's always worth it :)

I'm Chinese and I've been solo travelling around here for about ten years now. Something I notice a lot is people fly all this way and end up doing the same three cities everyone does, which is a shame, because there's so much more the moment you step off that path.

So I put together a 10 day route from places I've actually been to and liked. It's mostly the southwest, which I reckon gets badly overlooked, and even the famous cities on it I've done the way I'd actually go, not the tour bus way.

Rough idea of it:

Chengdu, 2 days. Less the Jinli and panda selfie stuff, more sitting in an old teahouse and eating your way through the back lanes.

Guiyang, 1 day. Mostly to ease in and eat. This is about where you stop running into other foreigners.

Western Guizhou, 2 days. Maling River Gorge and the Wanfenglin karst peaks. I genuinely think it beats Guilin, and there's almost nobody there.

Eastern Guizhou, 2 days. The Miao and Dong villages. I'd skip the big touristy Xijiang and just stay a night in a smaller one.

Zhenyuan, 1 day. Old town built along a river through a gorge, really nice at night with the lanterns, and hardly any tourists.

Yangshuo, 2 days to finish. It's famous, I know, but skip the bar street, rent a bike out into the countryside, and it's still gorgeous.

It all connects by high speed train.

I wrote the whole thing up properly, the actual spots, which trains, where to stay and what to eat, check out the comment.

Happy to answer anything in the comments. And even if you don't do this exact route, just build in a day or two somewhere off the usual list, it's always worth it :)

I'm Chinese and I've been solo travelling around here for about ten years now. Something I notice a lot is people fly all this way and end up doing the same three cities everyone does, which is a shame, because there's so much more the moment you step off that path.

So I put together a 10 day route from places I've actually been to and liked. It's mostly the southwest, which I reckon gets badly overlooked, and even the famous cities on it I've done the way I'd actually go, not the tour bus way.

Rough idea of it:

Chengdu, 2 days. Less the Jinli and panda selfie stuff, more sitting in an old teahouse and eating your way through the back lanes.

Guiyang, 1 day. Mostly to ease in and eat. This is about where you stop running into other foreigners.

Western Guizhou, 2 days. Maling River Gorge and the Wanfenglin karst peaks. I genuinely think it beats Guilin, and there's almost nobody there.

Eastern Guizhou, 2 days. The Miao and Dong villages. I'd skip the big touristy Xijiang and just stay a night in a smaller one.

Zhenyuan, 1 day. Old town built along a river through a gorge, really nice at night with the lanterns, and hardly any tourists.

Yangshuo, 2 days to finish. It's famous, I know, but skip the bar street, rent a bike out into the countryside, and it's still gorgeous.

It all connects by high speed train.

I wrote the whole thing up properly, the actual spots, which trains, where to stay and what to eat, check out the comment.

Happy to answer anything in the comments. And even if you don't do this exact route, just build in a day or two somewhere off the usual list, it's always worth it :)

I'm Chinese and I've been solo travelling around here for about ten years now. Something I notice a lot is people fly all this way and end up doing the same three cities everyone does, which is a shame, because there's so much more the moment you step off that path.

So I put together a 10 day route from places I've actually been to and liked. It's mostly the southwest, which I reckon gets badly overlooked, and even the famous cities on it I've done the way I'd actually go, not the tour bus way.

Rough idea of it:

Chengdu, 2 days. Less the Jinli and panda selfie stuff, more sitting in an old teahouse and eating your way through the back lanes.

Guiyang, 1 day. Mostly to ease in and eat. This is about where you stop running into other foreigners.

Western Guizhou, 2 days. Maling River Gorge and the Wanfenglin karst peaks. I genuinely think it beats Guilin, and there's almost nobody there.

Eastern Guizhou, 2 days. The Miao and Dong villages. I'd skip the big touristy Xijiang and just stay a night in a smaller one.

Zhenyuan, 1 day. Old town built along a river through a gorge, really nice at night with the lanterns, and hardly any tourists.

Yangshuo, 2 days to finish. It's famous, I know, but skip the bar street, rent a bike out into the countryside, and it's still gorgeous.

It all connects by high speed train.

I wrote the whole thing up properly, the actual spots, which trains, where to stay and what to eat, check out the link.

Happy to answer anything in the comments. And even if you don't do this exact route, just build in a day or two somewhere off the usual list, it's always worth it.

I'm Chinese, a software engineer and a fairly obsessive independent traveler. Over the past ten years I've been to most of the country, the big famous places and a lot of small ones most people never bother with. And before every trip I do the same thing: dig through a pile of guides online, then put together my own itinerary by hand.

The thing is, I can do that easily because I read Chinese. All the genuinely useful, up-to-date stuff is on Xiaohongshu, Dianping, Mafengwo, and it's written for locals. I can check a train time on 12306, see what's actually near what on the map, read the real reviews, and know which places need booking ahead. It takes me an evening.

Lately I've been answering a lot of itinerary questions on here, and it's made me realize how much harder all of that gets if you don't read Chinese. The English info is mostly the same recycled top-10 lists, or blog posts from five years ago. And the hard part of planning China was never really "what should I see," it's the stitching: which city connects to which, how long the train actually takes, what's walkable from what, what's closed on Mondays, what you have to reserve a week out. That's the part that eats your time.

I've watched people try to get ChatGPT or Gemini to do it too, and it spits out something that looks great until you check it, then half the route doesn't exist, or it's three hours apart, or shut that day. And the actual tools are all split up, one app for trains, one for maps that barely works in English, one for translation, one for reviews you can't read.

So genuinely, what do you all use? Is there one thing that actually works for this, or is everyone just stitching it together from ten browser tabs like I'm picturing? Would love to know what's worked for people, especially first-timers.

(For what it's worth, I got annoyed enough at the gap that I started building something for it myself. It's on my profile if you're curious, but honestly I'm more interested in hearing what you already use.)

I'm Chinese, a software engineer and a fairly obsessive independent traveler. Over the past ten years I've been to most of the country, the big famous places and a lot of small ones most people never bother with. And before every trip I do the same thing: dig through a pile of guides online, then put together my own itinerary by hand.

The thing is, I can do that easily because I read Chinese. All the genuinely useful, up-to-date stuff is on Xiaohongshu, Dianping, Mafengwo, and it's written for locals. I can check a train time on 12306, see what's actually near what on the map, read the real reviews, and know which places need booking ahead. It takes me an evening.

Lately I've been answering a lot of itinerary questions on here, and it's made me realize how much harder all of that gets if you don't read Chinese. The English info is mostly the same recycled top-10 lists, or blog posts from five years ago. And the hard part of planning China was never really "what should I see," it's the stitching: which city connects to which, how long the train actually takes, what's walkable from what, what's closed on Mondays, what you have to reserve a week out. That's the part that eats your time.

I've watched people try to get ChatGPT or Gemini to do it too, and it spits out something that looks great until you check it, then half the route doesn't exist, or it's three hours apart, or shut that day. And the actual tools are all split up, one app for trains, one for maps that barely works in English, one for translation, one for reviews you can't read.

So genuinely, what do you all use? Is there one thing that actually works for this, or is everyone just stitching it together from ten browser tabs like I'm picturing? Would love to know what's worked for people, especially first-timers.

(For what it's worth, I got annoyed enough at the gap that I started building something for it myself. It's on my profile if you're curious, but honestly I'm more interested in hearing what you already use.)

InChina APP is not another AI trip generator. Most travel AI hands you a nice-looking list that falls apart the second you're standing at the station. InChina builds a China route you can actually walk: the right train, the metro line, the walk between stops, even the words to say when you get there. Every leg is checked against real maps, train times and opening hours, so it won't send you to a place that's three hours away or closed on Mondays.

You start a plan three ways, with no endless chatbot back-and-forth: swipe real places into a day, paste a TikTok or Reel and it builds around it, or drop your own rough draft and it makes it walkable. Each place has a guide written in English by someone who actually knows the city, plus translation and maps, and it all works offline (which matters a lot over there).

I'm opening the first batch of 50 founding tester spots, and I'd love people from here, especially anyone actually planning, or just daydreaming about, a China trip, since that's where the most useful feedback comes from.

It's completely free, and founding testers get perks I genuinely tried to make worth it:

Founding Tester credits, for life: +200 credits every month, permanently, enough to keep generating full detailed itineraries.
A direct line to the team: a private tester group where your feedback goes straight into what we build next.
A pro planner's touch: one free human polish of your first real itinerary, by an actual China travel planner.
A little something from China: active testers get a small thank-you in the mail (local tea, or a hand-stamped postcard).
A Founding Tester badge in the app.

iPhone first, Android next. A spot may need a quick verification before it's confirmed.

More about it: inchinatravel.com

Happy to answer anything in the comments. Thanks for taking a look.

Hey r/TestFlight,

I'm building InChina, an English-first travel app for people travelling in China. It does AI day-by-day itineraries, a guide for each place written by locals, translation and maps, and it all works offline (which helps a lot given the connectivity situation over there).

I'm opening the first batch of 50 founding tester spots and would love people from here, especially anyone actually planning, or just daydreaming about, a China trip, since that's where the most useful feedback comes from.

It's completely free, and founding testers get perks I genuinely tried to make worthwhile:

• Founding Tester credits, for life — +200 credits every month, permanently, enough to keep generating full detailed itineraries
• A direct line to the team — a private tester group where your feedback goes straight into what we build next
• A pro planner's touch — one free human polish of your first real itinerary, by an actual China travel planner
• A little something from China — active testers get a small thank-you in the mail (local tea, or a hand-stamped postcard)
• A Founding Tester badge in the app

iPhone first, Android next. A spot may need a quick verification before it's confirmed.

What I'd most like feedback on: whether the itineraries actually feel usable for a real trip, and whether the local guides read as genuine rather than generic.

More about it: inchinatravel.com

Happy to answer anything in the comments. Thanks for taking a look.

I'm from Guizhou and I've spent the last ten years bumming around the rest of China too, so I'll skip the stuff that's already all over the internet. Everyone always says Huangguoshu and Xijiang. They're fine honestly, but they're also where every tour bus dumps its people. Here's what I'd actually point you to instead.

Maling River Gorge over in Xingyi is the big one for me. You hike down into this huge canyon and there are waterfalls coming off the cliffs pretty much the whole way, and a couple you can walk right behind and get completely soaked (bring a poncho, I never learn). The Wanfenglin karst peaks are like a 10 min drive away so just do both the same day.

Feiyun in Huangping is the quiet one. There's an old temple kind of built into the cliff that barely anyone bothers with, really peaceful, and a skinny little canyon right below it you can raft down. I don't think I've ever once run into another foreigner there.

Jiabang terraces in Congjiang if that's your thing. Rice terraces with old wooden stilt houses sitting right in the middle of them, way up in the mountains. Best in May when they flood the fields, the whole hillside turns to mirrors at sunrise and it's usually half buried in mist. Worth the annoying drive up.

For villages just skip Xijiang and go small, Tang'an or Zhanli or Basha.

One heads up, it's all pretty spread out and the buses are slow and rare, so honestly just get a driver for a few days, especially for the villages and Jiabang. Stays cool up here in summer but it rains a lot, bring a jacket.

Anyway, if you're actually planning Guizhou drop your dates and I'll help you sort out a route, I kinda do this for fun. I've got more of these written up over on my profile if you want them.

I've been traveling all over China for the past ten years, and honestly, even as a Chinese person I've fallen into plenty of tourist traps myself. So here's the stuff I'd skip, learned the hard way. Disagree with whatever.

Beijing: skip Quanjude duck (famous, pricey, forgettable — go Siji Minfu) and skip Badaling for the Wall, it's a zoo (go Mutianyu). The scorpion-on-a-stick snack streets are just photo props, nobody here eats that.

Xi'an: the warriors are worth it, but ignore the "private tour" touts and the fake terracotta "factory" they bus you to — just DiDi out and buy the real ticket. 2 days is plenty for the city, and the wall at sunset is the part people sleep on.

Shanghai: it always gets reduced to the Bund and Disney, but the nicest thing there is just wandering the old French Concession. Hangzhou's 45 min on the train if you want a breather from the skyscrapers.

Chengdu: pandas yes, but go at opening or they're asleep by noon. Jinli and Kuanzhai look great in photos but it's the same tourist snacks on a loop — a real teahouse in People's Park beats it.

Yangshuo: skip West Street (just bars) and the big cruise boats. Rent a bike out into the countryside, that's the scenery you actually came for.

And one scam anywhere: a friendly "student" inviting you to a tea ceremony or to see their art = setup, big bill. Just walk away.

Anyway, got a trip coming up? Drop it in the comments and I'll tell you what I'd cut. And what did you guys find overrated？