Lijiang Tours

Lijiang is three old towns, not one, and the difference decides your trip. Dayan is the famous one and the busiest; Shuhe, 6 km away, is where people who have been before stay; Baisha, 10 km north, has the murals and the quiet. Two nights covers Dayan, three lets you add Baisha and the mountain without rushing.

Three old towns, one base

All three are Naxi, all three are stone-paved, and all three sit in the same valley at 2,400 m below Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. They are also fifteen minutes apart by road, so you do not have to choose between them for a whole trip — but you do have to choose where to sleep.

Dayan: what to actually do

The old town is 3.8 km² of lanes, canals and bridges, built from the late Song onwards and largely rebuilt after the 1996 earthquake. The water comes down from Black Dragon Pool and is divided by a series of sluices so that every street has a channel; that system, not the buildings, is the reason it is a World Heritage site.

Two things are worth doing early, before the day-trippers arrive: the climb to Wangu Tower for the roofscape, and the lanes on the western side, uphill from the main squares, where guesthouses and courtyards are still lived in. The main squares from ten o’clock onward are a shopping street with a dance performance in the middle; there is no way around that, only a way to be there at eight.

Black Dragon Pool, and the photograph

Heilongtan, in Jade Spring Park at the northern edge of Dayan, is a spring-fed pool with a Ming pavilion and the classic view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain across the water. It is the single most photographed frame in Lijiang and takes twenty minutes. Go in the morning — the mountain is usually clear before ten and clouded after two — and note that the pool is inside a ticketed park.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain: book the cable car first

The mountain is 5,596 m at Shanzidou, with thirteen peaks along 35 km, starting 15 km north of town. Three cable cars serve it and they reach very different altitudes; the highest station is above 4,500 m. The large cable car runs on a daily quota and sells out in high season, often days ahead, so this is the one thing to fix before you arrive rather than on the day.

If altitude is a concern, the lower meadows — Spruce Meadow around 3,240 m and Yak Meadow around 3,700 m — give you the mountain without the thin air. The full comparison, including which car suits which traveller, is on our Jade Dragon Snow Mountain page.

Shuhe and Baisha, in one afternoon

Shuhe has the same Naxi courtyards as Dayan with a tenth of the crowd, plus the old Tea Horse Road inns along its central street. Baisha is a farming village with the Ming dynasty mural hall — five centuries old, painted by Naxi, Bai and Tibetan artists working together — and, at the northern end, a cluster of cafés that look straight at the mountain.

Both are on the road to the mountain, which is why they work as one afternoon rather than three separate outings. If you are going up the mountain in the morning, stop at Baisha on the way back.

Getting in, and getting onward

Until late 2023 the train stopped at Lijiang and the road north to Shangri-La took four hours. It no longer does, and this is the single biggest change to Yunnan routing in a decade: Lijiang and Shangri-La are now a comfortable same-day pair, and the drive over the plateau is optional rather than obligatory.

When to come

March to May and September to November: 15 to 24C, clear mornings, the mountain visible more often than not. June to August is the rainy season — warm, green, and the mountain hides for days at a time. December to February is cold and bright, with snow on the peaks and the fewest visitors; the old town in winter is at its best.

Altitude is 2,400 m. That is not high enough to make most people ill, but it is high enough that the first night is not the one for a late one.

What trips people up

• Booking a Dayan guesthouse inside the pedestrian core and arriving with a suitcase. Cars cannot reach most of it; porters can, for a fee, and the walk is 5 to 15 minutes on stone.
• Buying the mountain cable car on the day in July or August. The quota is real.
• Doing the mountain on arrival day. You land at 2,200 m and go to 4,500 m in the same afternoon.
• Assuming Lijiang is only the old town. The valley, Baisha and the mountain are the other half of it.
• Taking a “Naxi culture show” instead of the villages. The villages are the culture.

We usually build Lijiang as two nights in Shuhe, one morning up the mountain, and a Baisha afternoon on the way back, then the train north. Send us your dates and we will check the cable car quota before we confirm anything.