Travel By Train in Yunnan

Yunnan got a railway network late and then got a good one quickly. In the last decade the province went from overnight buses to 200 km/h trains on the main corridors, and the Lijiang–Shangri-La line, opened in November 2023, closed the last gap on the classic route. Almost every Yunnan itinerary is now a train itinerary, and this page is the practical version.

The lines that matter

Which Kunming station

This is the mistake that costs people a train. Kunming has two main stations and they are 20 km apart.

• Kunming Station (昆明站) in the city centre: most D-class trains to Dali and Lijiang, plus the classic lines.
• Kunming South (昆明南): the high-speed lines east and south — Shilin West, Xishuangbanna, Pu’er, Hekou, and the trains to Guilin and Guangzhou.

Both appear as “Kunming” on some booking sites. Read the station name on the ticket, not the city.

What the trains are like

Second class is 3+2 seating, comfortable, with a luggage rack above and a trolley service. First class is 2+2 with more legroom and costs about 60 per cent more. On the Kunming–Dali–Lijiang corridor the trains are modern and quiet, and the Dali–Lijiang section in particular runs through country that is worth looking at: the lake on one side, the Cangshan wall on the other, then the valley north.

There is no dining car on most D-class services, only the trolley. Bring water and something to eat for the longer runs.

Booking, with a passport

Tickets go on sale roughly two weeks before departure and the good morning services on the Dali–Lijiang corridor sell out in holiday weeks. Booking needs a passport number and the name exactly as printed in it; the ticket is linked to the passport, and you scan the passport at the gate rather than showing a paper ticket.

Foreign passports work at the automatic gates at the big stations and need a staffed lane at the small ones. Allow twenty minutes for security and the walk to the platform; the big stations are large.

When the train beats the plane

On this corridor, almost always. Kunming to Lijiang is 3 to 3.5 hours by train, city centre to city centre, against an hour in the air plus two airport transfers and the check-in. The train also runs on time in the rainy season, when flights to Lijiang and Shangri-La are regularly delayed or diverted by weather.

The exception is the far south and the far west: for Xishuangbanna from northern Yunnan, or for Tengchong and Meili, flying is the only sensible option.

What trips people up

• Going to the wrong Kunming station. It happens weekly.
• Buying a ticket in a name that does not match the passport. It will be refused at the gate.
• Leaving the booking until the day before in the first week of October or at Spring Festival.
• Assuming there is food. There usually is not.
• Booking Lijiang–Shangri-La by bus out of habit. The train has made that road journey optional.

Where the train does not go

Rail covers the Kunming to Shangri-La corridor and the line south to Xishuangbanna, which is most of the classic route. It does not cover Tengchong, Meili Snow Mountain, Yuanyang or Lugu Lake. Those are road or air: seven hours by coach to Yuanyang, six to Lugu Lake, and flights for the far west. The coaches on those routes are modern long-distance services rather than the minibuses of a decade ago, but past six hours in a seat we would rather fly.

We book the train legs as part of the itinerary and hold the seats when the booking window opens, which matters for the Shangri-La line in autumn. Send us your dates and the route you have in mind.