Winter China
冬季中国
Harbin's ice city, a snow-dusted Great Wall, and the flooded rice terraces of Yuanyang — the season nobody plans for and everybody should.
Photo: Dayou_X · CC BY-SA 2.0 · resized
- Length
- 12 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Best season
- Late December – February
- Budget
- ¥8,000–11,000 per person
Winter is China's most underrated travel season. The flagship sights empty out, hotel rates halve, the northern light is beautiful, and two of the country's most spectacular experiences — Harbin's ice festival and Yuanyang's mirrored terraces — only exist in these months. The price is cold, and in the northeast that cold is serious.
Day by day
→Day by day
-
Day 1–3
Beijing
The Forbidden City without a crowd, the Great Wall with snow on it, and Peking duck as a heating strategy.
-
Day 4–6
Harbin
The Ice and Snow World after dark, the Sun Island snow sculptures by day, St Sophia and Zhongyang Dajie, and the frozen Songhua.
-
Day 7
Jilin
Rime Island at dawn — willows coated in thick frost where the river runs open at −25°C.
-
Day 8
Fly south
Harbin to Kunming, and an abrupt 40-degree temperature change.
-
Day 9–11
Yuanyang
Duoyishu at sunrise, Laohuzui at sunset, and the Hani villages between. The terraces are flooded and mirroring the sky.
-
Day 12
Jianshui → Kunming
Break the return at Jianshui for its Confucian temple and grilled tofu, then fly home.
Swaps and variations
- Add Chongli, 50 minutes from Beijing by rail, for the 2022 Olympic ski pistes
- Substitute Changbai Mountain for Jilin if you want hot springs under snow
- Skip the north entirely and pair Yuanyang with Xishuangbanna for a warm-winter trip
05On this route
The stops, in detail
UNESCO
The Great Wall 长城
Not one wall but twenty thousand kilometres of them — and the section you choose decides your entire day.
UNESCO
The Forbidden City 紫禁城
980 buildings, 8,700 rooms, 24 emperors and five centuries in which almost no outsider was allowed through the gate.
Harbin Ice Festival 哈尔滨冰雪大世界
A city of illuminated ice, cut from a frozen river in blocks and rebuilt every winter at −25°C.
Changbai Mountain 长白山
A crater lake of impossible blue in a volcano on the North Korean border, sacred to Manchus and Koreans alike.
UNESCO
Yuanyang Rice Terraces 元阳梯田
Sixteen hundred years of Hani terracing across a whole mountain range — and in winter, at dawn, the flooded fields turn to fire.