Winter Road Trips

In a Chinese winter, the north gets seriously cold. Even Beijing can drop below minus ten. In the southwest, in Yunnan and Guizhou, and on the east coast in Zhejiang, December to February is the best season of the year: the climate is mild, the sun is out most days, and a trip costs a good deal less than in high season.

Why winter

Besides the weather, the best thing about winter is the absence of crowds. Many people picture China as a place where there are people everywhere, and in high season that is true at touristic spots: queues, a sea of heads, and never a photo without a stranger in it. In winter, the lakeside at dawn is often just mist. You can walk an old town's lanes from one end to the other at your own pace, and the people in the villages have time to sit down and talk to you. The same place in high season and in winter are almost two different experiences.

All the routes we talk about below avoid high mountain roads where snow settles so there is no need to worry about snow or challenging road condition. They run mostly on expressways and national highways, and an ordinary car will do perfectly. The one thing to watch is Chinese New Year, usually late January to mid February. Those are the two liveliest and most crowded weeks in the country, so plan your trip before or after them, unless the festivities are exactly what you are after.

Yunnan in winter

Yunnan is about variety. A road trip through Yunnan feels like driving through several countries. Snow mountains, rainforest, dry valleys, highland lakes and ethnic groups whose cultures could hardly be more different all fit inside one province. As the locals put it, "one mountain has four seasons, and the weather changes every ten miles". Winter is one of the best times of the year here. There is very little rain, the sky is deep blue, the air is clean and the sun is out, and in most of the province the temperatures are still very pleasant.

Some of Yunnan's sights belong to winter alone. Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Cangshan are covered in snow and look grander for it. Napahai turns from lake to grassland and the wintering birds arrive: tens of thousands of them fly in to spend the season here, and it becomes a paradise for black-necked cranes and other species. The rice terraces of the villages are flooded and turn into tiers of mirrors, their most beautiful state. Fuxian Lake and Lugu Lake take on a deep, intense blue under the clear sky. And with a bit of luck in your timing, you can join the Gedong festival at Songzanlin Monastery in Shangri-La, the most important religious festival of the local Tibetans.

Yunnan Wonders12 days · from Shanghai · All year roundSee the trip

Guizhou in winter

Guizhou is about karst. Peak forests, gorges, waterfalls and caves run into one another, and the old villages of a dozen ethnic groups are scattered among them, as unspoilt as anywhere in China. Guizhou's winter has plenty of bright, sunny days too. With less rain, the waterfalls and mountain streams run clearer and prettier than in the wet season, and caving, stream walking and hiking have more options and are safer.

Winter is also the busiest season for village festivals. From November to January there is Miao New Year and Dong New Year, and around Chinese New Year come the lusheng gatherings, the tiaohua flower-dance festivals and the bullfights. Catch any of them and you will be stopped at the village gate with a welcoming cup of rice wine, then seated at a long-table banquet that runs the length of a whole lane. In the mountains there is often a sea of cloud and morning mist, with the terraces and the stilted wooden houses appearing and disappearing in it. Guizhou's expressway network and its mountain-spanning bridges are a sight in their own right. Several of the highest bridges in the world are here, and driving across them is hard to repeat anywhere else.

Guizhou Hidden Gem12 days · from Shanghai · August to AprilSee the trip

The Great Southwest21 days · from Shanghai · August to April See the trip

Zhejiang in winter

Zhejiang is part of what the Chinese call Jiangnan, the water country south of the Yangtze: white walls and black tiles, small bridges over flowing water, tea hills and rice fields. It is the landscape that appears most often in classical Chinese painting and poetry, and the picture of an ideal home in the Chinese mind. Calligraphy, tea, gardens, libraries and poetry, the most refined side of Chinese culture, nearly all came to maturity in Jiangnan.

Winter in Zhejiang is not bleak. From the west of the province to the south is one long stretch of mountains, with forest covering more than sixty percent of the land, mostly evergreen broadleaf trees and moso bamboo, which keep their leaves through the winter. The bamboo sea at Anji is as green in winter as ever, and the bamboo forest in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed there. Winter is also the season when the water towns feel most lived in. The old towns hang red lanterns, the villagers' homes are strung with cured duck and preserved meats, the wineries start their winter brewing, and winter bamboo shoots come fresh out of the hills.

Zhejiang is right next to Shanghai, so you can pick up your car in Shanghai and set off, with no domestic flight. It is also one of the wealthiest parts of China, with towns close together and excellent roads, so food and lodging are never a worry along the way.

Beyond Shanghai7 days · from Shanghai · All year roundSee the trip

Hainan in winter

Hainan is the only province of China that lies entirely in the tropics, and the country's largest island. When the north is at minus ten, the south of the island has daytime temperatures of 22 to 28 degrees and the sea is still around 24, which makes it the winter holiday spot for the Chinese. Winter is therefore Hainan's high season, but the crowds concentrate in the cities of Haikou and Sanya and a handful of popular bays. Away from those, the island is still quiet. That is exactly where a car earns its keep: an expressway around the island plus a coastal tourist road let you drive the whole coastline, and you decide for yourself when you want the buzz and when you want the calm.

The east coast has the densest run of bays. Sanya sits at 18 degrees north, almost the same latitude as Hawaii, and Yalong Bay and Haitang Bay have fine white sand and clear water, with the largest concentration of international resort hotels in China along the shore. Further north, Lingshui and Wanning are a string of quieter bays and surf spots, and the northeast monsoon makes winter Hainan's surf season. The north coast has the arcaded old streets of Haikou and the coconut groves of Wenchang. The west coast is the most untouched part of the island, with few visitors, Li villages along the road, and the thousand-year-old salt fields of Danzhou, where salt is still dried on volcanic rock. Ask us for the details of this route.