Exceptional Experience in Lijiang
Lijiang Premier Tour
Lijiang, the oriental Venice, is where quaint bridges arch over clear water canals and flagstone streets stretch alongside classic architectures. Ethnic charm melds with living history to awaken your inner peace.
However, the fame is a double-edged sword. As much as 12% of Yunnan's total tourist population (that's 4 million people) flows into Lijiang every year. Is it still possible to enjoy the picturesque scenery while escaping from the hordes of tourists? Everything is possible with China Highlights. Below are three steps to make your Lijiang vacation special.
Step One: Choose from Top-rated Hotels
Let's start with a special accommodation experience. These hand-picked hotel choices are recommended based on their location, service, uniqueness, and feedback.
Banyan Tree Lijiang
Located in the less commercialized Shuhe Ancient Town, the Banyan Tree resort's pristine environment adds to the ethereal charm cloaking the air. Be fascinated by the legendary Naxi Kingdom and admire the majesty of the legendary Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
Hotel Indigo® Lijiang Ancient Town
The Hotel Indigo Lijiang Ancient Town merges Tea and Horse Trail culture and local folklore in its décor and design. The guest rooms feature signature artwork and creative details, from a horse-silhouette closet to breathtaking murals of the nearby Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, alongside modern comforts that showcase how the past and present coexist here. "Me Space," with its giant copper birdcage and stools made of original horse saddles, is the perfect place to converse with friends, or for a quieter vibe, experience a traditional tea ceremony at our Tea House.
InterContinental Lijiang
Hide in the center of Lijiang Ancient Town, and experience old world opulence and modern luxury at the Intercontinental Lijiang Ancient Town Resort. Enjoy a perfectly framed view of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain through vast windows. Forget about the outside world and relax in rooms amid the hotel's extensive gardens and ponds.
Step Two: Tailor-made Tour
A comfortable room may make you want to stay for longer in Lijiang, while an unforgettable customized tour may make you want to stay there for life. Hop in a vintage sidecar or jeep and travel to secluded areas and commune with China's vanishing charm. We can combine the special attractions in Lijiang and the unique sidecar/jeep excursions for you. Private all the way!
The Valley Run
Hop into one of our vintage vehicles for an afternoon jaunt in the Lijiang Valley. Drive to a secluded location and enjoy the view as your guide pours you a glass of bubbles.

The Lijiang Valley Explorasion
Go for an exploratory tour of the Lijiang Valley. Start with a stop at a local Naxi temple before you continue to Yuhu Village, which was once home to an eccentric but now long forgotten explorer. A scenic drive through the valley will take you up in the hills to check out a Buddhist monastery for an introduction to Tibetan culture.

The Grand River Canyon
Crossing the outskirts of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, pause for panoramic views of the Yangtze River from the Temple of the Clouds before you continue your drive towards the Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Leave the tourist masses behind and have lunch at a local guesthouse, and your guide will take you up one of the trails starting from behind the guesthouse. This trek is considered a medium level and, depending on your fitness and experience, it will take between 3½ and 4½ hours to complete.
The Shaxi Trade Bazaar
Down the road to Shaxi, the traffic will have come to a standstill near Jiuhe Village as the locals will have set up a roadside market providing great photo opportunities (weekends only).
It remains rather peaceful on the cobbled streets of Shaxi but during the heydays of the Old Tea Horse Road the place was teeming with life. If today coincides with a Friday, you are in for a treat. On this day, the town awakens from hibernation as the neighboring Yi and Bai minorities come to sell and buy their produce. Women still dress in their colorful traditional outfits and men will often lead pack mules carrying supplies back to their villages in the mountains. Visit the nearby villages before heading back to your hotel.
Step Three: Submit Your Inquiry
Submit your preference for a hotel, excursions, starting date, and how many days you will stay, and our professional trip advisor will tailor-make a private and unique tour for you.
Luxury, uniqueness, adventure, privacy and exclusivity — you will have it all!
Price includes:
China Highlights, Asia Highlights, and Global Highlights collaborate to provide families and couples with personalized and stress-free experiences in diverse destinations.


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Lijiang Tour with Alice
My husband and I arrived in Lijiang after Dali. We met Alice, our new tour guide for the next two days. Alice is a compassionate person with a heart full of love and care. She makes sure we dress warmly before taking our tours to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the Tiger Leaping Gorge.Alice is well-spoken about the culture of local people in Lijiang. During our visit to the Naxi ethnic community, we learned how to make and sample the Naxi pancake and tea with Yak butter. We felt it was a rewarding experience to learn about the livelihood of people as we tour.Many thanks to China Highlights for arranging our traveling itinerary in Lijiang. more
Nov 2023,
AL
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Our trip to Yunnan
Alice is very personable, warm, friendly and shared with us many of their cultures and stories. Pema is very energetic and accompany us for the half day hike in the tiger leaping gorge.We would definitely recommend China Highlights to anyone for their holiday in China! more
Nov 2023,
TAN YIDA
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Our trip to Li Jiang and Shaxi Yunnan
We arrived at Lijiang on 9/8. We enjoyed the time in Lijiang a lot with good hotel selection and a well planned program. We went onto Shaxi for the local singing festival of the local minority groups. It was a fantastic experience. What makes the trip most memorable is our guide Alice. She took excellent care of us, anticipating our every need. She was personable, warm and very knowledgeable. We shared many laughters and traded stories. She brought smiles to us during the entire trip. We will specifically ask for her again when we come back to Yunnan. Five star service. more
Sep 2023,
Consumer
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Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-la
We would like to thank China Highlights Travel for planning and organizing our China hiking trip. Roger Li (Trip Planner) was really prompt in all correspondences and helped us to fine tune our travel details. We are a party of 4 and had multiple hiking destinations in mind in the beginning. Roger gave us details of each option and we finally decided to go hiking in the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. In addition, Roger helped us to add itinerary in Lijiang and Shangri-la after the hiking. Really looking forward to our China hiking trip in October! more
Sep 2023,
Joyce Lee
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We love China
From the beginning we had a trustfull knowlegeable base of communication, started with Lukas the tour advisor and guide around Guilin and continued with the other guides in the other locations. Shanghai FU, Zhangjiajie Emili, Xián Juanli, Kunmimg Nen ,Lijiang Luzhuoying, Chongqing ??, Yangtze, Haikou ?? and Beijing Chengang. We were totaly positivly impressed about the overall service during our time in China. We felt save and wellcomed at any time. We had every day our individual highlight. For example, breathless nature, extraordinary hotels, historical buildings and places, well tasting food and social contacts on the streets. All our tour guides and drivers made a professional customer orientated job and supported us in the best possible way. Even if we want to make changes on short notice they made it happen. We spent a remarkable and unforgetable time in China and been very thankful to China Highlights to create this moments in time for us. more
Jun 2023,
Karlheinz Potuznik
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Unforgettable Yunnan!
Jack Li , our tour guide at LiJiang, took great care of us when we climbed Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and suffered high altitude issues. At Dali, our tour guide Nancy Li doubled up as our photographer and speaks excellent English and entertained us with her rich knowledge of Chinese history. We had a wonderful time. more
Apr 2023,
April Lee
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Thank you for such a wonderful traveling experience!
We have Jack Lee in our Lijiang trip he was such a considerate and kind tour guide. He is very knowledgeable and he accommodated all our requirement. We were fortunate to have such a nice local tour guide. I had altitude sickness and he really cared. Our private driver Mr Tang is very safe and patient. He is compliant and cares for our safety all the time. He is very humorous and gave us so much laughter. He was also very caring towards me. more
Apr 2023,
Hazel T
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Cultural and scenic beauty second to none!
I would highly recommend this tour to Lugu Lake to everyone and anyone! The tour guide Jack taught me more in two days about minority cultures, Chinese history, and the amazing natural history and geography of Yunnan and the Lijiang area. As well, the drive to Lugu Lake requires an expert - and Mr Wang is an expert! (From someone who has crossed the Rockies at least 20 times) As a single woman travel who still doesn’t have great Chinese it was a flawless experience - from the communications, accommodation and breathtaking scenery and cultural experiences. Please book and go! more
Feb 2023,
Connie VH
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We have been travelling around Yunnan…
We have been travelling around Yunnan Province for 8 days and it’s been amazing. The culture, the food, the people’s kindness, all these things made our trip unforgettable. Especially our guide Nancy! The most helpful and friendly guide we could have. We really appreciate her knowledge about the local history and the culture. She’s really amazing and we strongly recommend her services. more
Mar 2022,
Danielle Toledo
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Awesome Yunnan trip with Nancy
We had a 6-day tour with guide Nancy around Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-La in Yunnan. She’s very professional and experienced guide that made our tour far exceed expectations. It was a pleasure to have her as our tour guide. We strongly recommend her. Thank you! more
Mar 2022,
Rodrigo
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One of the best things I’ve done in China
One of the best things I’ve done in China. Being that I am pretty well traveled in China this Experience was so different from the others. Each city provided a different aspect of the culture, local traditions and beauty that China has to offer. Our Tour guide Nancy was amazing as she made our itinerary very well constructed and organized. She was there to make sure we were comfortable and happy. Her hyper energy and cheerfulness made us feel enthusiastic for the day. We are very satisfied with this trip and Nancy’s services that we will be sure to book again. more
Feb 2022,
RoshR
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Lijiang Trip July 2021
Kudos to Alisa Liu from the agency who I must say was on hand almost 24/7 for requests and queries. Even though our trip was marred with the onset of the Typhoon In Fa with various flight and train cancellations but Alisa was quick to arrange for alternative solutions under the circumstances and made the most effort to make our journey as comfortable as possible whilst we made our way back to Shanghai. As for the itinerary, Alisa understands her clientele’s different needs very well and for the most part my expectations were met. I love private tours with a very relaxed itinerary and comfortable accommodation and some of us prefer more exclusive accommodation vs a packed itinerary trying to go to a hundred location type of tour. more
Aug 2021,
Ida Suriani
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Summer holiday in Yunnan
After spending 5 nights in Dali visiting sights in our own time, Alice who was very friendly and helpful, accompanied us on our drive from Dali to Lijiang. She shared interesting facts about the local area and the things we had done. In Lijiang, we met our guide Peter. Peter did an amazing job taking care of us and showing us the beautiful sights for our 3 days. He was so kind, providing us with snacks each morning and always ensuring the food met my dietary requirements. He even picked up our last minute NAT results that we did before our departure late at night! His passion and dedication to his job was very impressive, and we would highly recommend him to our friends. more
Aug 2021,
O6866ZGlaurag
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Amazing experience in Yunnan
Please bear in mind that booking tickets and actually getting to the sightseeing point is very challenging, especially during peak season. But with the help of our guides everything went smooth and silky. Thank you, China Highlights, for making our first trip to Yunnan an unforgettable and carefree adventure. It was a true relaxation without any headache or stress. We had nothing to worry about, except enjoying breathtaking beauty of Yunnan. more
Jul 2021,
olya84
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Natural landscapes are everything
I visited Lijiang during the Spring Festival and I thought it was gonna be packed with people but my guide always knew were to take me to avoid crowds. I had a great time, my guide was very knowledgeable and answered all of my questions with gusto. I’m very happy with my trip. --lunarcicles,Buenos Aires, Argentina more
Feb 2019,
lunarcicles
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China 29 days trip
We have thoroughly enjoyed our trips in China. From our guide in Xi’an to the guide in Kwelin , they are all excellent. 韩颂 in Beijing, Susan in Xi’an, Alvin in Huang Shan, Sally in YiZhang , Peter in Zongzhing, Doyle in 昆明,Daisy in Tali, Martin in Lijiang and the last Vincent in Guilin. They all performed their services well. We are happy to have met them, hopefully we will keep in touch. more
Nov 2023,
Tiong-Oen Pouw
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Family of 6 travelling in Dali
I was part of a family of 6 traveling through Yunnan for 8 days. The trip organised by China Highlights was well planned and took into account our specific interests area which were photography, DIY classes and culture.Our guide in Dali, Daisy Shi, took care of us well with her knowledge of the local ways, sights and in particular her thoughtfulness to my aged parents who were part of the group. Thanks to her for our wonderful stay in Dali and we hope to make a longer stay in Dali. more
Nov 2023,
Nay
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What a fantastic and flawless job done
What a fantastic and flawless job done by China highlights to arrange our 18 days tour of Yunnan province and Tibet area. It was our second trip with China Highlights. Our guides and drivers were great and helpful in all aspects in all cities we visited.In Kunming our guide "Ms. May" and driver "Jack" were exceptional .They were very professional and also very compassionate and very willing to take care of our personal needs beyond their line of job. Same was our guide in Dali "Ms. Daisy"In general we really enjoyed our trip with China highlights .Maria & J. KhanOrlando, Florida more
Oct 2023,
Maria
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Dali with Daisy
We had a great time in Dali together with our very caring and amazing guide Daisy. She accommodated to all our interest - especially in learning more about local crafts and took us to an interesting die tie house. And we learned a lot about the Bai culture from her. Daisy is also a great photographer and took the most beautiful memories of us during our visit. more
Sep 2023,
Simone
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Amazing Time in Dali & Sanxixi
我与家人非常开心的享受Daisy(China Highlights)在Dali 和 Sanxi 的导游服。她亲切又仔细的讲解给我们听并有问必答。She has made an extra effort to walk extra miles to give us wonderful experience. Daisy, thank you for everything. 有您在真好! more
Aug 2023,
CK
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