Base yourself in Yangshuo, not Guilin
Guilin is a pleasant mid-sized city with the airport and the rail station. Yangshuo is where the landscape is. Most people's regret is spending nights in Guilin.
The usual shape: fly or train into Guilin, cruise down the Li River to Yangshuo the next morning, then two or three nights there.
The Li River cruise
This is the main event — the stretch of karst peaks that appears on the ¥20 banknote.
Boats leave in one mid-morning wave, roughly 09:00–09:30, from the piers south of Guilin, and reach Yangshuo in about four hours.
Fares are tiered by boat class: roughly ¥215 for a 3-star and ¥360 for a 4-star. Other sources quote slightly different tiers, so check when booking.
Take the 4-star if you can. A roomier cabin, a two-level open deck you can actually stand on for photographs, and around 70–80 passengers instead of a packed 3-star. On a four-hour trip whose entire point is the view, deck access is not a luxury.
Since 1 May 2025, foreign tourists must complete real-name registration when buying Li River cruise tickets. Book ahead — several days to a week in high season.
Yangshuo and around
### The Yulong River bamboo raft
Gentler, shallower and quite different from the big-river cruise: a punt down a tributary through the peaks. Priced per raft, not per person — about ¥180–320 for a standard two- or three-person raft, or around ¥45 a head on the larger eight-person leisure rafts.
Agree the wharf, the route and the price before you board. Rafting is suspended after heavy rain when the river runs high.
### Sunrise viewpoints
- Xianggong Hill — ¥60, opens at 05:00 from May to October (05:30 in winter) specifically for sunrise. About 500 stone steps, 15–20 minutes up, onto a platform above a bend in the Li River. It's roughly an hour's drive north of Yangshuo, so a sunrise trip means arranging transport the night before.
- Laozhai Hill at Xingping — free, unstaffed, open all day. Steeper and rougher, and the view many people prefer.
### The rest
West Street in Yangshuo is the bar-and-souvenir strip — fine for an evening, not the reason you came. The Impression Liu Sanjie show is staged on the river itself with the karst peaks as the backdrop.
Rent a bike or a scooter and get out into the countryside. The landscape between Yangshuo and the Yulong River is the point of the whole region, and it is flat, quiet and easy.
### Longji rice terraces
A couple of hours from Guilin, in the other direction from Yangshuo — so either a long day trip or an overnight. Best in May–June when the terraces are flooded and mirror the sky, and again in September–October before the harvest.
When to come
April–May and September–early November. June to August brings the heaviest rain, flood risk on the Li River and the worst heat. January and February are cool, grey and misty, and many Yangshuo businesses close for Spring Festival.
Accept that some days will simply be grey. The mist that photographs so beautifully is the same mist that hides the scenery.
Getting there
Guilin Liangjiang International (KWL) is about 30 km west of Guilin, with direct coaches to Yangshuo bus station every one to two hours from roughly 07:00 to 21:00. By rail, Guilin North and the more central Guilin station both take high-speed services; Yangshuo has its own high-speed station about 30 minutes from the town.