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Forget tourist-trap China. These four wellness journeys — Yunnan volcanic hot springs, Hunan foot massage capital + Avatar peaks, Zhejiang imperial Tangquan + Zen water towns, Guangdong luxury bathhouse + food-as-medicine — take you past the curtain into the real, healing, living China.

Tencent's new TenPayGo app lets foreign tourists pay at any WeChat Pay merchant using Apple Pay. Complete 2026 setup guide and comparison.

Most trains get you from A to B. The "Splendid Rivers & Mountains · Colorful Guizhou" scenic train from China Railway Chengdu Group is designed to do the opposite — it makes the ride itself the highlight of your trip. This summer, the operator has rolled out a fresh schedule that stitches together some of southwest China's most beautiful scenery across Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing.

Getting money to work in China used to mean bank wires with invisible exchange-rate margins and slow arrivals. The Wise app (formerly TransferWise) fixes the two biggest frustrations: you pay the real mid-market exchange rate plus a small transparent fee, and transfers usually arrive within a day. For international travelers, the app is a practical bridge between your home bank and the Chinese payment ecosystem — especially when you need to top up a local balance or send money to a Chinese accou

Western Hubei's deep gorge, with cliff-edge walkways, a famous lone pillar and a fraction of the crowds that China's headline landscapes attract.

Asia's largest waterfall system, and one of the few places where you can walk behind the falling water: how to plan a day at Huangguoshu and when to go.

Two lakes, one plateau road: Qinghai Lake's scale and birdlife, and Chaka's salt flats that mirror the sky — with altitude, weather and timing deciding how good the photographs are.

A week in China's karst country: the Li River, Yangshuo's villages and caves, the Longji terraces, and the Zhuang and Dong craft country further north.

Two very different Guangdong days: dim sum and markets in Guangzhou, then the concrete watchtowers and village mansions that returned emigrants built around Kaiping.

A week in Hunan: the pillar landscapes of Zhangjiajie and Tianmen Mountain, the old town of Fenghuang on its river, and Changsha for food and museums at the end.

Shanghai in three days and the canal country in two: the bund and old city, then Zhujiajiao, Suzhou's gardens and a water town that is best after the day-trippers leave.

Four days for two imperial cities: Beijing's palaces, hutongs and Great Wall, then Chengde's mountain resort and temple clusters an hour or two away by rail.

Six days across Guizhou: the great waterfall at Huangguoshu, Miao and Dong villages, batik and silver workshops, and the green karst country that connects them.

A week and a day through Yunnan: city markets and karst near Kunming, the lake and craft villages of Dali, Lijiang's old town, and the plateau climb to Shangri-La.