Second-trip favorite

Datong

大同 · North China

Grottoes and cliff temples — ticket sales up 7× in 2025 as foreigners push beyond Beijing.

May–October

2 days

~2 h high-speed train from Beijing — an easy add-on to a capital stay.

Don't miss in Datong

The experiences Western travelers rate highest here.

51,000 Buddhist statues carved into sandstone cliffs 1,500 years ago — the Silk Road's greatest cave art.

A 1,500-year-old temple pinned to a sheer cliff with wooden struts — it shouldn't exist, but it does.

More destinations at the same level of the journey.

West Lake perfection an hour from Shanghai — the landscape that defined Chinese ideas of beauty for a millennium.

The classical garden city — 2,500 years of canals, moon gates and scholar aesthetics, 30 minutes from Shanghai by rail.

Granite peaks above a sea of clouds — named to the New York Times' 52 Places to Go in 2025, now 2.5 h from Shanghai by high-speed rail.

China's ice city — a Russian-built winter wonderland whose Ice and Snow Festival took over Western social media.