Hi. We will be traveling to China with our two sons. We are thinking of:

Beijing - 4 days
X'ian - 2 days
Lijiang/Dali - 5 days
Yangshuo/Guilin 3 days

We are trying to decide whether or not we should put Datong in.

What does everyone think of the current itinerary?

THanks!

we are planning a similar trip. can youtell me how you plan to get from xian to dali/liiang?

With this amount of time I would omit Datong. (If you search on Datong you should find a discussion from a couple of months back.) To get from Xi'an to Lijiang you'd better plan to fly, it's too far for the train on this itinerary.

Xian to Kunming alone with take 2 nights on the train, about 37 hours. Kunming to Dali another 8 hours on another overnight train. So, you're talking about 3 nights on the train for this journey.

No train at Lijiang.

Wow, this is my posting and it is hard to believe it is only a month old.

Anyway, we have completely changed the itinerary but let me address your questions. One of the reasons we changed the itinerary was because of transportation.

There isn't a direct flight to Lijiang from Xian. There is one direct flight a day from Beijing but it is very expensive. However, I just entered different dates on Elong and for last minute travel, it was only 1330 rmb. The full price is 2400 rmb, one way.

If you want to go from Xian, your best options are to fly from Xian to Chengdu or Kunming and from there on to Lijiang. We had planned to go through Chengdu. We were considering spending the night in Chengdu but one could just change planes and head on to Lijiang. From Lijiang, we decided we would either go to Zhongdian or Dali. You can fly from both directly to Kunming. We had chosen Dali and were either going to fly, take a bus or take the train to Kunming. From Kunming, we would change planes and head on to Guilin.

Hope this helps!

We are changing our plans also. My daughter is in Beijing for the semester and has arrived at the following iteniary
Beijing 4 nights, Guilin on week, Hong Kong 2 nights. I'm not completely satified with it. I'd love to see Dali and like to see Xian but the travel to Dali seems to difficult. Is there enough to do in Guilin for one week? Thanks so much for all of your input.

Stoweflake...

How about 3 days each city? That would give you a good taste of each, and allow you to spend 3 days in Xian. Xian was my favorite city in my china trip. Keep in mind the transfer time eats about 1/2 day for each city...

No, you don't need a week in Guilin. 2-3 days is enough. Dali isn't that hard to get to. Just need to switch planes in Kunming, that's all.

I took a similar trip this past summer. our itinerary:
Beijing - 4 days
Xi'an - 2 days
Guilin - 2 days
Yangshuo - 3 days
Lijiang - 5 days
Dali - 3 days
Shanghai - 1 day

We enjoyed Yangshuo so much more than Guilin, and could have skipped Guilin entirely, however, we wanted to take the Li river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo.

Our favorite part of the entire trip was Lijiang and Dali. In fact, in hindsight we would have spent one less day in Beijing and more time in the Yunnan province. I guess it all depends what you are looking for (city vs. countryside)

To TravelerSusan, Can you give us an idea of what you liked most in Lijiang and Dali? Where did you stay? If you were to take the day away from Beijing-where would you have spent it. Thanks!

I think the reason we liked Lijiang and Dali so much was that we were able to get away from the hustle of the big city. Both of these places were very touristy, but wasn't nearly as crowded as Beijing or Shanghai. We really enjoy experiencing the culture, the people, etc. more so that just seeing the tourist sites.

We stayed in the Old Town in Lijiang. We rented bikes one day and just explored the area, went to Tiger Leaping Gorge for a day, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and spent an entire day hanging out in the city doing nothing in particular! In Dali we went horseback riding one day, and bike riding the next. We just rode around exploring the area, took our bikes across the ferry and rode to Wase.

In Lijiang we stayed at the Sanhe for the first 3 nights, and the Grand Lijiang for the next 2. We LOVED the Sanhe, but couldn't stay because we didn't have reservations and they were already booked those last 2 nights. Although it has gotten some good reviews on this board, we weren't crazy about the Grand Lijiang. We called it the "Grand that wasn't so Grand" Maybe we just had a bad room, but we didn't think it was nearly as nice and full of character like the Sanhe (and it was more expensive!)

It's hard to say where we would have spent the extra day. I guess either Dali or Yangshuo. To be fair, I was in Beijing 15 years ago, and so had already done all the tourist must-see's. However, my friend who had never even been there even agreed that one less day would have been fine.