60 places to live differently

A UNESCO World Heritage highland town beneath Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

China's westernmost living ancient city — where the Silk Road still breathes.

A Bai heritage town framed by rice paddies — old courtyards, slow days

Northern Wei capital where ancient grandeur meets viral citywalk fame.

China's most intact walled county town from the Ming-Qing era

Home of the world's oldest and tallest wooden pagoda

Silk Road oasis where thousand-year-old cave art meets starlit desert skies

China's thousand-year porcelain capital where craft meets creative youth culture.

The last hidden valley of Jiangnan — China's "second home" experiment

The last surviving marketplace of the Ancient Tea-Horse Road

China's medieval port of the world — flower crowns and living history

The World's Highest City — where vast grasslands meet Khampa Tibetan culture

The last pure land on the blue planet — a Tibetan realm of sacred snow peaks

The foremost Dong village — five drum towers and centuries of song

Karst peaks, riverside climbing, and China's original expat haven.

China's northwest frontier — where three borders meet and skiing began.

Tibetan heart of Yunnan — snow peaks, alpine meadows, and sacred mountain culture.

Land of a thousand stone towers on the Dadu River

A riverside ancient town — quieter than Fenghuang, deeper than you'd expect

Turquoise lanes, Uyghur old quarters, and the best ice cream in Xinjiang

A remote trekking village where alpine lakes meet snow-capped peaks

A returned-overseas-Chinese town where Southeast Asian coffee culture meets Hainan.

Three thousand years of history wrapped inside five ring roads.

The quietest of the rich canal towns — silk wealth without the crowds

Where the Yellow River enters Ningxia — an ancient pear orchard village.

A Himalayan frontier valley where Tibet meets Nepal — and its name means "Happy Village."

Where the Songhua meets the Heilongjiang — China's river-border frontier

China's ice city — Russian-era boulevards, minus-30 winters, and a frontier spirit.

Sacred alpine lake and Tuvan villages in Northern Xinjiang's wild frontier

China's last frontier town on the Pamir Plateau

Grassland temples under the sacred Mt. Yala

The world's largest Tibetan Buddhist academy and an endless corridor of prayer wheels.

Reed marshes, sacred peaks, and a millennium of Jiangnan literati culture

Ancient kingdom of Kucha, where Silk Road music meets old bazaar streets

China's capital of slow living — pandas, hot pot, and unhurried days.

A Tibetan stone-village valley that explorer Joseph Rock called paradise on Earth.

The Sunlit Holy City on the Roof of the World

Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" filming location — an untouristed Pudong salt-trading town

Sichuan's "Corridor of Light and Shadow" — a photographer's paradise on the Tea Horse Road

The world's first tea cultural heritage — a millennium-old forest of ancient tea trees

The foremost town of Wu — a garden water town in the heart of Jiangnan.

Shanghai's finest water town — a Jiangnan escape just beyond the city.

Misty lake shores and China's digital frontier in one walkable city

Tibet's lush southeast — where snow peaks meet alpine valleys

Where Shanghai meets Zhejiang — a canal town of folk art and riverside life

Where China's most famous landscape painting comes to life

A Ming-era merchant-fortress village just beyond Pingyao's walls

Where Danxia peaks meet centuries-old rock tea culture

Arcaded streets, midnight congee, and the homeland of the Teochew diaspora

Tibet's hero city of ancient forts and the Kumbum's hundred thousand Buddhas

A millennium-old crossroads where dialects from a hundred family names still echo

A Ming-Qing canal town still untouched by mass tourism

Glaciers, snow peaks, and valleys of wild peach blossoms in Tibet's southern gateway.

China's last matriarchal society, cradled by a sapphire highland lake

Where China, Russia, and Mongolia converge at a one-of-a-kind border port city

1,600 years of Teochew culture, best savored one street-snack at a time.

China's legendary "first water town" — ancient bridges, deep lanes, zero crowds.

China's northwesternmost village — where the frontier meets the taiga

A quiet Li-village hidden beneath Yinggeling's rainforest canopy

A Buyi village built entirely of stone slabs, beside Huangguoshu Falls