16 places to live differently

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

A photographer's dream grassland beyond the Great Wall

A Nasi valley village in the shadow of snow peaks

China's last frontier town on the Pamir Plateau

A border county home to Asia's largest transnational waterfall.

Gobi emerald lakes and starlit yardang wilderness in Qinghai

A world-class wetland where red-crowned cranes take flight

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

Home of the heavenly horses and vast seas of rapeseed bloom

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

China's legendary karst landscape — where limestone peaks rise straight from the river

Where the salt lake becomes a mirror to the sky and stars

A Tibetan monastery town straddling two provinces — China's "Little Switzerland"

Where an oasis town meets the desert below the Flaming Mountains.

A Tibetan trail-head village beneath the sacred peaks of Meili Snow Mountain.

Where tides, light, and 1,700 years of coast meet China's most photogenic mudflats