41 places to live differently

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

126 islands where bioluminescent seas meet centuries-old stone villages

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

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

Where the Yellow River meets the Tengger Desert — oasis living under desert skies

Sunset over a border river and a pastoral way of life in Inner Mongolia.

A photographer's dream grassland beyond the Great Wall

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

China's forest city — 82% tree canopy and 22°C summers in the Lesser Khingan Mountains

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

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

A Nasi valley village in the shadow of snow peaks

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

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

Gobi emerald lakes and starlit yardang wilderness in Qinghai

Sea-level alpine meadows and a sky lake on an unspoiled island

Rainbow mountains meet a riverside oasis on the ancient Hexi Corridor

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

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

A cool-altitude nature town at 31°N for slow living and field exploration.

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

Henan's cool-altitude hideaway for mountain-town slow living.

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

Where China's most famous landscape painting comes to life

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

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

Qinghai's "Little Switzerland" — alpine grasslands beneath Zhuo'er Mountain

A fairy-tale Tuvan village where mist curls through pointed wooden cabins

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

An old mountain-wine town at the foot of Changbai Mountain.

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

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

Bamboo rafts, emerald rice paddies, and quiet village lanes — slow travel at its purest

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

Dragon-back terraces carved into the clouds for over 650 years