One-Day Guilin City Highlights Tour

You’ll receive a telephone call from your tour guide before 9:30pm to let you know the exact collection time for your trip the next day.

If, for any reason, you don’t receive our email or get a telephone call from your guide, which has never happened before, please call our 24-hour hotline in Guilin at +86-18807734970 or add WeChat ID: trippest666, and we will rectify this.

Your guide will be waiting for you in your hotel’s lobby or other appointed location at the agreed time, which is usually between 8am and 8:30am. The tour guide will hold a Trippest bannerso that you recognize him/her immediately. You’ll join a group with no more than ten members, which is a great size to ensure you enjoy a better travel experience.

After collecting all the members, your tour group will head to the first destination - the ancient village of Xiongcun. It takes about 40 minutes (20 kilometers) to get there from Guilin city center.

Professional tour guide and our vehicle / Photo by: David Deng

Details about Your Transport:

• The free hotel collection and drop-off areas will be within the urban areas of Guilin. For further distances, you can hire a taxi to the apointed hotel, please provide your hotel information in the booking form. For detailed pick-up and drop-off area, please read our FAQ.
• Our drivers are licensed and have at least 5 years’ driving experience. This ensures you have a safe trip. Our vehicles are comfortable and spacious, being equipped with a safety belt on every seat, air conditioners, and an unlimited supply of bottled water.
• We purchase trip insurance for each member to protect your safety.

After a 40-minute drive, you will arrive at a peaceful ancient village called Xiongcun. This village has a history of more than 1,000 years.

Xiongcun Village

Xiongcun Village

It was a very busy town in the past but its popularity faded as time went by. The original prosperity has been replaced with old houses, mossy stone steps, and elderly villagers who retell the village’s ancient stories.

Xiongcun Village

A local house in Xiongcun

In this village, you’ll see the well-kept traditional Chinese residential culture. You’ll have the chance to visit a local family’s home and experience their peaceful lifestyle. Witnessing the lifestyle of the villagers will make you feel as though you have traveled back in time by several hundred years.

An old lady was making Zongzi

Leisure time

An Authentic Ancient Village

• There is an ancient town nearby called Daxu Ancient Town. Compared with Xiongcun, Daxu is more touristic and commercialized. Xiongcun, on the other hand, is more original and fewer people have traveled there. You’ll enjoy a more authentic experience there.

After 20-minute driving from Daxu, you’ll arrive at a rebuilt village name Dong Li Ancient Village. It is near the mountains and nearby an important tributary (Chao Tian River) of the Li River. This village preserves the old dwellings style of Northen Guangxi. You may also see many handicrafts here, like pressing old with a flying hammer, weaving cotton cloth, forging iron, making wine, etc. As the city develops, some of handicrafts are dying out. Fortunately, these intangible cultural heritages are protected and inherited here.

You can try one of handicrafts which is free. But if you want to do more deep experiences like potting, making dried bean milk cream, tie-dyed fabric, ect, that would be optional and pay on your own expense. Feel free to ask the tour guide if you have any questions.

Have a lunch (at your own expense) at a local restaurant here. You’ll have a chance to taste some locals’ favorite daily dishes.

A wooden bridge

The local house

Local handicrafts

Having tasted the delicious lunch, you will head for the most famous cave in Guilin - Reed Flute Cave. It is called a “natural art museum” due to the numerous beautiful stalactites and stalagmites inside it.

Decorated with colorful spotlights and with intriguing shadows cast across the cave’s small pool, it’s as though you are looking at a beautiful Chinese painting. A karst cave on such a great scale as this and with such beautiful natural formations is a rare natural phenomenon in the world.

Now Reed Flute Cave has become a calling card of Guilin. More than 180 international heads of state and politicians have visited this cave, including two former presidents of the United States, Nixon and Carter.

Reed Flute Cave

Reed Flute Cave

Avoid the Queue

• As VIP guests, our tour group will go to another entrance to skip the queue while other groups will have to remain in the queue for quite a long time.

After visiting Reed Flute Cave, you’ll be driven to the city center where you can enjoy a walk around the city’s water system - Two Rivers and Four Lakes.

The two rivers in the name relate to Guilin’s two major rivers running through the city: the Li River and the Peach Blossom River. The four lakes in the name refer to the four major lakes in the city: Ronghu (Banyan Lake), Shahu (Chinese Fir Lake), Guihu (Osmanthus Lake), and Mulonghu (Wood Dragon Lake). These rivers and lakes are linked together in a circuit.

Your walk will begin at Gunanmen (‘Old South Gate’), which used to be the south gate of Guilin during the Tang Dynasty in about 700 AD.

Gunanmen (‘Old South Gate’)

Near the gate stands a 1,000-year-old banyan tree, which reflects the history of this city. In front of it is Banyan Lake - walk alongside it to discover ancient bridges in many different styles.

Banyan Lake

After you walk around Ronghu, you’ll come to another lake named Shahu, which has twin towers standing in it. The Sun and Moon Twin Towers are landmarks of Guilin. The Sun Tower is the largest bronze Buddhist tower in the world.

The Sun and Moon Twin Towers

Continue onward to reach the most beautiful street in Guilin - Binjiang Road. The road runs alongside the Li River and you’ll see the aptly named Elephant Trunk Hill, which appears to be an elephant drinking the river. Along the roadside, which is decorated with banyan trees, you’ll see many street artists playing music and singing about this beautiful city.

Binjiang Road

Your final stop is Lijiang Waterfall Hotel, which is home to the largest man-made waterfall in the world. Your wonderful trip ends here. You can choose to continue walking in the nearby area (Zhengyang Pedestrian Street and the food market are only a few steps away) or you can be driven back to your hotel.

Recommended Nighttime Activity

• The water system of Two Rivers and Four Lakes looks even more beautiful at night when it is decorated by the many city lights. Cruise boats run through the water system, departing between 8pm and 10pm. Each trip takes about 90 minutes and costs about 220 yuan. If you want to take this nighttime cruise, please ask your guide to book it for you.

Cruise boats run through the water system

Share Your Experiences

Please share your happy experiences of this day with your friends on your Facebook page or via TripAdvisor. This encourages more people to have the chance to see the beautiful scenery of Guilin. Follow us on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/trippest/ for updates and our trip photos. We hope to see you again soon.

Internet Access

Due to the state-controlled Internet security in China, many popular websites and apps are blocked, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp. This means you might not be able to visit your favorite sites and might not receive your emails and other important information. For this reason, we highly recommend you use a VPN service before your trip to make sure you can get connected to the global Internet.