YOUR JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA
The Li River: Guilin & Yangshuo
A 7-Day Handcrafted Journey Across China’s Most Painted Karst Landscapes & Tea Sanctuaries
Destination Overview
Embark on an unforgettable 7-day luxury journey through Guangxi’s karst landscape — limestone peaks rising from rice paddies and a jade-green river, explored by private boat, bicycle and on foot. This slow-travel journey blends craft, rural villages and tea culture at the unhurried pace the scenery demands. Designed for the cultured slow traveller.
Best period
March to May, September to November
Ideal duration
7 Days
Airport
Guilin (KWL)
Transfer
Executive Master Chauffeur Fleet & Private Karst River Mobility.
Your Tour
Indicative price range
5500 – 10000 USD per person
What's Included
6 nights at Banyan Tree Yangshuo (private riverside suite or sanctuary villa)
Gourmet Full Board: Daily breakfasts, organic resort lunches & fine-dining Halal regional gastronomy with tea pairings
Executive Mobility Fleet: Chauffeur-driven luxury vehicles & private river vessel transfers throughout
Dedicated private cultural historians, master tea artisans, and native Zhuang heritage experts throughout
Li River & Karst Curations: Private Li River boat navigation, Yulong River bamboo raft exploration & Moon Hill cycling
Heritage & Craft Expeditions: Private Zhuang/Yao minority village immersion, calligraphy masterclass & Reed Flute Cave access
24/7 Elite Logistics: Dedicated concierge support throughout the entire journey
The price indicated below is for informational purposes only. Prices depend on various factors. The final price of your handcrafted journey will be curated by our Travel Designers on your personalized quote.
YOUR JOURNEY THROUGH CHINA
7 Days Through China’s Iconic Karst Landscapes & the Li River
Journey into one of China’s most iconic natural landscapes, where emerald rivers wind through dramatic limestone peaks and timeless rural villages. From private cruises along the legendary Li River and leisurely cycling through rice paddies to intimate encounters with local communities, tea traditions, and centuries-old customs, this journey celebrates the beauty of travelling slowly. Designed for travellers seeking authentic cultural immersion, breathtaking scenery, and the quiet luxury of nature at its most inspiring.
Day 1
Arrival
Your journey opens at Guilin, where you take the river road down to Yangshuo with the karst peaks rising green and sheer all around you, to a retreat set on the water's edge. The first evening is the landscape at dusk, the strange limestone shapes softening in the fading light, the scenery that has haunted Chinese painters for a thousand years arranging itself quietly outside your window.
Day 2
The Li River
The heart of the journey. A private boat carries you down the most beautiful stretch of the Li River, the peaks sliding slowly past in their scattered ranks, fishermen poling bamboo rafts along the banks, the mist lifting and settling, a riverside lunch taken as the landscape drifts by. It is the day the scroll paintings step off the wall and close gently around you on every side.
Day 3
Countryside
A day by bicycle through the country between the peaks, along the rice paddies and bamboo groves to the natural stone arch of Moon Hill and the quiet Yulong River, with a tea tasting at a working farm. The pace is that of a bicycle bell and an unhurried afternoon, the human life of a landscape usually reduced to scenery revealing itself lane by lane.
Day 4
Rural Villages
A day drawn into the villages, to a Zhuang or Yao minority community, a calligraphy lesson under a patient hand, and a slow rowboat along a quiet tributary. It is a day about the people who have farmed and fished among these peaks for generations, the landscape given its human scale and its living present.
Day 5
Guilin & Tea
The illuminated limestone chambers of the Reed Flute Cave, its stalactites lit in shifting colour, and a tea ceremony with a master taken high above the peaks, are the two things Guilin does best, stone and tea, the one carved by water over millennia and the other steeped with a care refined over centuries.
Day 6
Full Leisure
A day set to the river's own pace. The pool, a dawn demonstration of the old cormorant-fishing in which trained birds dive for the catch, the spa whenever you wish it, the peaks standing over everything. The landscape does its slow work, and you let it.
Day 7
Departure
A last morning among the peaks before your chauffeur provides a comfortable executive transfer to Guilin Liangjiang International Airport for your onward flight.
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