Budget China Bike Tour to Limestone Peaks and Longji Terraces
Overview
The tour covers highlighted regions and off-the-beaten parts in both sides of the River Li, and the route includes both southern and northern part of Guilin, which offers cyclists better natural and cultural experiences. The pleasures of this tour comes from the cycling along the canals (built in 224 BC), the tunnel cave and remote villages visits, the rafting on the Li River and the walking and learning of the agriculture at the rice terraces. A flexible and recommended tour for budget solo travelers or anyone who wishes seeing more places in a week; the tour can be finalized into a guided version or a self-guided one with pedaling-assistant E-bike provided.
Duration: 7 days.
Destinations: Guilin - Xing'an - Caoping - Xingping - Yangshuo
Travel type: Self-guided Cycling (The price range of our self-guided tours is around USD75 - 110 per person per day on average), Half-guided by Guide + Luggage Transfers.
Customize Your Tour:
☑ Travel Dates ☑ Your Interests ☑ Your Travel Style
Itinerary Expand All
The most convenient way going to Guilin from outside China is by air after international flight to Guangzhou / Hongkong, or get a full day bullet train ticket from Beijing. Our guide shall meet you at the airport and transfer everyone to hotel. If you arrive earlier than 3PM, we can do some testing and adapting to the bikes. Guilin is an popular international tour destination, a half day walking around the downtown, visiting a park, or the countryside cutlural relics and beautiful landscapes never let you down. If you are a food lover, the city also offers you the best places to eat, comforting your tired trip on the plane.
Meal: D
Our bike tour has an starting not very hard. We will be transferred with our bikes by supporting van to Rongjiang in the morning and then hit the road on the first-built bike path of the region for around 23km and then finish the cycle for a simple but nice lunch break at Xing'an and walk around the Xing'an Water Street tracing its 2000 years' history. In the afternoon,we are biking through quiet country road along peaceful reservoirs before challenged by some short climbs. The 6km climb is not a big problem to our powerful electronic bikes and they are also available to be skipped while tour desinging or with the help of our supporting team.
The huge underground river tunnel cave and less-visited village is the highlight for today. The water cave looks like a huge rocky bridge and it was named as the 'Natural Bridge' by local people, it is one of the biggest Karst landform tunnel caves in Asia. Not well-known online but 100% recommended. Spend an hour staying and exploring there before driving back to Xing'an (for more comfortable rooms and better dinner) and communicate with the local farmers.
Meal: B,L,D
Guilin is a beautiful region where countless limestone hills lives, cycling through the undulating back roads. The northern part of Guilin looks a little different to the south, more canals, valleys, brooks and reservoirs makes our biking memorable. Move by pedaling gradually into the south and the well-known Li River banks. The bike path along the Li River will lead us to our hotel, and a visit of Daxu Ancient Town and rice wine factory visit is available before saying goodbye to our big luggage, the guide and car will see you again in 2 days after today.
The distance today is around 60KM cycling along the bike way along Li River and finally arrive the Caoping town for overnight - where one of the best inner Karst Cave visit is available as an option .On the way to our hotel, corn, sweet potato, green union and all kinds of food are easily to be found. It is the real life of countryside of Guilin. Please don’t mind if some of the road today is affected by some cars as they need to transfer fruit and crops between Guilin and the farmland areas.
Meal: B,L,D
An challenging 1.5 km steep uphill takes us to the mountain top where the panoramic view of Li River and the small town we stay last night can be seen, a local boat transit to the other side of the river gives us better scenery and cycling opportunity along the Li river all the way to Yangdi town - half way town for the well-known Li River cruise.
Biking deep into the mountain area full of wonderful Karst landforms, we will finally see the back garden of Yangshuo – the Yulong River and enjoy splendid scenery, leisure cycling and all types of amusement for tourists there. Yangshuo is an interesting place full of things to do, we can stop our cycling anytime and transfer to our hotel if your tour is a guided/half-guided one. The light show about LiuSanJie (local finsherman singer) in the evening is highly recommended after our dinner in the West Street, book it one day ahead with us if you want to see.
Meal: B,L,D
Guilin is the most beautiful part of the world and Yangshuo is even prettier’ .For thousands of years, poetries were written like that. The whole province of Guangxi (including Guilin and Yangshuo) were regarded as the ‘real south’ for the less ambitious local kings or royal brothers who were exiled by the only ‘rightful’ emperor in ancient China’s feudal society. The area is still being regarded as one of the best place to spend the rest of life after retirement in China nowadays. We will bike one more day to explore the local rural lives and the views never tired of seeing, tasting traditional local snacks and food, before finishing the memorable bike tour together with GCT.
Meal: B,L,D
A car drive for 1.5 hour takes us to the well-known Longji Rice Terraces, where more than 2 popular villages (Jinkeng and Ping’an) are worth walking around. Avoiding Jinkeng where local Chinese tourists are crowded and choose the latter most crowded will be an wise choice. The multi-skilled English speaking driver guide shall escorted us to the quiet village at the foot of the mountain and start our hike there. The hike lead us seeing more natural lives and plantation, a visit in the local museum helps us knowing better when the local people started living there and how the rice terraces were created. Best photo opportunity are all along the way, and the amazing scenery on the top and the well-cooked dinner will wash away our exhaustions.
Meal: B,L,D
What's included
2020 - 2021 Price (based on twin-beds rooms and non-holiday dates)
P.S Popular Holidays in China: Qingming (Early April), National Holiday (First Week of Oct.), rooms price in some areas during Chinese school summer vactions will be doubled or tripled. (July).
$1250 p.p ( 1 people Half - supported by van/guide ) / $980 ( 2 people Mostly - supported )
Single Room Supplement: $130
* 6 nights' accommodation,
* Airport pick-up to hotel on Day1,
* Luggage transfers * 2-3 times during cycling days,
* Local professional English speaking guide(s),
* Bike hire (MTB / Hybird Bike - Flat Bar), optional E-bike = extra CNY150 per day,
* Helmet, (recommended to bring your own when the tour is over 5 days),
* Most meals (see trip notes for details),
* Simple snacks and mineral water during cycling days.
*Please note that obtaining your own travel insurance is required in order to participate on this biking tour. It will need to include a minimum coverage of medical expenses with emergency evacuation, personal liability and accident insurance. Our biking leader will need to see a copy of your insurance at the group meeting on the first day. We reserve the right to refuse you if you do not carry such an insurance policy.
