‘AAAAA’ places<\/strong>: This is something I learnt from the wife during our last trip. I didn’t know that China had its own tourist attraction rating system that’s separate from UNESCO, and it apparently measures the overall visitor experience, not just the grandeur of the scenery. Last year, we visited six: Lijiang Old Town (beautiful!), Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (stunning), Tiger Leaping Gorge (so-so), Pudacuo National Park (disappointing), Daocheng Yading (stunning), and Siguniang Mountain (stunning). Compared to this December’s trip, there should be nine: Detian Waterfall, Mingshi Scenic Area, Xiaoqikong, Daqikong, Mt. Fanjingshan, Three Natural Bridges, Fairy Mountain, Longshuixia Gorge, and Furong Cave.<\/p>\n Driving distances<\/strong>: Guangxi-Guizhou-Chongqing will see us on the road significantly less! The approximate road distance we’ll cover is around 1,700km across the first 14 days. In comparison, we covered around 2,750km last December. One big reason is that two of the longest inter-city transfers are replaced by rail travel (Nanning => Libo, and Tongren => Wulong). By comparison, last December we took a high-speed train from Kunming, where we flew into, to Dali. From there, it was by car all the way until Day 14.<\/p>\n Weather<\/strong>: Compared to the Yunnan-Western Sichuan trip, this December 2026 itinerary offers noticeably milder and, hopefully, more comfortable winter weather. While the previous trip involved several days of sub-zero temperatures and high-altitude travel above 3,500 metres, this route stays mostly between 5\u00b0C and 20\u00b0C, with colder conditions likely limited to Fanjingshan and Fairy Mountain. The lower elevations overall and more stable weather should also make for a less physically demanding journey. No daily intake of altitude sickness medication, and no hauling around a huge Decathlon bag full of oxygen canisters that we had to totally discard before boarding the train from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou on Day 15.<\/p>\n Droning<\/strong>: The Yunnan-Western Sichuan trip offered numerous drone photography opportunities, and aside from the technical challenges of flying at high altitudes and the frequent loss of signal between the drone and controller, the footage I captured was dramatic, with expansive alpine landscapes and snow-capped mountains. The Guangxi-Guizhou-Chongqing scenery is very different: it combines karst landscapes, rivers, traditional villages and sandstone gorges – offering a much broader range of aerial perspectives. The generally lower elevations and milder winter temperatures should also make flying conditions more comfortable, though from what I’ve read so far, the areas are also more restrictive when it comes to drone flying. So, that’s something to discuss with our local guide and check against the regulations when the time comes!<\/p>\n Accommodation changes<\/strong>: Last year’s trip was brutal in this regard. We stayed at 11 places across 21 days, including nine different places in the first 14 days – with several being just one-night stops. That added significantly to the physical strain, on top of the already long driving distances and high altitudes we faced almost every day. This coming trip will see us staying at just seven places across 16 days, and none will be one-night stays. Hooray!<\/p>\n General ease<\/strong>: Finally, another thing that really stressed us out last year was having to camp on Trip.com to secure the train tickets we wanted for various legs of the trip – for example, from Kunming to Dali, Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou and back, as well as coordinating all the hotel-to-station transfers. This time, we’re outsourcing all these arrangements to Windhorse Tour. So, the only ride (outside the sightseeing in Chongqing that we’re doing on our own on Days 15 and 16) that we’ll need to arrange ourselves should just be our transfer from our Chongqing hotel to the airport on Day 16. Even then, we’re only flying out in the early evening, so there’ll be none of the stress we had last December of making our way to the airport before dawn to catch our morning flight from Chengdu back to Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I thought – for journaling’s sake – it’d be fun to do a comparison between this upcoming Guangxi\u2013Guizhou\u2013Chongqing trip and last year’s Yunnan\u2013Western Sichuan trip. Again, because I like data and peering at spreadsheets! \ud83d\ude05 Scenery: This is where I<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/blog-2025-yunnan-day-04-DSC00994.jpg\")