Guilin and Yangshuo: the Li River Cruise and 3-4 Days (2026)

Sleep at least one night in Yangshuo. The Li River cruise is one way, from the piers outside Guilin down to Yangshuo, and the evening and the next morning are when the town is at its best. Plan three or four days in all, with Guilin before the cruise and Yangshuo after it; the train back to Guilin takes 20 minutes.

Book the cruise before anything else. Tickets are sold online in your own name through the scenic area’s WeChat account, Li River Ticket Office, and on 1 October 2026 the scenic area warned that the piers sell almost no same-day tickets, only the odd return. The river itself decides much of the timetable: high water shut the cruise twice in July 2026, and in a dry winter the route can be cut short.

The Li River cruise: piers, boats and booking

The classic cruise runs about 61 km from Mopanshan pier, under 30 km from central Guilin, to Longtoushan pier in Yangshuo, and takes about four hours. Three-star boats leave from Mopanshan and four-star boats from Zhujiang pier. Both have two decks with a viewing deck on top; three-star boats serve set meals, four-star boats a Chinese and Western buffet, and there’s a five-star class above them. Along the way you pass Nine Horse Fresco Hill and the stretch of river printed on the 20-yuan note.

In September 2018 the regional price bureau cut the cruise fare to ¥215 (about $32 or £24) for a three-star boat and ¥360 (about $54 or £41) for a four-star. At the 2018 cruise fare, and with a second-class seat on the 20-minute train back from Yangshuo to Guilin West at ¥26-32, a day on a three-star boat comes to ¥241-247 (about $36-37, £27-28 or €32-33) a person. The scenic area’s own website doesn’t list fares and sends buyers to its WeChat account, so check the current price there when you book. For the National Day holiday in 2026, cruise tickets went on sale 15 days ahead and bamboo rafts seven days ahead, and the account releases any remaining tickets at 11:00 and 16:00 each day. Bring the passport you booked with to the pier.

When the river sets the timetable

The Li is a rain-fed river, and its level decides what sails. In July 2026 high water closed the main cruise route from the afternoon of 6 July to the morning of 8 July, and again, on the orders of the Guilin Maritime Safety Administration, from 21 to 22 July. At the other extreme, September to March is the low-water season; in a dry January in 2018 the main cruise was cut to a 20 km round trip from Yangdi past Nine Horse Fresco Hill, at a lower fare. If your dates fall in either season, check the scenic area’s notices a few days before you go.

Xingping and the view on the 20-yuan note

The view on the back of the 20-yuan note is on the Li near Xingping, and holding a note up against the real thing is the classic photo. The scenic area’s short boat trip from Xingping old town to a riverside fishing village stops at the spot, and its rafts between Yangdi pier and Chaobanshan pier in Xingping pass it too. Those rafts are electric, and they’re the slower, closer way to see this stretch, one way or return.

Yangshuo: West Street, the Yulong River and breakfast noodles

Yangshuo’s old centre is small. West Street runs through the middle of it for about 500 metres, paved with slate worn smooth, and lined with shops and food stalls, with karst peaks standing over the rooftops at its end.

The Yulong River, in the countryside around the town, is the place for a bamboo raft: a boatman punts you downstream with a long pole, between rice fields and karst. It’s the pick if the Li has felt busy.

Start the day the way Yangshuo does, with a bowl of rice noodles or a cup of oil tea. Rice noodles are the everyday meal of the whole Guilin area, eaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A day in Guilin itself

Elephant Trunk Hill, the rock arch that has become Guilin’s emblem, has been free since Chinese New Year’s Eve in 2022; you book in advance, and the daily cap was set at 26,000 when it opened free. It sits on the Li in the city centre, so it pairs easily with an evening walk.

The Two Rivers and Four Lakes waterway, opened in June 2002, links the Li and Taohua rivers with four lakes in the city. The Sun and Moon pagodas stand in Shanhu Lake, and they’re at their best lit up after dark.

Reed Flute Cave is a karst cave of stalactites, stalagmites and stone pillars, lit in strong colours. It makes a good rainy-day plan, and the karst country outside is the reason UNESCO added Guilin to the South China Karst World Heritage Site in 2014.

Fast trains to Guilin and Yangshuo

Yangshuo has its own high-speed station, and Guilin has three: Guilin, Guilin North and Guilin West. That matters, because you can skip Guilin on the way in and go straight to Yangshuo. The figures below are for Tuesday 13 October 2026, as 12306 showed them on 6 October.

From Guangzhou South, 30 trains ran to Yangshuo that day, the quickest in 1 hour 50 minutes, at ¥127-191 (about $19-28) in second class; another 64 ran to the Guilin stations, from 2 hours 4 minutes. Three direct trains left Hong Kong West Kowloon for Guilin West, taking about three hours for ¥415-450 (about $62-67). From Chongqing the quickest took 3 hours 43 minutes (¥321), from Chengdu 4 hours 58 minutes (¥482). Shanghai Hongqiao and Beijing West are a full day away, at 7 hours 18 minutes (¥760.5) and just under eight hours (¥949-951.5). Between Guilin and Yangshuo there were 28 trains, the quickest taking 20 minutes for ¥25-40.

Booking on 12306 or Trip.com works with a foreign passport, and the Hong Kong trains make Guilin an easy first stop from there.

Guilin Liangjiang International Airport is a port for the 240-hour visa-free transit, which needs a confirmed onward ticket to a third country or region, and Guilin is among the 12 Guangxi cities in its permitted area; our China visa page has the details. The cruise tickets are sold inside WeChat, so you’ll need WeChat Pay working with your own card before you can book.

Wet springs, dry autumns

Guilin’s weather and the river pull in opposite directions. April to June are the wettest months, with 263-334 mm of rain and rain on 17-21 days a month, and summer floods, as in July 2026, can stop the boats. September to November bring far less rain, 72-93 mm on 9-10 days, with highs of 30.6°C in September, 25.6°C in October and 20.0°C in November; they’re also the start of the low-water season. July and August are hot, with highs around 33°C, and January is mild, at 11.9°C by day and 5.2°C at night. October is the best balance for a first trip, as long as you check the cruise notices before you travel.

Nights in Guilin, nights in Yangshuo

Split the stay. Sleep in central Guilin the night before the cruise: it’s nearer the piers, and Elephant Trunk Hill and the lakes are on the doorstep for the evening before. The scenic area lists a morning shuttle bus from Guilin railway station and the centre, via Shizi Street and Sanlidian Square, to Zhujiang and Mopanshan piers, with six departures between 7:00 and 10:30 from the start of its route; the day’s times are in its WeChat account, and a taxi or Didi, set up through China’s travel apps, is the fallback. Then move to Yangshuo, where the boat drops you, for the remaining nights: in the town for West Street and the station, or out along the Yulong River to wake up among the fields, at the cost of a ride into town.