Things to do in Baoshan
And where to stay, the best time to visit, what a day costs, and the traps to skip.
Best time to visit Baoshan
• a note or something on ✦ an occasion worth the trip
Late October to early December is the best window, with the ginkgo peak from mid November to early December.
Spring is mild with flowers and building waterfall flow, and is the other best season.
May Day holiday from 1 to 5 May brings a crowd spike to avoid if you can.
The rainy season: lush and cool, best waterfalls and wild mushrooms, but balloons, views and mountain roads are unreliable.
Rain tails off through September and October improves fast, but 1 to 7 October Golden Week is the maximum crowd anti event.
Winter is mild, dry, sunny and quiet, the hot spring season in spirit, with coffee harvest experiences in Lujiangba.
The Lujiangba coffee harvest runs roughly October to February, when pick to cup estate experiences operate.
What's on
- Ginkgo Season, Jiangdong Village mid-November to early December
The prefecture's great seasonal spectacle, when the whole ginkgo village turns gold.
- Chinese New Year in Heshun late January or February, varies by year
The overseas Chinese hometown fills with returning families and the ancient town is at its most lived in.
- Xinzhai Coffee Culture Activities harvest season, dates vary by year
Coffee festivals, brewing competitions and forums in China's first coffee village, confirmed locally each year.
- Dai Water Splashing Festival, border counties around mid-April
Locally kept celebrations in the prefecture's Dai communities, with dates and access confirmed through a local hotel.
Best things to do in Baoshan
Rehai Scenic Area
A steaming volcanic valley of more than 80 springs, walked on a circular trail and finished with a proper hot spring soak.
Heshun Ancient Town
A lived in caravan town of clan halls, a famous library and lotus ponds, best when you sleep inside it for a few days.
Tengchong National Cemetery
Hillside rows of Expeditionary Force graves and a serious war museum that explain the Burma Road and this whole borderland.
Yinxing Village
A farming village inside an ancient ginkgo forest that turns entirely gold for about three weeks each late autumn.
Dieshuihe Waterfall
A waterfall over a volcanic lava lip essentially inside Tengchong city, an easy one hour sight that pairs with the cemetery.
Taibao Mountain Forest Park
Baoshan city's own forested hill park, with city views and the Ming rooted Wuhou Temple to Zhuge Liang among old trees.
Qinghuahai Wetland Park
Baoshan city's restored wetland front room, all boardwalks, birds and sunset walks, best if you are based in the city.
Wofo Temple
A quiet reclining Buddha temple among old trees in the hills north of Baoshan city, worth the short drive if you have a car.
Where to stay in Baoshan
Heshun Ancient Town
first Tengchong visit, couples, slow travel
You sleep inside the sight itself, with dawn and dusk lanes, a seven day ticket and the morning market on your doorstep.
Mayu Valley
luxury hot spring resort stays
The prefecture's international resorts sit here, with private in room springs and large shared pool complexes.
Tengchong city
drivers, groups and practical touring
Cheaper full service hotels, easy taxis and the shortest starts for the volcano, wetland and Gaoligong loops.
Baoshan city, Longyang District
transit nights, business and coffee days
Good domestic hotels by Taibao Park and Qinghuahai, right for flights and Lujiangba, wrong as a Tengchong base.
Think twice about
- Tengchong airport and industrial edge
Fine for a transit night but desolate for a holiday, with nothing walkable and every sight a drive away.
- Highway lodging sold as Heshun outside the ancient town gates
You lose the dawn and dusk ancient town, which is the entire point of basing there, and may still be sold the town ticket.
- Baoshan city as a base for Tengchong sightseeing
About two hours each way by road to sights that Heshun guests walk to, so the transfer eats the trip.
Best restaurants in Baoshan
HUAJIE SIFANGCAI
A private house kitchen in old Heshun serving generous set dinners of ten dishes, chicken soup and rose wine.
Cun Da Guan Private Cuisine
Tengchong's other private kitchen, a seasonal Yunnan house menu for celebration dinners, priced before you sit down.
Niuniujia Copper Pot Beef
Fresh sliced beef poached in a clear broth in a copper pot, the group dinner Heshun innkeepers steer their own guests to.
Sanshi Tangwang Wild Mushroom Restaurant
A wild mushroom hotpot specialist that only earns its pilgrimage in the summer mushroom season, fully cooked and ordered carefully.
Mother's Taste Tengchong Cuisine
Home style Tengchong cooking in Heshun, the erkuai, sour hot fish and cured meats canon without any performance.
Da Di Cha Hai Restaurant
A Yunnan kitchen set in forest greenery outside the centre, built for a long group lunch on a driving day.
Mingji Roast Meat Rice Noodles
A viral local snack shop for roast meat rice noodle soup, queued for by Tengchong people at breakfast prices.
You Fen Restaurant
A cheap local table for hot pea flour and erkuai, and the place to order Dajiujia, Tengchong's signature wok dish.
Best coffee in Baoshan
Huke Coffee Estate
A named estate in China's first coffee village, for a cup of Baoshan small bean arabica where it was picked.
Outdoor things to do in Baoshan
Tengchong Volcanic and Geothermal National Geopark
Climb Dakongshan and walk a perfect crater rim, and treat the weather dependent balloon as a bonus, never the plan.
Beihai Wetland
A volcanic lake that floats on thick grass rafts you can pole across, with boardwalks, boats and serious birdlife.
Baihualing
The Baoshan side Gaoligong trail: forest, a waterfall, a wild hot spring, and a famous village base for bird photography.
Five Creeks
A mostly flat Tengchong side Gaoligong walk of streams and waterfalls, past cliffs hung with wild honeycombs.
Yunfeng Mountain Scenic Area
A granite spire climbed by a near vertical cloud ladder to a Taoist summit temple above the whole Tengchong basin.
Dongshan Grassland
Easy high meadows above Tengchong city for ridge walks and basin views, the gentlest outdoor afternoon around.
Heiyu River
A river cut through lava country, with hexagonal basalt columns standing like organ pipes above the water.
Tengchong Gaoligong International Golf Club
An 18 hole Tengchong course named in listings and tour products, with no verified visitor play, so confirm before relying on it.
Best hotels in Baoshan
Bolian Resort & Spa Heshun
The established luxury courtyard resort and spa in the Heshun orbit, for soaking and dawn walks in the ancient town.
Daoxiang Light Luxury View Inn
A renovated courtyard inn at the edge of Heshun near parking, with noodle breakfasts and an owner who maps the town for you.
Banyan Tree Tengchong
Private villas in Mayu Valley, each with its own hot spring pool, plus guest access to the Angsana spring complex.
Angsana Tengchong
A large hot spring village of indoor and outdoor pools in Mayu Valley, livelier and more sociable than its luxury sibling.
Tengchong Yuebo Banshan Hot Spring Resort
The best surfaced of Tengchong's domestic hot spring resorts, with strong design and breakfast reviews at mid prices.
Guanfang Hotel, Tengchong
Tengchong city's established full service hotel, the practical base for drivers doing the volcano and wetland loops daily.
Guanfang Hotel, Baoshan
Baoshan city's dependable value hotel, older but clean and spacious, with a breakfast reviewers consistently praise.
Baoshan Longyang District Hengbang Building Atour Hotel
The modern chain option by Taibao Park in Baoshan city, with new rooms, but ask for a quiet room away from the square.
Is Baoshan expensive? What a day costs
| Budget | CN¥250 a person |
|---|---|
| Classic | CN¥550 a person |
| Splurge | CN¥1,800 a person |
A day of food, drink, sights and getting around, before the room
What to book ahead
- Baihualing: a few days ahead
- Five Creeks: a few days ahead
- Tengchong Gaoligong International Golf Club: weeks ahead
- Xinzhai Village: a few days ahead
- Songshan Battle Memorial Hall: a few days ahead
- Bolian Resort & Spa Heshun: weeks ahead
- Banyan Tree Tengchong: weeks ahead
- Angsana Tengchong: weeks ahead
- Book Heshun inns and Mayu Valley resorts ahead for public holidays and the mid November to early December ginkgo window.
- Arrange Gaoligong guides and Songshan or Lujiangba drivers days ahead, and remember the hiking permit itself is free.
- Price Banyan Tree and Angsana rates for your actual dates, because they swing hard between promotion and peak.
Is Baoshan safe?
- Stay on the boardwalks at Rehai, where water beside the path can be near boiling and the crust thin.
- Eat wild mushrooms only in established restaurants, fully cooked, and never self picked or from a roadside bag.
- Let local guides cancel Gaoligong and Songshan days in heavy rainy season weather, when mountain roads carry landslip risk.
- Carry your passport for highway checkpoints near the Myanmar border, and never carry anything across a border area for anyone else.
Baoshan travel tips: tourist traps to skip
- Never bet on uncut jadeite, and buy amber, Nanhong or jadeite only as finished pieces you love, with independent testing for anything significant.
- The interior of Cun Ancestral Hall in Heshun is largely a jade sales floor, so admire the architecture and keep your own schedule.
- The volcano balloon costs about 300 yuan for minutes in the air and flies only on calm mornings, so never build a day on it.
- Ginkgo Village outside its three week gold window is a pleasant village, not the spectacle drivers may sell it as.
Getting around Baoshan: public transport and more
- Fly into Tengchong Tuofeng Airport for a Tengchong holiday and Baoshan Yunduan Airport only for Baoshan city or coffee days.
- Tengchong has no passenger railway at all, and Baoshan city to Tengchong is about two hours by expressway road.
- Cluster Tengchong sights by loop and charter a car by the day through your hotel, because the sights are 10 to 50 km apart.
- Walk Heshun itself, and carry cash as well as phone payment because there is no ATM inside the ancient town.
Who Baoshan suits
| Solo travellers | Good |
|---|---|
| Groups of friends | Good |
| Couples | Great |
| Bachelor parties | Not ideal |
| Families | Good |
| Bachelorette parties | OK |
Make Baoshan your trip
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