Ranked by popularity — out to see the real thing
Ordered by how popular they are, with an honest note on which is half a day, a full day or an overnight, and whether it fits one or two spare days.
1
If you do only one thing in Guilin, make it the Li River cruise. This is the picture that makes people want to come here in the first place — a tourist boat leaves a pier south of the city and sails downstream past roughly 83 kilometres of karst peaks, water buffalo on the banks, bamboo groves and fishermen on rafts, finishing at Yangshuo pier. The whole cruise runs about 4–5 hours.
The highlight comes near Xingping (兴坪), which is the actual scene on the back of the ¥20 note. Four-star boats leave around 9.20 am with a buffet on board. If you're flying straight into Yangshuo or short on time, you can instead take a motorised bamboo raft on the Yangdi–Xingping stretch (~50 minutes) — the most beautiful part of the river. Read our full Li River cruise guide on choosing a pier and a boat class.
2
If the Li River is the water side, Longji is the mountain side — terraced fields that curve in tiers along the ridges like the backbone of a dragon (hence the name 龙脊, Longji), in Longsheng county north of Guilin. Around the fields are villages of the Zhuang and Red Yao people, still farming the mountain the way they always have.
There are two main zones — Ping'an (平安), a Zhuang village with the classic view and walkable lookouts, and Jinkeng/Dazhai (金坑/大寨) of the Yao, which has a cable car up to the highest viewpoint. The terraces change with the seasons — flooded in early season they become mirrors of the sky, lush green in summer, and gold at harvest in September and October, when they are at their finest. Read our Longji rice terraces guide on choosing a village and a season.
3
Take a ¥20 note out and look at the back — that bend of river and those peaks are right here at Xingping, an old riverside town in Yangshuo county and the oldest, most traditional settlement on the Li River. Old stone streets, weathered timber houses, tea shops and a little pier.
The ¥20-note viewpoint is about a 20-minute walk from Xingping pier and is free to enter. For a 180-degree panorama of the river bend, climb Laozhai Hill (老寨山) — over 1,100 steps to the lookout at the top — or take a short bamboo raft from Xingping to Nine Horses Mural Hill (九马画山), about 50 minutes. Honestly, this is quieter and more atmospheric than West Street in central Yangshuo, and it's the better pick if you want to dodge the crowds. Read our Xingping guide for more.
This one is unexpectedly fun — the Gudong Forest Waterfalls are a multi-tier series of falls fed by underground springs, tumbling down in steps through green forest, and they're built so you can actually climb up the waterfall itself, not just stand and look. There are chains to grip and footholds cut along the way, and rain capes and grippy shoes are provided at the falls. If you like wading in cold water you'll love it.
It's only about 25 kilometres from Guilin, a half-day trip that's ideal on a hot day, because climbing the falls leaves you cool and soaked through. Fit older kids and adults manage it easily, but if you'd rather stay dry there's a stair path alongside for watching without getting wet.
If you've already seen Reed Flute Cave in the city and want one that's more fun than a plain walk, Crown Cave is the answer. It sits on the Li River in Caoping township, about 37 kilometres south of Guilin on the way to Yangshuo, and it's a big limestone cave fitted out with a sightseeing lift, an electric tram and a boat on its underground river — so you cover it without much climbing.
One thing to note: the Li River cruise passes Crown Cave but doesn't stop, so to go inside you take the Guilin–Crown Cave bus yourself; the first one leaves at 7.30 am. It's a cool, easy half-day, and it pairs neatly with Gudong Waterfall on the same road — you can do both in a day.
This is a small Red Yao village where the women across the whole village grow their hair to waist or floor length, and which holds a 2002 Guinness World Record as the village with the longest-haired women in the world — more than 80 of them with hair over 1.4 metres, the longest reaching 2.1 metres. In Yao belief, long hair means longevity and prosperity; the women cut their hair only twice in a lifetime, and wash it with fermented rice water and mountain herbs.
The village sits at the entrance to the Longji rice-terraces area, about 55 kilometres from Guilin, so it's usually visited together with the terraces on the same trip. The highlight is the hair-combing performance showing Yao customs — most of the time the women wear their hair up, so you only see it down during the show, which mixes singing, dancing and a wedding-custom act the audience joins in with.