- 🥾 Difficulty 3 / 5
- 📍 highest night 3,200 m
- 🚗 Driver 6 days
- ✈️ 2 domestic flights
- 🛂 mainland → Hong Kong
- 🎶 Nightlife strong front and back
- 🎶 Festival on day 19
- 💶 €2,250–2,650 pp
- In: Chongqing · Out: Hong Kong
- Emeishan or glacier?
- Day by day
- Map
- Hiking & viewpoints
- Off the beaten path
- Nightlife
- Transport
- Border check
- Practicalities & cost
- Sources
The character of this route
This is the answer to "highlights yes, altitude grind no". Western Sichuan comes as a loop out of and back to Chengdu, not a traverse. That removes the entire plateau section – Litang at 4,014 m, Yading, the passes above 4,600 m. What remains are the three places that are not negotiable: Siguniangshan, the watchtowers of Danba and the Hailuogou glacier.
And Hailuogou is what this variant really gains: the glacier terminates at 2,850 metres – the lowest-lying maritime glacier in China. You get a glacier snout and a view of a 7,556-metre peak without sleeping a single night above 3,200 metres. Nowhere else in China offers that.
The second half is the short, dense Yunnan block: two nights in Shangri-La, one night in Tiger Leaping Gorge, three nights in Dali at 1,970 metres to wind down. Then you fly from Dali straight to the south coast and land in Hong Kong exactly in time for festival Saturday.
📊 The route in numbers
- Stops
- 10 (Chongqing, Chengdu, Rilong, Danba, Moxi, Shangri-La, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Dali, Shenzhen, Hong Kong)
- Highest night
- 3,200 m (Rilong and Shangri-La)
- Highest point at all
- 4,487 m Balang Shan pass, by car, optional
- Driver
- 6 days as a loop, no return surcharge
- Road kilometres
- approx. 1,100 km with a driver
- Total ascent
- approx. 2,800 m – the lowest figure of all eight routes
- Domestic flights
- 2, both justified
🎶 Festival on day 19 – and unusually convenient here
Day 19 is Saturday 14 Nov, when Shi Fu Miz runs at the Tai Tong Organic EcoPark. That sits in Yuen Long, the north-western New Territories – the corner of Hong Kong closest to Shenzhen. From your hotel in Shenzhen this is the shortest festival approach of all eight routes. Details and tickets in Route 4.
🔀 How this differs from Route 7
Both start in Chongqing and cross western Sichuan into Yunnan. Route 7 turns that into an overland traverse via Litang and Yading: six nights above 3,000 m, two of them at 4,014 m, eleven days with a driver, ending in Kunming, no festival. Route 8 inverts it: western Sichuan as a loop with only one night at 3,200 m, the glacier instead of the plateau, two short flights instead of four driving days – and in return Hong Kong, the festival and three nights in Dali. Want the plateau, take 7. Want the highlights without the altitude hangover, take 8.
Your question
Emeishan or the Hailuogou glacier?
Clear answer: Hailuogou. Not because Emeishan is worse, but because the two sit at completely different points of the trip – and only one of them fits the time budget you set.
✅ Hailuogou – fits perfectly, right inside the western Sichuan block
Moxi, the town at the park gate, sits at 1,600 m, the upper viewing platform at 3,600 m, the glacier snout at 2,850 m. That makes Hailuogou the only place in western Sichuan where you see a glacier and a 7,556-metre peak without sleeping at altitude – the opposite of Yading. For your brief of "less above 4,000 m" it is the single best fit in the region.
It also sits on the way back: the western Sichuan small loop runs Chengdu → Siguniangshan → Danba → Kangding → Moxi → Luding → Ya'an → Chengdu. So Hailuogou is not a detour, it is the last third of the loop.
On its status, because the web often gets this wrong: the area was closed for more than a year after the Luding earthquake of September 2022 and reopened on 12 December 2023 with newly built infrastructure. The cable cars to the glacier viewpoints are running. That is documented via Xinhua, not hearsay.
⚠️ Emeishan – excellent, but the wrong direction on this trip
Mount Emei lies south of Chengdu, 1.5 hours by rail, on the line towards Kunming. So it pays off precisely when you continue from Chengdu overland into Yunnan – then it is a free stopover. On this route, however, we fly from Chengdu to Shangri-La, which turns Emeishan into a pure two-day side trip.
The arithmetic that rules it out: your frame is 20 days. Chongqing 3 nights, Chengdu 2, western Sichuan 6 days, Shangri-La 2, gorge 1, Dali 3 – that is 18 days gone, leaving exactly 2 for Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Emeishan costs 2 additional days. They would have to come out of Dali or out of Hong Kong – and cutting Hong Kong would lose festival Saturday.
Where Emeishan really belongs: in Route 1, where the full pilgrim path to the Golden Summit at 3,079 m gets two whole days with a monastery night. If you want Emeishan in this route, the only honest way is to cut Dali to one night and western Sichuan to four days – which drops Siguniangshan. That is a bad trade, so it is not in the plan.
🔎 What got cut above 4,000 m – and what deliberately stayed
- Out: Litang (4,014 m) and Yading (4,700 m). That is the core of Route 7 and right where it belongs – here it would break your brief.
- Out: the Dafeng summit, 5,025 m. From Siguniangshan the valleys stay, the summit goes. That costs one summit entry and saves three acclimatisation days.
- Out: the Haba high camp at 4,100 m from Route 6. Tiger Leaping Gorge delivers the same landscape between 1,800 and 2,670 m.
- Kept: the Balang Shan pass, 4,487 m. Twenty minutes in the car, no exertion, and the best view of the entire massif. There is a tunnel at around 3,850 m as a fallback – decided on the morning of day 6, depending on how heads feel.
- Kept: Shangri-La, 3,200 m. It is the one genuine altitude point of the second half, and it arrives by plane. See the warning at day 12.
20 days
Day by day
27 October to 15 November 2026. Halloween falls on day 5 in Chengdu, festival Saturday on day 19 in Hong Kong. The whole trip sits between the two.
| Day | Date | Place | Activity | Overnight | Transport |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tue 27 Oct | Chongqing | Arrival, 250 m. In the evening 📍 Hongyadong and the Jialing riverfront. Plan nothing, jet lag wins. | Chongqing | Flight arrival |
| 2 | Wed 28 Oct | Chongqing | 🧭 The vertical city on foot: Liziba, where the metro runs through a residential block, the Shibati stairways, Eling Park above the peninsula, then the Yangtze cable car across the river. Hotpot and bars around Jiaochangkou at night. | Chongqing | Metro, cable car, on foot |
| 3 | Thu 29 Oct | Chongqing / Dazu | 📍 Day trip to the Dazu Rock Carvings, UNESCO World Heritage, about 1.5 hours out: thousands of sandstone figures, far quieter than any city attraction. If you prefer to stay: Nanshan and the view over both rivers. The third evening is Chongqing's best night out. | Chongqing | 🚄 + bus / driver |
| 4 | Fri 30 Oct | → Chengdu | 🚄 A short hop west. The afternoon is admin time: meet the driver, agree the route and the pass-or-tunnel question, buy kit, sort SIM and payment apps. In the evening 🎶 the Friday round in Jiuyanqiao and Yulin. | Chengdu | 🚄 approx. 1.5 h |
| 5 | Sat 31 Oct | Chengdu | Dujiangyan panda base, then the Renmin teahouse in the People's Park. 🎶🎶 Halloween Saturday – the biggest night out of the Chinese autumn, and the last for six days. Eat early, come home late. | Chengdu | Bus, metro |
| 6 | Sun 1 Nov | Chengdu → Rilong | 🚗 Through Wolong National Park to Balang Shan. If the road is dry, the old pass at 4,487 m – 📍 the best view of the entire Siguniangshan massif, twenty minutes, no need to get out. Otherwise the tunnel. Arrival in Rilong, 3,200 m: settle in, short walk, early night. | Rilong (3,200 m) | 🚗 driver, approx. 5 h |
| 7 | Mon 2 Nov | Changping valley → Danba | 🥾 Morning park shuttle into the Changping valley and along the boardwalk to Muluozi, up to around 3,400 m – flat, abandonable at any point, autumn colour and the north faces of all four sister peaks. Around midday 🚗 on via Xiaojin to Danba and down to 2,100 m. | Zhonglu (homestay) | 🥾 4 h + 🚗 approx. 3.5 h |
| 8 | Tue 3 Nov | Danba | 🧭 The rest day. In the morning 📍 Jiaju: Tibetan houses stacked above terraced fields. In the afternoon the loop between the watchtowers of Zhonglu, some over 700 years old, walnut harvest, food with the host family. Evening light on the towers above the Dadu valley. | Zhonglu (homestay) | On foot, short transfers |
| 9 | Wed 4 Nov | Danba → Moxi | 🚗 The loop's driving day: 143 km down to Kangding (2,560 m), lunch, then on via Luding to Moxi at 1,600 m. Views of the Gongga range along the way. Hot springs in the evening if the hotel has them. | Moxi (1,600 m) | 🚗 driver, approx. 6 h |
| 10 | Thu 5 Nov | Hailuogou glacier | 🥾📍 Glacier day. Park bus into the valley, then the cable car up to the platform at around 3,600 m: icefall, glacier basin and the west face of Mount Gongga, 7,556 m. After that on foot along forest trails to the glacier snout at 2,850 m – the lowest-lying maritime glacier in China. Hot springs in the forest in the afternoon. | Moxi | Park bus, cable car, 🥾 4–5 h |
| 11 | Fri 6 Nov | Moxi → Chengdu | 🚗 Via Luding – suspension bridge, a piece of history – and Ya'an back to Chengdu. City in the afternoon: laundry, massage, a proper meal. In the evening 🎶 the second Chengdu round, and it is a Friday again. | Chengdu | 🚗 driver, approx. 6 h |
| 12 | Sat 7 Nov | ✈️ → Shangri-La | ✈️ Direct flight Chengdu → Shangri-La, around 1 hour 35. ⚠️ After that deliberately little: 3,200 m after eleven days in the lowlands is a real jump. Dukezong old town at walking pace, the great prayer wheel, drink a lot, no alcohol, early to bed. | Shangri-La (3,200 m) | ✈️ approx. 1.5 h |
| 13 | Sun 8 Nov | Shangri-La | 📍 Songzanlin, the largest Tibetan monastery in Yunnan, in the morning before the groups. In the afternoon the Napahai wetland, flat on foot or by rental bike: black-necked cranes winter there from November – mid-November is the start of the season, nothing is guaranteed. In the evening 🎶 old-town bars with live music. | Shangri-La | Bus, bicycle |
| 14 | Mon 9 Nov | High Trail, stage 1 | 🚗 Around 200 km down to Qiaotou, then 🥾📍 up onto the High Trail above Tiger Leaping Gorge. The 28 bends are the hard part: about 900 m of ascent in one go, up to 2,670 m. After that a balcony trail with a constant view of the north face of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Night at the Halfway Guesthouse with its terrace above the gorge. | Halfway Guesthouse | 🚗 3 h + 🥾 6 h |
| 15 | Tue 10 Nov | Stage 2 → Dali | 🥾📍 From Halfway across the open flank to Tina's, then the steep descent to Tiger Leaping Stone at the Yangtze – ladders, chains, loud rapids – and back up. Around midday 🚗 straight to Dali, 1,970 m. Old town and Bai cooking in the evening. | Dali | 🥾 5 h + 🚗 approx. 4 h |
| 16 | Wed 11 Nov | Cangshan | 🥾📍 The Jade Belt Road on Cangshan: cable car up to around 2,600 m, then some 11 km almost level along the eastern flank with a continuous view over Erhai Lake. The most beautiful trail of the trip that costs no effort. A hot bath and nothing at all in the evening. | Dali | Cable car, on foot |
| 17 | Thu 12 Nov | Erhai or Shaxi | 🚲 Option A: ride the eco-corridor along the eastern shore of Erhai to Xizhou, a Bai village with a market and indigo workshops, around 40 km and flat. 🧭 Option B: day trip to Shaxi, the best-preserved market town on the Tea Horse Road, 2.5 hours each way. Both good – A for movement, B for substance. | Dali | Bicycle or driver |
| 18 | Fri 13 Nov | ✈️ → Shenzhen | ✈️ Direct flight Dali → Shenzhen, around 2 hours 35 – the reason this route works without a detour via Kunming. In the evening 🎶 OIL in Chegongmiao, Futian: the region's most reliable club and the ideal warm-up, because Oil Soundsystem plays the festival the next day. | Shenzhen | ✈️ approx. 2.5 h |
| 19 | Sat 14 Nov | 🛂🎶 Hong Kong / Yuen Long | 🛂 Cross the border in the morning into the north-western New Territories – from Shenzhen the shortest approach Hong Kong allows. Then 🎶🎶 Shi Fu Miz Festival at the Tai Tong Organic EcoPark, Yuen Long, 12:00 to 04:00, four stages. Take a hotel in Yuen Long or Tsuen Wan on purpose, not on Hong Kong Island. | Yuen Long / Tsuen Wan | 🛂 border + bus, approx. 2 h |
| 20 | Sun 15 Nov | Hong Kong | Depending on condition: 🥾 Dragon's Back with a swim at Big Wave Bay, or dim sum in Sham Shui Po and the Star Ferry. Then Airport Express. Onward flight from Hong Kong as originally planned. | — | MTR, Airport Express |
Table scrolls sideways · 20 days, 27 Oct – 15 Nov 2026, no gaps.
📉 The altitude profile – flattest of all eight routes
Chongqing 250 m → Chengdu 500 m → Rilong 3,200 m (1 night) → Zhonglu 2,100 m → Moxi 1,600 m → Chengdu 500 m → Shangri-La 3,200 m (2 nights) → gorge 1,800–2,670 m → Dali 1,970 m → sea level. Two isolated altitude spikes with plenty of lowland between them, instead of a week continuously above 3,000 m as in Route 7.
⚠️ The one weak point: day 12
The flight takes you from 500 to 3,200 metres in 95 minutes. That is the fastest altitude gain of all eight routes and exactly the situation that produces headaches. Three countermeasures are built in: a morning flight, so the afternoon is free to rest; zero programme on day 12; and the night at 3,200 m in Rilong six days earlier, which helps at least a little. Anyone sensitive should push Songzanlin to the afternoon of day 13 and simply sleep in on day 12.
Geography
Map
The western Sichuan loop out of Chengdu, then the hop into northern Yunnan and the southern axis to the coast. The Amap button below marks every stop and works inside China too.
In China: the Amap link works behind the firewall. Google Maps is blocked on the mainland and OpenStreetMap is unreliable – background, app tips and offline maps.
🚗 Driving legs individually in Amap – with a drawn route
The button above only places markers, no line: Amap's marker endpoint shows up to ten points but no track between them. A drawn route comes from the navigation endpoint – which however only takes a start, an end and one waypoint. So here are the driving legs one by one:
- Chengdu → Rilong · approx. 5 h
- Rilong → Danba · approx. 3.5 h
- Danba → Kangding → Hailuogou · approx. 6 h
- Hailuogou → Chengdu · approx. 6 h
- Shangri-La → Tiger Leaping Gorge · approx. 3 h
- Tiger Leaping Gorge → Dali · approx. 4 h
Driver legs only. Rail and flight sections are deliberately missing – Amap would compute them as a car journey and show wrong times.
Note: the embedded map is an overview without a route line – OpenStreetMap embeds do not support waypoints. The two flight legs Chengdu → Shangri-La and Dali → Shenzhen are not contained in any of the map links.
The core programme
🥾 Hiking and viewpoints
Five walking days, one of them serious. No summit, no crampons, no altitude medication. The hardest single section is the 28 bends in Tiger Leaping Gorge.
Hailuogou: the glacier from below and above
Difficulty: low to moderate, altitude uncritical. Two perspectives in one day. The cable car takes you to a platform at around 3,600 m with a view of the icefall and the glacier basin; the west face of Mount Gongga (7,556 m) stands above it. After that forest trails and boardwalks lead to the glacier snout at 2,850 m.
Why this is special: Hailuogou is one of the lowest-lying maritime glaciers in the world, running some 14.7 km. You stand in conifer forest and twenty metres further the ice begins. That combination exists on none of the other seven routes.
Practicalities: the cable car is around RMB 150 per person on top of the park ticket. The park bus is compulsory, private cars cannot enter. In early November the forest is golden and there is snow up top – hat and gloves for the platform, in Moxi at 1,600 m you will not need them.
Tiger Leaping Gorge, High Trail
Difficulty: moderate to hard – the route's fitness test. Stage 1 opens with the 28 bends: about 900 m of ascent in one push up to 2,670 m. Muscularly demanding, but with no altitude problem and no exposure.
Stage 2 is shorter and prettier: a balcony trail to Tina's, then the descent via ladders and chains to Tiger Leaping Stone right at the Yangtze. 📍 The view from the open flank between Halfway and Tina's onto the north face of Jade Dragon is the strongest image of the Yunnan half.
Changping valley at Siguniangshan
Difficulty: low, shorten at will. Park shuttle to the trailhead, then boardwalks past waterfalls through conifer forest up to Muluozi at around 3,400 m. Comfortably done in half a day, flat in character, abandonable at any point.
📍 From the valley floor you see the north faces of all four sister peaks. Alternative for day 7: the neighbouring valley Shuangqiaogou, fully served by park bus and boardwalks – even less effort, but the upper stops sit at around 3,800 m. If anyone feels the altitude on the morning of day 7, take Changping; if you want to spare your legs, take Shuangqiaogou.
Cangshan, Jade Belt Road
Difficulty: low. The best recovery trail Yunnan has: cable car to around 2,600 m, then some 11 km almost level along the eastern flank of the range. Rock wall on your left, Erhai Lake and the old town of Dali 600 metres below on your right.
📍 Several built viewpoints, teahouses along the way, and you can get on or off at two different cable car stations – so you can walk just half of it. After the gorge that is exactly the right dose.
The Balang Shan pass
Views without the effort, 4,487 m. Since the tunnel was built almost nobody takes the old switchback road. Which is why it is worth it: empty hairpins, prayer flags, and 📍 the only spot from which you see the whole Siguniangshan massif at once. Only on a dry road – in November there can be ice up there, and that decision belongs to the driver, not to the trip plan.
Erhai by bike, Hong Kong at the end
Erhai: the eco-corridor along the eastern shore is a continuous car-free cycling and walking path. 40 km flat to Xizhou and back by bus, or simply two hours and a café.
Hong Kong, day 20: Dragon's Back, 8.5 km of ridge path with views of Shek O and the southern islands, then into the water at Big Wave Bay. After a festival night that ran until four, realistically the ambitious option – the honest one is dim sum in Sham Shui Po.
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Substance over sights
🧭 Off the beaten path
Watchtower homestay in Zhonglu
Some of the towers in the Dadu valley are more than 700 years old, and many families still live in the courtyards attached to them. Staying means a room upstairs, a stove in the kitchen, barley spirit with the host in the evening. Arranging it works essentially only through your driver or on the spot – online platforms do not know these houses. Two nights beat one here, because the first evening goes on settling in.
The hot springs of Hailuogou
Among Chinese visitors the park is almost as famous for its thermal springs as for its ice. Several pools sit in conifer forest at around 2,600 m, fed by springs at about 60 °C. After the glacier day in early November that is not a wellness cliché, it is the best decision of the day.
Dazu instead of downtown
On the third Chongqing day most people go up another observation tower. The Dazu Rock Carvings, by contrast, are UNESCO World Heritage, about 1.5 hours out, and show thousands of figures carved into sandstone between the 9th and 13th centuries – Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian in one site. On a Thursday in November it is quiet.
Shaxi instead of Lijiang
Two and a half hours north of Dali sits Shaxi, the best-preserved market town on the old Tea Horse Road: a cobbled square, a theatre, a temple, fields all around. Lijiang has the same substance but ten times the visitors. Experiencing Lijiang only as a transit point on this route costs you nothing – as long as Shaxi is in.
Xizhou and the workshops
The Bai village on the north-eastern shore of Erhai has a real market, old courtyards and several workshops for indigo tie-dye where you can join in. Ride out along the eco-corridor, take the bus back – the best half day Dali has to offer, and the cheapest.
Yuen Long instead of Central
Because the festival is in Yuen Long, we sleep in the north-west rather than on Hong Kong Island. That is no compromise: the area around Yuen Long and Tuen Mun has night markets, noodle shops and prices nobody on the island would believe – and after the festival it is twenty minutes to bed instead of an hour and a half.
Evenings
🎶 Nightlife on this route
This route has the best nightlife distribution of all eight: five city nights at the start including a Friday and Halloween Saturday, a club night in Shenzhen and the festival as a finale. Ten days of mountains in between – exactly right.
🎶 Shi Fu Miz Festival · Saturday 14 Nov 2026 · day 19
Four stages at the Tai Tong Organic EcoPark in Yuen Long, 12:00 to 04:00: house and disco on the meadow, techno on the Valley Stage until four, UK bass by the pond, ambient and open-air cinema to close. Date, venue and line-up are confirmed, tickets on sale. The site sits in the north-western New Territories – from Shenzhen the shortest approach of any route. Stages, line-up and ticket link in Route 4.
Source: Mixmag Asia, 15 Jun 2026, and shifumiz.com. Checked 30 Sep 2026.Chongqing 🎶 days 1–3
Three nights are right here, because the city works better at night than by day. The big rooms are around Jiefangbei and Guanyinqiao, heavy on EDM and volume. Smaller techno spaces can be found around Jiaochangkou.
How to spread it: Tuesday a beer by the river, Wednesday bars, Thursday the actual night out – Thursday is more reliable in big Chinese cities than you would think.
Chengdu 🎶 days 4–5 and day 11
Despite the closures of .TAG and AXIS in 2025, Chengdu remains the place with the densest scene in China; what shifted is the format, towards live houses and smaller rooms. NU SPACE on Kuixinglou Street, roughly 450 capacity, is the best known of the new generation.
The advantage of this route: you are in Chengdu twice – Friday and Halloween Saturday at the start, and again on day 11, which is also a Friday. Entry is usually RMB 60–120. Pull addresses two weeks out.
Shangri-La 🎶 days 12–13
No club, but old-town bars around Sifang Square in Dukezong: live music with guitar and Tibetan singing, barley spirit, open fire bowls. ⚠️ Not on day 12 though – at 3,200 m on arrival day alcohol is the worst idea of the trip. Day 13 is fine.
Dali 🎶 days 15–17
The old town has a loud bar street and, away from it, a small and surprisingly international scene of cafés, craft beer places and courtyards with live music – Dali has been the place where Chinese dropouts get stuck for years now. No techno, but three pleasant evenings.
Shenzhen 🎶 day 18
The route's most important club night: OIL in Chegongmiao, Futian District. Mixmag Asia describes it as one of the few clubs in Asia that last long enough to become a genuine reference point – in 2026 it celebrated its eighth year. That Oil Soundsystem plays the Dragon Stage at Shi Fu Miz the next day makes this the perfect warm-up. Entry RMB 80–150.
What it costs
- Chongqing / Chengdu
- entry RMB 60–120, beer RMB 40–60
- Shangri-La / Dali
- no entry fee, beer RMB 25–45
- Shenzhen OIL
- entry RMB 80–150
- Shi Fu Miz ticket
- the March 2026 edition started at HK$508, approx. €60
🔎 Last-minute check – two weeks before departure
Club programmes in China and Hong Kong cannot be planned far ahead. Venues close and open quickly, events are often announced only via WeChat. So no name guarantees, just the sources that help at short notice:
- Resident Advisor event calendar, filterable by Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Hong Kong
- Mixmag Asia for Greater China announcements
- Follow the venues' Instagram accounts directly – dates appear there first
- For Hong Kong also the secret warehouse series: the address only drops the day before
Logistics
🚗✈️ Transport analysis
This route deliberately accepts two domestic flights. Neither replaces a comfortable train ride – each replaces two to four full driving days, and that is exactly what creates the three nights in Dali and festival Saturday.
🚗 Driving yourself: no
China recognises neither German licences nor the international driving permit. For a rental car you would need a temporary Chinese driving permit plus a certified translation. On the western Sichuan loop there is a second argument: tight switchbacks on Balang Shan, truck traffic on the road to Luding, roadworks, and stretches of ice in November.
🚗 Six days with a driver as a loop – and why that is cheaper
Days 6 to 11 use the same car and driver – 包车, car plus driver. The usual rate is RMB 600–1,000 per day for the vehicle, roughly €75–130, split between two.
The decisive difference to Route 7: start and finish are both Chengdu. That removes the return surcharge of two to three daily rates that a one-way trip into Yunnan costs. Six loop days therefore come to roughly half the price of eleven traverse days – around €340 instead of €850 per person.
✈️ Flight 1: Chengdu → Shangri-La, approx. 1 h 35
Operated by Sichuan Airlines and China Eastern, around eleven services a week, roughly two a day, departures between 08:25 and 20:30. Distance around 520 km.
The alternative would be the overland route via Litang and Yading: four to five driving days, two nights at 4,014 m, passes above 4,600 m. Exactly what you wanted removed. Hence the flight – take a morning departure so the afternoon stays free for resting.
✈️ Flight 2: Dali → Shenzhen, approx. 2 h 35
A direct service by China Southern and China Eastern from Dali Huangcaoba (DLU), around 1,400 km. This is the find that holds the route together.
The alternative would be: Dali → Kunming by rail (2 h), then Kunming → Hong Kong on the single daily G410 at 09:13 (7.5 h) – so one complete travel day plus a night in Kunming, and you would only arrive on the evening of festival day. The direct flight saves precisely that day.
| Section | Mode | Duration | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chongqing → Dazu → Chongqing | 🚄 + bus | approx. 1.5 h each way | Alternatively hire a driver for the day, which is more flexible. |
| Chongqing → Chengdu | 🚄 HSR | approx. 1.5 h | Frequent all day. |
| Chengdu → Rilong | 🚗 driver | approx. 5 h | Via Wolong and Balang Shan. Pass at 4,487 m or tunnel at around 3,850 m. |
| Rilong → Danba | 🚗 driver | approx. 3.5 h | Via Xiaojin, around 110 km. No train, buses unreliable. |
| Danba → Kangding → Moxi | 🚗 driver | approx. 6 h | Danba–Kangding around 143 km, then via Luding to Moxi. Leave early. |
| Moxi → Chengdu | 🚗 driver | approx. 6 h | Via Luding and Ya'an, around 380 km, much of it motorway. |
| Chengdu → Shangri-La | ✈️ flight | approx. 1 h 35 | Sichuan Airlines, China Eastern. More services from Tianfu (TFU) than from Shuangliu. |
| Shangri-La → Qiaotou | 🚗 transfer | approx. 3 h | Around 200 km. A local driver or bus is enough. |
| Tina's → Dali | 🚗 minibus / driver | approx. 4 h | Direct, around 250 km. Alternative: minibus to Lijiang, then 🚄 2 h to Dali. |
| Dali → Shenzhen | ✈️ flight | approx. 2 h 35 | China Southern, China Eastern, from Dali Huangcaoba (DLU). |
| Shenzhen → Yuen Long | 🛂 border + bus | approx. 1.5–2 h | Using the north-western crossing, the shortest link to the festival site. |
| Yuen Long → HKG airport | Bus / MTR | approx. 45–60 min | From the north-western New Territories the airport is closer than from Hong Kong Island. |
Mandatory check
🛂 Border and permit check
🛂 No Tibet permit needed
The western Sichuan loop runs through Garzê (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Shangri-La through Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. These are Tibetan areas, but not the Tibet Autonomous Region. For foreign nationals that means: no Tibet Travel Permit, no obligation to join a guided group, free movement. Caveat: the authorities can restrict access to Tibetan prefectures outside the TAR at short notice and without warning. Rare, but possible – a local agency that knows three days in advance is worth a lot.
Permit situation: tibettravel.org. Short-notice restrictions: UK FCDO travel advice. Checked 30 Sep 2026.🛂 Entering China
No visa required. German nationals enter visa-free for up to 30 days per entry; the unilateral visa exemption applies until 24:00 on 31 Dec 2026. Carry a valid ordinary passport, hotel bookings and the onward flight ticket from Hong Kong as evidence of purpose of travel. Your 18 days on the mainland sit comfortably inside the limit.
Sources: Chinese Consulate General Hamburg (4 Nov 2025); FAQs on Visa-free Entry into China, as of 21 May 2026. Verify again before departure.🛂 Mainland → Hong Kong on day 19
Hong Kong is a separate immigration area: German nationals enter visa-free for up to 90 days. Crossing from Shenzhen is an exit from the mainland and a separate entry into Hong Kong – two checks, both usually quick, though on a Saturday morning expect queues.
The trick of this route: the festival site is in Yuen Long, in the north-western New Territories and therefore right behind the border. Use the western crossing rather than Lo Wu or Futian – from there it is only a few kilometres to Tai Tong instead of a ride across the whole territory. Still allow two hours door to door and set off early; the festival starts at 12:00.
Execution
Practicalities, kit and cost
💶 Cost estimate per person
- Accommodation, 19 nights
- approx. €620 (only 2 nights on the south coast, which saves)
- Driver, 6 loop days
- approx. €340, no return surcharge
- 2 domestic flights
- approx. €250 combined, less if booked early
- Rail and local transport
- approx. €100
- Entries, park buses, cable cars
- approx. €150
- Food and drink
- approx. €420
- Nightlife and festival ticket
- approx. €200
- Buffer
- approx. €180
- Total
- €2,250–2,650
🎒 Kit – considerably less than Routes 1 and 7
- Fleece and hardshell are enough; a down jacket only for the glacier platform and Shangri-La
- No crampons, no microspikes needed – nothing above 3,600 m on foot
- Trekking poles for the 28 bends and the descent to Tiger Leaping Stone
- Swimwear for the hot springs at Hailuogou and Big Wave Bay in Hong Kong
- Sleeping bag liner for the homestay and the Halfway Guesthouse
- Sunglasses and factor 50+ sunscreen for the platform and the Jade Belt Road
- Power bank, multi-socket, cash for Zhonglu and Moxi
- One decent shirt – Shi Fu Miz is a festival, but OIL in Shenzhen has a door policy
⚠️ Altitude: the lowest risk of any mountain variant – with one exception
Highest night 3,200 m, highest point on foot 3,600 m, and five days below 2,200 m sit between the two altitude blocks. That is a relaxed profile.
The exception is day 12: 95 minutes of flying from 500 to 3,200 m. Abort criteria still apply – severe headache, vomiting, breathlessness at rest or unsteady walking mean descending. The advantage: from Shangri-La it is three hours by car down to 1,800 m in the gorge, so the emergency exit is always open. Check your travel health insurance for altitude cover, even though you stay below 4,000 m.
🌡️ Weather during the travel window
- Chongqing
- 13–21 °C, river fog
- Chengdu
- 12–20 °C, often hazy, dry
- Rilong (3,200 m)
- 5–12 °C by day, around −5 °C at night
- Danba (2,100 m)
- 12–20 °C by day, around 5 °C at night
- Moxi (1,600 m)
- 14–20 °C by day, around 8 °C at night – pleasantly mild
- Glacier platform (3,600 m)
- around 0 °C with wind, snow possible
- Shangri-La (3,200 m)
- 8–15 °C by day, around −5 °C at night, very clear
- Tiger Leaping Gorge
- 12–20 °C by day, around 5 °C at night – ideal
- Dali (1,970 m)
- 8–20 °C, dry, clear views of Cangshan
- Shenzhen / Hong Kong
- 20–26 °C, the best time of year
🔑 What to actually book
- Driver loop
- Chengdu → Rilong → Danba → Kangding → Moxi → Chengdu as a closed loop – no return surcharge, because start = finish. State it that way explicitly.
- Hailuogou
- compulsory park bus plus cable car about 150 RMB pp to the platform at 3,600 m; the thermal pools in the park are separate, overnight in Moxi.
- Domestic flights
- Chengdu (TFU) → Shangri-La (DIG) about 1 h 35, early in the day; Dali (DLU) → Shenzhen (SZX) about 2 h 35. Both via Trip.com or the airline direct.
- Rail alternative to flight 2
- if DLU–SZX is too dear: Dali → Kunming (rail), then G2924 / G910 / G2928 Kunming South → Shenzhen North, about 7 h.
- Festival hotel
- night 19 in Yuen Long or Tsuen Wan, not on Hong Kong Island – shortest return from the Tai Tong EcoPark.
📅 Booking order for Route 8
- Open-jaw flight: in via Chongqing, onward from Hong Kong
- Shi Fu Miz ticket for 14 Nov immediately – the festival is small
- Enquire about the driver for days 6–11; name the loop Chengdu–Rilong–Danba–Kangding–Moxi–Chengdu explicitly
- Book the domestic flights Chengdu → Shangri-La and Dali → Shenzhen, both early in the day
- Homestay in Zhonglu through the driver, Halfway Guesthouse enquire directly
- Hotels in Chongqing and Chengdu, Halloween weekend tightens up; hotel for day 19 in Yuen Long or Tsuen Wan, not on the island
- From 12 Oct inside the 15-day window: Chongqing → Chengdu and, if wanted, Lijiang → Dali
Further reading
Sources
- Xinhua via Guangming Online – Hailuogou reopened on 12 Dec 2023, cable cars operating
- China Discovery – Hailuogou: 1,600 m at Moxi up to the 3,600 m platform
- TravelChinaGuide – Hailuogou glacier, 14.7 km long, snout at 2,850 m
- Tibetan Trekking – Hailuogou: cable car RMB 150, park bus logistics
- China Discovery – Western Sichuan small loop with Siguniangshan, Danba, Kangding, Luding
- China Discovery – Danba: 143 km to Kangding, 110 km to Siguniangshan
- FlightsFrom – Chengdu Tianfu → Shangri-La Diqing, approx. 1 h 35, Sichuan Airlines and China Eastern
- FlightsFrom – Dali → Shenzhen direct, approx. 2 h 35, China Southern and China Eastern
- Tibet Travel – travelling Sichuan's Tibetan areas without a Tibet permit
- UK FCDO – short-notice restrictions in Tibetan prefectures outside the TAR
- China Highlights – Napahai: black-necked cranes winter there, dry season September to March
- China Xian Tour – Cangshan: cable cars, Jade Belt Road, elevations
- Yunnan Exploration – Erhai eco-corridor, cycling route to Xizhou
- Chinese Consulate General Hamburg – visa exemption for Germany until 31 Dec 2026
- FAQs on Visa-free Entry into China, as of 21 May 2026
- Temporary Chinese driving permit – official Q&A
- UNESCO World Heritage – Dazu Rock Carvings
- Shi Fu Miz Festival – official site, 14 Nov 2026
- Shi Fu Miz – ticket shop
- Resident Advisor – event calendar for the last-minute check
- German Federal Foreign Office – travel and safety advice for China