Yangshuo is not a place with a list of sights. It is a valley of karst hills with a town in it, and almost everything worth doing is a way of getting among the hills — on a bike, on a raft, or up one.

That is worth saying plainly because the town will sell you the opposite. West Street is a strip of bars and souvenir shops that could be anywhere, and a lot of visitors spend their two days shuttling between it and a coach park.

Here is what the money actually buys.

The free one, and it is the best one

  1. 1

    A bicycle and the Yulong valley

    Hire a bike in town, ride out along the Yulong river, and keep going until the road runs out. Flat, paved, farmland on both sides, karst towers standing in it, and after about twenty minutes almost nobody else.

    This is the thing people remember. It is also the cheapest thing in this article by an order of magnitude, and the one no tour will put in front of you because there is no margin in it.

    Cost
    Bike hire only
    Time
    Half a day, or a whole one
    Effort
    Flat
    Best time
    Early morning
Karst peaks in mist above the Li River, with farmland and villages on the valley floor, Yangshuo County
Licensed photograph. The desk has not visited this place.

On the water

  1. 2

    Bamboo raft on the Yulong river

    A punted raft on the small river rather than the big one, drifting between the hills over a series of low weirs. It is touristy, the rafts are moulded plastic made to look like bamboo, and it is still good — you are at water level with your feet up and nothing to do.

    Note that the price is per raft, not per person, and a raft takes two. Solo travellers pay the same as a couple.

    Cost
    About CNY 320 for a two-person raft, popular route
    Duration
    40 min, 1 h 30 or 2 h by route
    Expect
    To get splashed at the weirs

    Checked 14 Aug 2026 Raft pricing and route durations per current Yangshuo rafting listings. Prices are negotiated in practice and vary by section and season; treat CNY 320 as the reference point for the main route rather than a fixed tariff.

  2. 3

    The Li River itself

    The big cruise runs Guilin to Yangshuo, one way, and takes most of a day. It is a separate decision with separate boats and prices, and we have given it its own page.

    The short version: it is the arrival, not a day out from Yangshuo. If you are already here you have probably done it.

Up a hill

  1. 4

    Xianggong Hill

    A short steep climb — about twenty minutes of steps — to the viewpoint over the bend in the Li River that appears on most of the photographs of this region. Sunrise is the reason people set an alarm for it, and mist in the valley is the reason they come back.

    Ticket
    CNY 60
    Climb
    About 20 minutes of steps
    Best time
    Sunrise, or after rain
  2. 5

    Moon Hill

    A karst arch with a hole through it, reached by a stepped path of about 800 steps. Cheap, quick, and a natural stop on a cycling day rather than a destination in itself.

    The cliffs around it are also the reason Yangshuo became a rock-climbing town — there are hundreds of bolted routes in this valley.

    Ticket
    About CNY 20
    Climb
    Around 800 steps
    Pairs with
    The Ten-Mile Gallery road, by bike

    Checked 14 Aug 2026 Xianggong Hill at CNY 60 and Moon Hill at about CNY 20 per current attraction listings; one source quotes a CNY 10 single-entry rate for Moon Hill against CNY 20 for the day ticket.

  3. 6

    Xingping

    A small river town about an hour from Yangshuo, and the location of the view printed on the back of the 20-yuan note. Walking up to the viewpoint takes about half an hour. Hold the note up and compare — it is a slightly ridiculous thing to do and everybody does it.

    Quieter than Yangshuo town and a better place to spend an evening.

In the evening

  1. 7

    Impression Liu Sanjie

    An outdoor show staged on the Li River itself, with the karst hills lit as the backdrop and a cast in the hundreds, many of them local fishermen. Directed by Zhang Yimou. It is big, it is a spectacle, and it is unlike a theatre in every respect including the fact that you are sitting outdoors and it is the river in front of you.

    Seating is banded steeply. The cheap seats are a long way back but the whole point is the scale, so they are not the mistake they would be indoors.

    Ordinary seat
    CNY 200
    Superior
    CNY 240
    VIP
    CNY 320
    Top tiers
    CNY 480 and 680
    Showtimes
    20:00 – 21:10 all year · a second show 21:20 – 22:30 in peak season

    Checked 14 Aug 2026 Seat bands and showtimes per current Impression Sanjie Liu ticketing listings, which give a full range of CNY 198 to 680. The second nightly performance runs only in peak season. The show is weather-dependent — it is outdoors on the water.

  2. 8

    West Street, briefly

    The old pedestrian street, now bars, souvenir shops and amplified music. Worth twenty minutes on the way to dinner. It is not what you came to Guangxi for and it will not pretend otherwise for long.

    Cost
    Free
    Worth
    Twenty minutes

What we would do with two days

  • Day one: bike out along the Yulong early, raft back down part of it, Moon Hill on the way home, show in the evening.
  • Day two: Xianggong Hill at sunrise, then Xingping for the rest of the day and dinner there.

That is roughly CNY 600 a head including the show, and the best hours of it are the ones on the bike. A fuller shape for the region is in our four-day Guilin and Yangshuo itinerary.

What travellers report

Public traveller reports through 2026 consistently rate the countryside cycling above every paid attraction here, and describe West Street as the main disappointment. Opinion on Impression Liu Sanjie divides sharply between spectacle and tourist trap, with the weather on the night appearing to decide which.

Summarised from public traveller discussion, not from a visit. We have not travelled this route ourselves — see how we check.