Traveling with an Instagram Addict... to Guilin and Yangshuo

Kate Springer explores Guilin and Yangshuo, iPhone in hand.

Reading Time:3 minutes

Published: 4:00pm, 10 Oct 2013Updated: 3:53pm, 19 Oct 2016

Where to?

We’ve all got that shutterbug friend who just isn’t living unless it’s through a smartphone screen, and there’s nowhere better for a snap-happy traveler than the beautiful southern Chinese city of Guilin and its neighboring town, Yangshuo.

Here’s why

There are few visions more worthy of an #instabinge than the area’s famous Karst mountains. The undulating limestone peaks are Grade-A material for filtering pleasure: Lo-Fi should really boost those blues and greens.

Oooh, pretty mountain #nofilter #YOLO

What’s the plan?

An easy weekend photography trip from Hong Kong, you can split your time between the two neighboring locales. Start in Guilin, where you’ll want to throw down RMB200-300 ($253-380) for an early morning boat ride down the Li River to Yangshuo—easily bookable at hotels or through www.lirivercruise.net. As the boat crawls along the river, your sharing-obsessed pal can maniacally snap away at the imposing scenery. There’s the Pen Holder Peak, Grandpa Guarding the Apple, Nine Horses Mural Hill—and also the backdrop for the 20-yuan note. As you approach it, your friend will scramble for the right bill and struggle to align the two in front of his camera, muttering the word “viral” under his breath.

Once in Yangshuo, head to pedestrian-only West Street, where you’ll find friendly hawkers with trays of sweet tofu, fried durian and freshly tossed noodles. That kind of stuff looks awesome through the X-Pro filter. Once you’ve had your fill, shuffle over to Bike Asia (bikes from about RMB70 ($86), 8 Gui Hua St., Yangshuo, (+86) 773-882-6521, www.bikeasia.com) where you can hydrate with a Tsingtao before biking through the paddy-dotted countryside. Make sure to carry some extra juice for your phone, as the quaint villages and lush green surrounds are just #instawow.

Finish with a Sichuan meal at Cloud 9 Restaurant (1 Chengzhong Rd., Yangshuo, (+86) 773-881-3686), where the local “beer” fish, pork dumplings and spicy beef are both delicious and photogenic. Don’t linger too long though; the express bus back to Guilin stops running at 8:30pm, and it’s hard to take good smartphone photos at night.

Get another early start the next day with a half-day trip to the Longji Rice Terraces, which are said to coil around like the scales on a dragon’s back. If you have an early flight to catch, then simply stick around Guilin and take 20,000 photos of the Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas, Reed Flute Cave and Solitary Beauty Peak. Have an extra day? Spend it in Xingping, a peaceful, ancient city about 45 minutes from Guilin that looks particularly striking when filtered through Brannan.