Traveling in reverse in July, these 4 lesser-known stunning cities

🏞️ 1. Zhaoxing Dong Village — A living fossil of Dong culture embraced by terraced fields
✅ Reasons to recommend:
As the core area of Dong culture in southeastern Guizhou, Zhaoxing Dong Village is famous for its five groups of century-old drum towers (Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi, Xin) and its pristine Dong lifestyle scenes. The convenience of high-speed rail direct access (Congjiang Station) makes this pure land, surrounded by terraced fields and mountains, the top choice for city dwellers to escape the hustle and bustle. In the 2024 Spring Festival, tourist numbers surged by 79.88%, yet it still retains a rustic atmosphere free of commercialization. When the drum towers are lit up at night, it feels like falling into a dream.

⛳️ Recommended attractions:
- Drum Tower Group: Five drum towers symbolizing Confucian spirit, with carved and painted stories telling Dong epics; free Dong song performances often held at the Yi Tuan Drum Tower at night.
- Tang’an Terraces: A 20-minute shuttle ride away, hike through layers of rice waves and visit a more primitive Dong village than Zhaoxing, where elders weave cloth and children play in the water, scenes frozen in time.
- Tie-dye Workshop: Experience intangible cultural heritage indigo dyeing and make your own Dong cloth coasters or scarves (about 50 RMB per person).
- Bonfire Party: Village-style (Yi Tuan Drum Tower) with strong interactivity, dance the Duoye dance, listen to grand songs, and dance with Dong girls around the fire.

🏮 2. Huangling — The poetic mountain residence of autumn drying families
✅ Reasons to recommend:
Huangling is known as the "most beautiful symbol of China" for its roof autumn drying spectacle and was newly designated a national 5A scenic spot in 2024. Hundreds of Hui-style ancient houses hang on a slope with a 100-meter drop, with chili peppers, corn, and pumpkins laid out on bamboo trays forming a giant colorful oil painting. The sea of rapeseed flowers in spring and the autumn drying scene form a double highlight. It was rated by the United Nations as the "World’s Best Tourism Village," a pilgrimage site for photographers and literary youth.

⛳️ Recommended attractions:
- Autumn Drying Viewing Platform: Overlook the entire ancient village and capture compositions of drying trays and horse-head walls in the morning mist (best times: before 9:00 or after 17:00).
- Terraced Flower Sea Boardwalk: Rapeseed flowers bloom like golden waves in March-April, and rice waves roll in October; walking along the glass boardwalk feels like walking on clouds.
- Tianjie Ancient Alley: Blue stone slab roads connect Wugui Hall and Yixin Hall, experience Hui ink making, and taste freshly baked steamed cakes and mugwort Qingming rice cakes.
- Huaxi Water Street: At night, light waterfalls and water mist installations create the fantasy scene of "A Wonderful Night in the Countryside."

⛩️ 3. Nuodeng Ancient Village — Millennium salt wells and culinary legends
✅ Reasons to recommend:
This Bai ethnic ancient village, unchanged in name for a thousand years, became famous for Nuodeng ham featured in "A Bite of China." The village hangs in the Yunlong Taiji Diagram valley, with stone slab roads where mules carry goods uphill, Ming and Qing courtyard houses, and the Taoist Jade Emperor Pavilion, forming a "living salt horse ancient road museum." Traditional salt making and ham curing for three years make it a secret spot for food archaeology enthusiasts.

⛳️ Recommended attractions:
- Ancient Salt Wells: 2,000-year-old salt wells still draw brine; visit family salt workshops to see firewood salt boiling and buy well salt as souvenirs (10 RMB/box).
- Jade Emperor Pavilion: Ming dynasty Taoist architecture with a colorful coffered ceiling depicting 28 constellations; ancient Huanglian wood trees turn fiery red in autumn.
- Huang Xiachang Family Museum: Qing dynasty salt merchant residence housing land deeds, woodblocks, and other cultural relics, revealing the literary lineage of Nuodeng’s successful scholars.
- Ham Farmhouse Feast: Stay at Wuyun Youlan Inn and taste the landlady’s signature ham fried rice with egg and rose wine, a taste sensation.

🟢 4. Mangya Emerald Lake — The sky mirror in the Gobi Desert
✅ Reasons to recommend:
Surrounded by four major uninhabited areas, Mangya hides Qinghai’s most magical Emerald Lake. The 30-square-kilometer salt field is divided into geometric color blocks of mint green, amber yellow, and milky white, reflecting the Kunlun snow mountains and Yadan landforms, known as the "palette on the wasteland." Few tourists visit here; you can drive deep into the salt bridge in the lake’s center and shoot mirror-like photos comparable to Bolivia.

⛳️ Recommended attractions:
- Salt Lake Aerial Photography Spot: The grid-shaped waterways and pure white salt ridges form an abstract painting, a must-shoot with drones (recommended at dusk when the light is soft).
- Sulfur Lake Center Beach: Barefoot on milky white salt crystals, the lake’s reflection is clear like a two-dimensional world.
- Kunlun Snow Mountain Viewing Platform: On the west side of the lake, view the snow mountains and Emerald Lake in one frame; in winter, ice crystals refract blue light for a more dreamy scene.