Things to Do in Guilin: 8 Offbeat Picks
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Every Guilin list leads with Elephant Trunk Hill in daylight and the Li River cruise in general terms. Both deserve their spot, but neither is the interesting part. The interesting part is that the hill has a second, better trick after dark, the cave system 37km south has an underground boat ride most visitors never hear about, and the city’s most-photographed fishing scene is staged for tourists rather than caught candid. Eight things to actually do, in no particular order.
1. Catch Elephant Trunk Hill’s Night Trick, Not Just the Daytime Shape
By day, Xiangbishan (¥55 adult, free under 1.2m) is a limestone hill shaped like an elephant drinking from the Li River, and everyone photographs it that way. After dark, moonlight through the hill’s Water-Moon Cave arch makes it look like a second moon is floating on the water below, a completely different photo from the shape shot, and one most day-trippers miss because they’ve already left.
2. Ride the Underground River at Crown Cave
Guanyan, in Caoping Town about 37km south of Guilin, stacks a rail car, an elevator, a tramcar to “Palm Hall,” and a 1,000-meter boat ride along an underground river into one visit. ¥60 adult/¥30 child gets you in, the rail car is ¥40 extra one-way, and it bills itself as having the world’s longest sightseeing sliding track. The Li River cruise passes nearby without stopping, so this one’s a deliberate add-on, not a natural stopover.
3. Climb Inside a Ming Prince’s Palace at Solitary Beauty Peak
Jingjiang Princes’ City is a walled Ming-dynasty mansion complex, a miniature Forbidden City, with a standalone karst peak rising inside its own grounds. Standard admission runs around ¥100 (one source shows ¥130, confirm at the gate), covering a guided tour, a shuttle, and the climb itself, and the summit gives you a rooftop view over the old city wall that most single-hill visits can’t match.
4. Skip the Big Cruise, Raft the Yulong Instead
The full Li River cruise (¥215-480, one-way, 3.5-5 hours) is the headline experience, but Yulong River bamboo rafting is the smaller, cheaper cousin: ¥200-320 per raft (not per person), 40 to 90 minutes depending on the route, motorized rather than actually bamboo despite the name. It pairs naturally with a bike ride through the Ten-Mile Gallery or a stop at Moon Hill, and it gets you karst scenery without committing a full day to it.
5. Sit Through Impression Sanjie Liu, Even Knowing It’s Staged
Zhang Yimou’s Li River night show stages hundreds of local performers, farmers and fishermen among them, against real karst peaks as a backdrop on the river itself. Tickets run ¥200 to ¥680 across five tiers, the show runs about 70 minutes, and it’s closed January and February. Yes, it’s a tourist spectacle built for tour groups. It’s also genuinely well produced, and the setting alone (you’re watching it on the actual Li River, not a stage built to look like one) makes it worth the ticket once.
6. Cool Off Inside Reed Flute Cave
Ludi Yan holds a constant year-round temperature around 20°C, a welcome break from Guilin’s subtropical summer heat, with color-lit stalactites and stalagmites running ¥90 adult/¥45 child (one source shows ¥82, confirm before you go). Bring a light layer even in August, and go early if you want the passageways to yourself, since it gets crowded by midday.
7. Learn to Like Oil Tea, Yao Style
Youcha is tea, ginger, and garlic stir-fried in oil, pounded, boiled, and strained, served with puffed rice, soybeans, and dough twists, and it’s central to Yao hospitality around Gongcheng, whose “Yao Oil Tea Customs” made UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2022. It runs bitter and savory rather than sweet, closer to a savory broth than anything resembling coffee, and Guilin city has chain outlets like Xin Guoji Oil Tea if you can’t make it out to Gongcheng itself.
8. Ride the Night Cruise Past Two Lit Pagodas (Cormorant Show Included)
The Two Rivers Four Lakes cruise (¥210 adult/¥105 child, departing Wenchang Bridge 18:45 or Yuren 19:30, about 90 minutes) loops the old-city waterway ring at dusk and passes the Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas lit up over Shanhu Lake. It also includes a cormorant-fishing demonstration, and it’s worth knowing going in: cormorant fishing was a genuine subsistence method historically, but today it’s almost entirely a staged photo-op, not a candid look at working fishermen. Enjoy it as theater, not as documentary.
Is Any of This Doable Without a Guide?
Yes. Every item here has a gate ticket or a public booking channel, and none require a private guide to access. The one exception is Sanjiang’s Dong villages further out, where thin transport information makes a private transfer the safer call.
Book Impression Sanjie Liu tickets ahead if you’re visiting during its September-to-November peak season, and search the Two Rivers Four Lakes night cruise rather than buying from a tout at the pier. Our hidden gems post covers the spots that don’t have gate tickets at all, and the full Guilin guide has the essentials if this is your first pass through the city.
Do the night cruise and the daytime Elephant Trunk Hill visit on two different days. Seeing the same landmark twice, once in each light, tells you more about why Guilin’s scenery earned its reputation than any single visit does.