The Dazhai valley’s best-positioned lodge — 270-degree floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Golden Buddha Summit terraces, which means the sunrise arrives in the room. Butlers port the luggage up from the cable car, which is the service that actually matters on a mountain with no road to the door.
Mid-May to June for mirror-flooded terraces; September to October for gold · Relaxed · Easy to moderate
The Guangxi everyone photographs, in the right order: a city night in Guilin, a dawn above the Longji terraces while the day-trippers are still on the motorway, then the Li River cruise downstream to the karst towers of Yangshuo. Six days with no wasted transfer and one sunrise that justifies the early alarm twice over.