Guilin and Guangxi

Karst country in the south-west

The China you're picturing — water buffalo in flooded rice paddies, mist clinging to limestone spires, villages perched on terraces carved by hand over centuries — sits in Guangxi Province, and this fortnight rides through the heart of it. Poets and painters have been drawn to this scenery for hundreds of years, but the back roads and footpaths between the famous viewpoints stay quiet. The route stitches them together by bicycle, which feels like the right speed: fast enough to cover real ground, slow enough to stop at a market or a roadside noodle stall without it being a production.

The ride from Bajiaozhai to Yangshuo

Things begin at Bajiaozhai National Park, a UNESCO-listed landscape in the Dong minority heartland, before climbing into the Yuecheng Mountains and the Longji rice terraces — the so-called Dragon's Backbone, worked for generations by the Zhuang, Yao and Miao communities who still live on these slopes. There's a walking day among the terraces themselves, which are best seen on foot.

From there the route turns south toward the Li River and the karst country proper: thousands of limestone peaks rising sheer out of farmland, ancient villages tucked between them, jungle streams and waterfalls that reward a swim. The cycling stays largely on little-trafficked back roads and tracks, which is the only sensible way to ride through scenery this distracting. The trip ends in Yangshuo, the karst region's main tourist town — busier than what's come before, and unapologetically so, but the local "beer fish" and a few craft taprooms make for a cheerful finish after twelve days in the saddle.

Practicalities and who it suits

The holiday runs 14 days, including the overnight outbound flight, with prices from £2,195 per person. It's a guided group trip graded across the operator's 1–5 scale, so expect proper days in the saddle rather than a gentle pootle — this is a long-haul cycling holiday, and the terrain through the mountains is real. Local guides lead the rides, which past travellers point to as the thing that opens up villages and conversations you'd otherwise ride straight past.

You fly into Guilin Liangjiang International, with a transfer of about an hour to the hotel. Day two is a settling-in day in Guilin itself — useful for jet lag, and the city, with its own karst backdrop, restaurants and night-time street life, is a perfectly pleasant place to lose an evening. Trip notes are available on request, and bookings are taken by phone or via the registration form. For each booking, a donation goes to World Bicycle Relief, with the operator aiming to fund a Buffalo Bicycle for every long-haul trip that runs; travellers can add to this at the point of booking.

It suits riders who want a cycling holiday that's also a cultural one — happy to put in mountain days for the reward of arriving somewhere by bike rather than coach, and curious about the minority cultures that have shaped this landscape as much as the limestone has.