#干物# Xishuangbanna + Tengchong + Dali + Shilin Ten-day self-driving practical guide

Total self-driving mileage this time: 2600 kilometers

The total cost is 9600 (two people)

▼Self-driving route map

♡ Yunnan self-driving – 10-day itinerary ♡

D	City	Touring Spots	stay
D0	Shanghai to Kunming	Pick up the car	Kunming Airport
D1	Kunming-Jinghong	Shwedagon Pagoda, Gaozhuang Xishuangjing	Jinghong
D2	Jinghong	Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden	Jinghong
D3	Jinghong-Lincang		Lincang
D4	Lincang-Tengchong	Longjiang Bridge	Tengchong
D5	Tengchong	Volcanic Geopark, Lotus Hot Spring	Tengchong
D6	Tengchong-Dali	Dali ancient city	Dali
D7	Dali	Cangshan summit	Dali
D8	Dali-Kunming	Erhai Lake	Kunming
D9	Kunming	stone forest	Kunming
D10	Kunming-Shanghai	Return trip

·Write before travel notes·

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Yunnan travel is mainly divided into three routes

1: Xishuangbanna Line

2: Dali-Tengchong Line

3: Lijiang-Shangri-La Line

The three routes are centered on Kunming, and each has its own unique scenery. However, due to the geographical location, it is more time-consuming to connect them together. This time I tried to drive Xishuangbanna-Tengchong-Dali-Kunming by myself, making a ten-day loop, and there were many twists and turns along the way. There are countless beautiful scenery, here I will share with you the detailed guide~

D0 – Shanghai to Kunming

Generally speaking, when I go to a place to rent a car and drive D0, I will do this:

1: Get off work that evening, fly to Kunming, and arrive before 12:00 pm, so you can save a day.

2: Live near the airport, the hotel provides free airport shuttle.

3: The accommodation should be close to the car rental point, so you can pick up the car early the next morning. In this way, the pick-up time can be calculated from the next day, saving one day of vehicle rental.

▼Under the guidance of this strategy, the accommodation pattern in Kunming this time is as follows:

D1 – Kunming-Xishuangbanna (Jinghong)

Departing at 9 am, the self-driving mileage is 550 kilometers, arriving at about 4 pm, and staying at Gaozhuang Xishuangjing, Jinghong City.

▼The Shwedagon Pagoda in Xishuangbanna is located in Xishuangjing. You can walk to the Shwedagon Pagoda in ten minutes from your residence:

After visiting the Shwedagon Pagoda, there is the Lancang River behind you. You can take a walk along the Lancang River before the sun sets.

▼On the way from Shwedagon Pagoda to Lancang River:

▼Lancang River sunset:

▼At night, the bustling Xishuangbanna Night Market is:

D2 – Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden

Places you can visit in Xishuangbanna 1: Wild Elephant Valley 2: Primitive Forest Park 3 Tropical Botanical Garden 4 Wangtianshu. In fact, several scenic spots are all in the style of tropical rainforests, and it is basically indistinguishable, so it is enough to visit only one, and finally choose The Tropical Botanical Garden is the only 5A scenic spot in Xishuangbanna. It is divided into east and west areas. The west area is smaller and fresher, and you can also popularize a lot of plant knowledge, especially suitable for the elderly and children. The east area is a relatively intact virgin forest, and the entire botanical garden covers a very large area. , it will take about 6 hours to fully play.

▼Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden:

Gaozhuang Xishuangjing is close to the Shwedagon Pagoda and the night market, so I stayed there for the first night. However, the accommodation conditions were really poor, so I decided to stay in Jinghong City tonight. It is near Manting Park. There is also a very nice hotel downstairs. Big night markets:

▼Night market photos:

D3 – Jinghong-Lincang

It was a rough day. I drove for 9 hours in heavy rain all day long (but it rained on this day in the past 10 days in Yunnan, so I’m lucky). Most of the roads were mountainous. This is the biggest disadvantage of connecting the Xishuangbanna and Tengchong lines. : Driving is too rough. . . . .

D4 – Lincang-Tengchong

This day we basically drove. The Longjiang Bridge before entering Tengchong is spectacular.

▼Longjiang Bridge:

D5 – Tengchong Volcano Geopark

Things to do in Tengchong: 1 Volcano Geopark 2: Ginkgo Village 3: Wetland Park 4: Big Rolling Pot

Personally, I think the Volcano Geopark is worth seeing. Each crater is very interesting, and you can also take a look at the Blackfish River.

▼The hot air balloon photos are pretty good:

▼The crater is actually just a big pit, so you can’t take any pictures:

Behind is the Blackfish River. The entrance fee is included in the Volcanic Geopark, but there are no more snakeheaded fish. There are quite a few in the pots of fellow roadside residents.

Arrive at Hehua Hot Spring at 4 pm. Hot springs are the focus of this trip to Tengchong. There are many large and small hot springs in Tengchong. I chose Hehua Hot Spring mainly because of its environment. It is a hot spring in the rain forest and is located halfway up the mountain. It also has a very good sunset. A scenic spot, and secondly, it is very cost-effective. 770 yuan includes double accommodation + unlimited hot springs + buffet dinner + buffet dinner.

▼Hot springs hidden in the rainforest:

▼There is a pool on the mountainside where you can take a bath, watch the sunset, and sip red wine:

D6 – Tengchong-Dali

We went to the hot springs again the next morning. It is highly recommended to go to the hot springs in the morning. Fresh hot spring water is poured into the pool early in the morning, and the steam curls up like a fairyland. The main reason is that there is no one there early in the morning. It feels like having the entire hot spring reserved - it's great!

▼The breakfast is very good, and the hot spring behind is flowing down from the mountain:

▼Milk essential oil pool, just put the milk essential oil, it really smells like milk:

▼The entire forest hot spring is enveloped in steam:

I soaked in the hot springs until noon and felt so refreshed! In the afternoon, drive straight to Dali.

Since I planned to climb Cangshan Mountain tomorrow, I drove to the planned trailhead first to have a look. It turned out that an uncle was standing there and said that the mountain was closed and no idlers were allowed to enter the mountain. I guess the uncle staying here felt quite lonely, and he actually joined me. We chatted for an hour, talking about how many people had died on Cangshan Mountain, how many rescues I had participated in, etc. Well, this trailhead was considered useless. We stayed at the south gate of the ancient city that night. After a night tour of the ancient city and returning to the hotel, we planned an additional hiking route.

D7 – Climbing to the top of Cangshan Mountain

I have written a travelogue about climbing to the top of Cangshan Mountain before. If you are interested, please go here:

#行# Dali · Cangshan – A feasible route to the summit in one day (with detailed guide)

D8 – Dali-Kunming

Today I drove around Erhai Lake. There are many large and small scenic spots on the Erhai Lake. I have a lot of travel guides. To be honest, all the scenic spots have similar scenery. You can just go to the best one. I chose Haitang Ecological Park. It feels like it at first sight. The terrain is quite weird, and secondly, there is no admission fee here.

▼This is the terrain:

▼The scenery is also very good, with a bit of the charm of Wanaka:

▼This small stool is placed here. There is a security uncle looking at it. It costs 10 yuan to take pictures. I am wondering whether one day’s income is enough for this uncle’s salary?

Then we passed through Shangguan along Erhai Road and encountered a large group of water birds at Hongshan Temple.

How to take pictures: Record a video with your left hand phone, hold up the bread with your right hand, then take a screenshot of the video, rotate and cut the image, and you're done:

I arrived in Kunming that night and ate Kunming’s authentic cross-bridge rice noodles. They were delicious. To be honest, the best rice noodles I’ve ever eaten was from the one next to Jilin University in Changchun. The fish ball rice noodles are normally spicy with a portion of dried tofu.

D9 – Kunming Stone Forest

Here are some things to note about Stone Forest:

1: It takes at least 1 hour to drive from Kunming to Stone Forest.

2: Be sure not to buy tickets on Mafengwo.com. Not only is it not cheap, it is also 5 yuan more expensive, and it took a long time to exchange the ticket successfully in the scenic spot.

3: The stone forest is quite winding, but the paths inside are marked on the Baidu map, so you can look at them while walking.

4: There are many tour guides at the entrance of the scenic spot. I personally recommend not to find a tour guide. According to my observation, all the tour guides take the same route, which is a loop in the scenic spot. As a result, this loop is overcrowded, and there is no one outside the loop! It only takes a little over an hour to get down this loop, and then the tour guide goes out to continue his work. In fact, the Stone Forest Scenic Area is quite large. It took me more than 5 hours to walk around it, and it was far away from the ring road, so it felt like a private tour.

Arrive at Kunming Airport that night, return the car, and stay at the airport hotel where you stayed on the first night

D10 – Kunming-Shanghai