Travel to Gansu: The Complete Guide

Camel trekking was one of my favourite activities in Gansu province

In this guide to travel in Gansu you will find:

• An introduction to Gansu province and reasons you’ll fall in love with it;

• My recommended land and air itineraries for the perfect trip;

• A breakdown of the following Gansu highlights with information on how to get there, key sights, as well as what to eat and where to sleep:
  – Langmusi
  – Xiahe
  – Lanzhou
  – Zhangye
  – Jiayuguan
  – Dunhuang

• Advice on the best time to visit Gansu and some useful packing suggestions;

• Travel tips to make the best out of your time in Gansu

For more general information about traveling in China such as visas, vaccinations, flights, food etc. be sure to check out this epic 4,000 word complete guide to traveling in China. Just skip to the sections you are most interested in!

Why visit Gansu?

Rich culture and scenery

I am the type of traveller that always looks for the most remote and adventurous places to get lost in. This is how I fell in love with Gansu province.

Gansu is probably the most exciting province I have visited in China. Rich in Silk Road history, it is home to so many different cultures with strong Tibetan and Islamic influences in particular.

The province’s scenery is just as eclectic as its people.
In your travels you might:

• Wake up in a yurt surrounded by yaks as you enjoy the rolling grasslands of southern Gansu;
• Head off into the sunset on camel back in the dunes of the Gobi desert in the northern part of the province;
• Check out some of the province’s World Heritage Sites such as Dunhuang’s Mogao caves

Similarly, if you enjoy trying weird and wonderful food, Gansu will not disappoint. I definitely recommend sampling camel hump, yak burgers, and Lanzhou’s famous beef noodles among other local dishes.

For all of these reasons, I firmly believe that Gansu should be on any intrepid traveller’s to do list.

Adventure

Be warned, however: this region is not always the easiest to navigate for foreign travellers. When I visited, I found myself in confusing and sometimes absurd situations on a number of occasions, despite having lived in China a long time and speaking at least some Mandarin.

For example, travelling by car to Langmusi in southern Gansu with a local we had just met, we were forced to hike the last two miles of road into town because heavy rain and construction had turned the mud road into a giant swamp. I’ve since discovered this is (or at least was) quite a common problem.

This type of situation is not uncommon in Gansu, China’s second poorest province and an area where many locals do not speak Mandarin as a first language.

This is what happens when you have giant holes in your mud road!

However, I think this is part of Gansu’s charm. Tourism has not yet reached many parts of the province, which means escaping the crowded and sometimes theme-park quality of some of China’s top destinations.
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/travel-to-gansu/