Far West China

A Visit to Xinjiang’s Kanas Lake and Keketuohai

April 10 | No Comments

Are you planning to visit Kanas Lake or Keketuohai Park in northern Xinjiang? If so, you’ll want to check out the photos, tips and advice from traveler Chris Milton, a Scot who has been living in China and teaching English for a number of years. Kanas lake is simply stunning. I found myself so many […]

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Wucaitan: Xinjiang’s Five-Colored Hills | Traveler’s Guide

April 9 | No Comments

五彩滩. Spelled out in pinyin it’s “Wucaitan”, which has been translated as either “Rainbow Beach” or “Five-Colored Hills”. Although normally dwarfed by Kanas Lake, it’s popular neighbor further north, this scenic Xinjiang gem is worth a second glance…if not a visit.

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Exploring Wusu | The Wild Side of Xinjiang, China

April 7 | No Comments

Anybody who’s actually heard of the remote town of Wusu (乌苏 in Chinese or Shiho in the original Uyghur) in China’s Xinjiang region usually only knows it for one thing: Wusu Beer. I don’t blame them, really.  How is any traveler supposed to know that Wusu is home to spectacularly diverse and stunning scenery? On the […]

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Travel Kuqa | Best Places to Visit in Xinjiang

April 6 | No Comments

The ancient city of Kuqa (a.k.a. “Kuche” or 库车) is one of those historically significant and yet often-overlooked places to visit in China’s far western region of Xinjiang. When it comes to traveling in Xinjiang, places like Kashgar, Turpan and Yili often hog the spotlight. However, there are many other smaller cities and villages worth visiting if you […]

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Travel Tips for Tashkorgan (Xinjiang, China) and the Tajik People

April 4 | No Comments

After an extremely bumpy 8-hour trip from Kashgar along the Karakoram Highway, our team arrived in the beautiful Tajik town of Tashkorgan. The city goes by a number of different spellings, including “Tashkurgan” and “Taxkurgan,” but regardless of how you decide to write it, one things remains the same: Tashkorgan is one of the most […]

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Visiting Xinjiang’s Jurassic Park (aka “Tianshan Safari Park”)

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Driving our car through the high, double gates of the Xinjiang Tianshan Safari Park, it was hard not to think that we had just entered Jurassic Park. The guard tower was vacant and not a single park ranger was in sight. My family and a couple friends had decided to make our first visit to this park an […]

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How to Cross Xinjiang’s Irkeshtam Border to Kyrgyzstan

April 3 | No Comments

Border crossing from Xinjiang into other countries in Central Asia isn’t necessarily difficult, but getting reliable, up-to-date information is. Take the Irkeshtam border crossing for an example – it’s one of the most common ways to travel from China to Kyrgyzstan and yet I have a hard time finding any published info on the process. Thanks […]

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Urumqi Walking Tour | The REAL Xinjiang

April 2 | No Comments

If you have a little extra time in Urumqi and you don’t quite know what there is to do, I have a suggestion for you. Perhaps you’ve already bought all the souvenirs you need at the Urumqi Grand Bazaar and you’ve said hello to the mummies on display at the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum – but that […]

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Hiking the Urumqi NanShan in Winter | 乌鲁木齐南山

March 30 | No Comments

I’m a bit ashamed to say that it’s taken me years of living in Xinjiang to actually visit the Urumqi NanShan. It’s part of the TianShan range, which I’ve hiked on a couple different occasions, but never NanShan.

Now I’ve done it in the winter, and the pictures are awesome, beautiful proof!

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Day Hike Around Urumqi | Yamalike Park 雅玛里克山

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The pollution in and around Urumqi Xinjiang is getting about as bad as any other major city in China. The thought of any sort of exercise – whether that’s running, basketball or any other sport – just doesn’t feel like a good idea. So when the opportunity to join some Uyghur locals to hike the Tian Shan mountains that surround Xinjiang’s capital, I was thrilled.

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