solo trip to yunnan, the most beautiful province in china (dali, sha’xi, lijiang) | 雲南遊記：大理、沙溪、麗江

It's entirely accurate to say that I was solely inspired by the Chinese drama "Meet Yourself"《去有風的地方》to make this trip out all the way to Yunnan. It's become one of my favorite dramas as the series does an impeccable job in integrating such relatable themes into the narrative while simultaneously capturing the essence of the Yunnan province. For those that haven't seen it yet, definitely worth a watch - the whole series is up on Youtube to watch for free! I started solo traveling a few years ago to challenge myself - i wanted to see how well I can function by myself and how comfortable am I just being by myself. I initially had a few concerns going to Yunnan that ended being valid concerns but in the end it all worked out and it is to date my favorite solo trip I've done! I've seen with my own eyes the beauty of Yunnan, made so many lovely memories from chatting with the natives, and left with a better understanding to the lifestyle over there. I definitely plan on coming back in hopefully the near future! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 00:30 大理 Dali 00:34 Chapter 1: dali ancient town, mushroom hotpot 05:57 Chapter 2: erhai lake, three pagodas, xi'zhou ancient town -- 10:01 沙溪 Sha'xi 10:05 Chapter 1: meet yourself cafe, yujin bridge, speakeasy bar 13:34 Chapter 2: friday morning market, -- 15:49 麗江 Lijiang 15:52 Final Chapter: lijiang ancient town, shuhe ancient town, impressions show A few personal notes and observations: Just a fyi but despite the fact that the majority of the places I visited were integrated into nature, the air quality there is not as fresh as you would expect it to be and reeked of smoke Trip.com was a lifesaver and I pretty much booked everything through here... from hotels to airport pickups to even using the platform to read up on local travel guides. For hotels, the cancelation policy is incredibly forgiving, which is a huge huge bonus The firewall in that province seems very strong as both my international data roaming and VPN didn't work over there... if you are worried about safety, I would suggest you tell your friends and families to add you on WeChat I used Alipay for making payments as well as for transportation through Didi To get around, I mostly used Didi through the Alipay app (for some reason, Didi as a standalone app didn't always work but as a third party app, it did). Just a note that in the Didi app, they also have a cheaper alternative called 順風車, which is sort of like the equivalent of sharing Uber with other people that are going the same direction as you #yunnan #solotravel #traveltips #chinatravel #beautifuldestinations #travellife #chinafood #travelinspiration #雲南 #大理 #沙溪 #麗江 #去有風的地 #雲南遊記