Daocheng Yading Travel Planning Ideas

A good plan to Daocheng Yading helps you to see everything that is worth seeing while saving your time and money. Listed below are some recommendations from our travel experts for any Daocheng Yading travel planning.

Solely in Yading, the visit takes at least 1.5 days. But because it is very far from any big cities in China, the time spent getting there is a lot. This is also the reason many travelers have to give up their plans. Often travelers will start their trip in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan however, if some travelers start from Lijiang or Shangri-La in Yunnan Province, which will also take more than one day by car.

1-2 Days

If Daocheng Yading is your prior travel destination while you only have limited time, try use the flight to get there and also to use the flight to come back. Please refer to our transportation page to see flight options from different cities to Daocheng. To use flight one usually needs 3 days to see Daocheng Yading, please see below details:

• Day 01 Chengdu fly to Daocheng and transfer to Yading and visit Yading for half day. Stay near Yading.
• Day02 Visit Yading full day and stay in Daocheng.
• Day03 Fly out (note the airport is 2-3 hours’ drive away from the park)

This is by far the most time-efficient way of traveling to Daocheng Yading.

6-7 Days

However if Daocheng Yading is one of your main travel destinations in Sichuan especially western Sichuan and you will have the time or if you think it will be worthy and in fact it is worthy, you can use ground transfer for example to hire a car to go to Yading. A ground trip to Yading with time-efficiency manner would be:

• Day 01 Chengdu drive to Xinduqiao/Kangding and stay overnight there
• Day 02 Xinduqiao drive to Xianggelila Zhen (Shangri-La Town, not the one in Yunnan)
• Day 03 Xianggelila Zhen to visit Yading full day
• Day 04 To visit Yading for another half day and transfer to Daocheng
• Day 05 Transfer to Kangding
• Day 06 Transfer to Chengdu

Although one can certainly add in places on the driving way while going in or coming out, for example to add in Hailuogou Glacier, Tagong and Danba Tibetan Village, Mt. Siguniang are usually common and popular. Although this way it will take more days on the road but these places are worth visiting as well.

In the 1.5 days visit to Yading, it is basically walking inside the park however you can try hire a horse at Luorong Ranch to get near to Wuse Lake and Milk Lake. The walking is quite challenging for people who have no experience walking on high elevations. And if you think 1.5 days are not enough walking there, you can also do the Yading Middle Kora Trek.

Yading Middle Kora Trek is a multi-day camping trek from east of the mountain range into the heart of Yading Park. It will require 10 days in total for this trip. In terms of hiking, please refer to our hiking page of yading with details.