Here’s our itinerary, we only wished we’d spent 1 more day in Kunming and 1 day less in Shangri-la/Lijiang. Other than that, we will be coming back for Dali and Kunming in future as there’s lots more we didn’t get to experience!

Itinerary

Day 0: Fly into Kunming, take the train to Dali

Day 1: Dali - Cangshan + Xizhou Old Town walk

Day 2: Dali - Erhai Cycling Loop

Day 3: Checkout of Dali, head to Shaxi Ancient Town AND drive up to Lijiang. Sleep early

Day 4: Lijiang - Yulong Snow Mountain, Impressions Lijiang, Spruce Meadow and Blue Moon Valley (all in the same area)

Day 5: Lijiang - Mu’s Mansion, Lijiang Eternal Romance / Songcheng shows at 2, 3.30 and 4.30pm

Day 6: Lijiang - Yuhu Village, Baisha Ancient Town

Day 7: Upper / Lower Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡）, then drive and check in to Shangri-la

Day 8: Shangri-La - Potatso/Pudacuo National Park

Day 9: Shangri-la - Dukezong Old Town, Napahai and Yila Grasslands Horse-riding

Day 10: Pack and leave for Kunming

Dali

Temperature in June: 18-24 deg, blindingly sunny, no rain

Cangshan

Cangshan should be one of your first stops, it’s a cable car up and then you walk / hike the path on your own. This is the first time you’re going straight from 1600m altitude to 3200m, be slow and don’t rush as you hike. We barely were walking and our heart rate was at 157bpm. It helps to acclimate slowly before heading to Lijiang and Yulong Snow Mountain.

Erhai

Cycling through S-hai or Erhai is an experience, you can cycle as much or as little as you like. For parents with little children you can get bikes with seats to put the kids on or ride those giant “snoopy” motors that are quite adorable to look at. The total route is 46km, we cycled 14km. There are food stops on the route you can eat at. If you go in summer especially it is blinding, bring sunglasses and a UV jacket.

Lijiang

Temperature in June: 13-20, light drizzle all day

Yulong / Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

Climbing Yulong Snow Mountain is a lovely activity but it’s important to prepare for it accordingly.

Do not go up if you feel that you cannot climb up to 4680m, the climb up is hard but the climb down can be even harder as people descend too fast. You can challenge yourself to climb up to 4576m first and then pause.
Prep oxygen tanks, not everyone needs them but between the two of us we used 2 small cans and 2 large cans. Breathe in the oxygen every 10-20 steps as it helps.
Sit at any rest point if your heart rate spikes uncontrollably as you can get dizziness, headaches, nausea and diarrhoea. We are very blessed not to have any serious symptoms however on separate days we had headaches and muscle aches.
Eat altitude sickness pills if need be, eat on the day, and 1 day before ascending and 1 day after descending.
If it rains, and it did rain non-stop, be prepared by having 1 base layer, 1 warm layer and 1 wind layer minimum. The base of the mountain (4506m cable car drop off) is already 7-10 degrees in mid-June. Once you ascend the top was around 1-5 degrees, especially if it’s cloudy and raining, it gets waaaaay worse.
Should you hate wet feet bring extra socks and shoe covers as well as a giant outer raincoat or umbrella.

Blue Moon Valley / Spruce Meadow

Besides the mountain, you can do many other activities like visit Blue Moon Valley - you don’t have to walk to see it; you can take the green topped trams that bring you around the area.

You can also visit Spruce Meadow and Impressions Lijiang, both of which we didn’t get to complete because we spent longer getting up and down the mountain.

Other activities in Lijiang

The day after the mountain climb you should be a bit tired and so some easy activities you can choose from are:

Mu’s Mansion Tour
Lijiang Eternal Love Show - We recommend the Eternal Love show especially the Songcheng show at 4.30pm it’s quite spectacular.
Yuhu Village / Baisha Ancient town trip - For coffee lovers and cottage core girlies I encourage you to go to Yuhu village especially the cafe right at the end of the road, we walked 1.2km to get there, you’ll be rewarded with lovely horses to say hello to and a gorgeous cafe overlooking the ranch.

Cafe overlooking the farm at Yuhu Village

Tiger Gorge

This section goes between Lijiang and Shangri-La because you can go there from either location as it’s right in the middle. We recommend going from bottom up as you’ll need to acclimate to the slowly ascending altitude (Lijiang 2400m and Shangri-La 3250m).

Tiger Gorge can be hiked (toward Naxi Guesthouse / Teacher Zhang Guesthouse stops), however we do not recommend hiking in the summer despite it being deceptively warmer. It rains anytime and the day before we went it was closed due to possible flash floods. A better time is probably spring or autumn.

NOTE: If you hike the long route including the stay over you MUST start and end at Lijiang, on top of that your hiking guide will be from Lijiang and he will be a different one from tour hired driver / tour guide.

Should you choose not to hike you can just drive up to Tiger Gorge and spend 1-2 hours there admiring the view. Walk the whole boardwalk, if you wish to pay for the escalator you can, alternatively you can hike back up and down for a more active experience.

Shangri-La / Xianggelila

Temperature in June: 9-17 degrees, light to moderate drizzle all day

Potatso/Pudacuo National Park

The park is massive. Each section takes 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on how much you want to enjoy the walk. Most people start at Sudu Lake / Suduhu, you can hike or take a boat around.

They then get back in the bus to stop 2 at Bi Da Lake / Bi Da Hai. This one has more walking towards the water area. Wherever you walk, the views are amazing.

Tibetan Toast

In the night you may go for this Tibetan banquet, its song and dance and hotpot dinner. You’ll probably be squeezed into 10 people a table kinda environment and it can be deafening so bring earplugs if you need. Enjoy the food and the experience, the performances are worth watching!

Napahai / Yila Grasslands

This is a horse-riding experience. What they don’t tell you is that it’s also a dressing up experience. We were just thrown into the thick of it without any information by our guide so it was quite a shock for us. If you don’t want to dress up (full Tibetan outfit and makeup) you don’t have to! You can still go horse riding without it.

Once you dress up and do makeup you’ll get to ride a horse for 30 mins to an hour.

Here are some things to note based on our experience:

Wear a heat tech inner layer top and bottom - you’ll take off all your jackets and only be wearing 1 layer to try on the outfits. We were so cold because the outfits aren’t exactly thick and / or they don’t cover down to the ankles which is what will be hit by the wind
Wear long socks
Wear dark coloured clothing, there are puddles and poop everywhere especially if it’s rainy it’s worse. If the horses step into the puddles you’ll get a bit of splash
Don’t bring bags down, it’s hard to wear them on top of clothing
Wear your phone on a string so you can take pictures while going around on the horse.

Accommodations review and rating

Dali accommodations: 和风 He Feng homestay.

Everything we needed was given to us, we were welcome with so much warmth literally and metaphorically.

The place is nearby everything, most attractions were just a 10-20 minutes drive.
Breakfast was normal Yunnan noodles (米线 mi xian） and eggs, bread and coffee, served 830-1030am
You can do laundry but there’s no dryer, however the sun in Dali is insanely bright and most items dried within the same day. We carry a portable clothesline with us that we found useful.
The bed is comfortable and heated especially for cold nights.
Most rooms have a pool space and/or balcony area.
Service was 10/10 and the views were equally lovely.
Note that it’s not very mobility friendly either (like Lijiang’s homestay)

Lijiang accommodations: 斑斓 Ban Lan Homestay

It rained the whole duration of the stay making it rather uncomfortable, yet the accommodations were cozy. We got a room with a bathtub and separate shower and toilet areas.

Breakfast was a communal thing - for introverts this may be an issue (haha), 8-10am
It’s not very mobility friendly as there’s steps up and down, even if you stay on level 1, you can’t really push a wheelchair around. In general, I’m not sure if Yunnan is the most mobility friendly place, unless you don’t mind not walking any old towns and you’re able to climb up and down buses. This is because inside an attraction you usually would go around with buses and to get to those buses the tour van would drop you off at the carpark first. Therefore those with limited mobility would be more or less inhibited.
Lijiang is big, so despite staying in old town we took around 30mins to an hour to go from our place to attractions, the longest being the journey to Yulong Snow Mountain
Service is pretty good, the front desk assisted us with all our queries and package deliveries

Shangri-la accommodations: SuYe homestay

Cozy room with wonderful lighting, very clean and easy access to washer dryer. Helpful and friendly staff!

Breakfast is served at 8am which is helpful if you need to leave to attractions / flights early.
Afternoon tea is served on the first day with snacks!
We stayed on the first floor which is exceptionally convenient if you’re going to do laundry. This is because laundry services are outside the main building and you’d have to go in the cold night to use it. Imagine having to lug everything up and down while freezing 🫠.
A note for people sensitive to scents: the hotel tends to burn mosquito repellent coils and some nice smelling perfumes throughout the location. This may bother you.
Some rooms full length glass windows open directly to the neighbouring homes which makes it hard to open the curtains.

Kunming accommodations: Sofitel Kunming

We stayed for just one night but it was very good.

Service was wonderful, you even had a pillow menu (whaaaat!!)
They were willing to help make up the room at 8am while we went to the gym and we came back to a clean and put together space!
We got upgraded as Accor members to a new room tier and got the king bed on a high floor!
Toilets are massive complete with a bathtub.
The breakfast area is huge. You keep walking and it doesn’t end! Food was lovely too. Breakfast service starts at 630am
A wonderful stay, we’ll definitely come back!

Useful things to bring (besides the normal)

Lip balm / ointment: we recommend Lucas Paw Paw ointment. It’s so drying for your skin to be in an extremely low humidity environment. Also the winds are strong and will dry out your face / skin
Bring / buy copious amounts of sunblock for your face, hands, neck. Just a short time outside will burn you and you won’t know / feel it because it isn’t that warm in Lijiang or Shangri-la but it’s bad. Sunglasses are fantastic to have too, at higher altitudes the sun is blinding.
Long raincoats AND shoe covers - the plastic disposable type. The activities will be outdoors and you’ll get rained on randomly. Also for your day pack, bring an extra pair of socks, wet shoes and socks are uncomfortable.
You can buy 2-3 oxygen tanks for 2 people, that should be enough. Buy at Lijiang before you go up. Bring them up the mountain, if there’s extra you’ll use it in Shangri-La at 3200-3600m anyway, you can’t take the train back to Kunming with them so finish it before going back
Phone strap, especially useful when horse-riding and mountain climbing
Altitude sickness AND motion sickness pills, and Panadol if you get a headache at high altitudes / post climbing the mountain. Also monitor your heart rate especially if you’re going up the mountain.
Types of jackets/warm gear : even in summer, anything at higher altitudes can be very cold. Bring at least 1 good windbreaker, you’ll use it almost everyday that’s rainy / windy. It’s always either rainy, windy or both. Bring a warm layer inside - like a heat tech layer, it’s very useful for Pudacuo National Park, Yulong Mountain and Napa Hai Grassland. Also bring a UV layer like Uniqlo’s thin UV jacket - we used it for Dali Cycling because it’s burning hot but you have to cover up somewhat or you’ll be burnt.
Wash bags if you intend to do laundry. Should you want to wash clothes, you may wanna do so after Shangri-la’s Napahai and Lijiang’s Yuhu Village horse-riding activities

Cost

We paid the guide(s) a total of 11000RMB (SGD 2200) for everything - driving service, tickets to most attractions and hotel stays in Lijiang and Dali

Costs of attractions in RMB (per ticket):

Cangshan cable car 100
Yulong Cable Car + Impressions Lijiang ticket 550
Yuhu village electric cart 39
Mu’s Mansion 40
Lijiang Eternal Love show ticket 290
Tiger leaping gorge entry 45
Tiger leaping gorge escalator fee 70
Pudacuo National Park 138
Tibetan Toast 100

High speed rail tickets (we asked her to buy it for us)

Kunming to Dali 145
Shangri-La to Kunming 260

Service cost 600 per day, 6000 for the whole trip

Hotel stays in Dali and Lijiang were subsidised due to the affiliation our guide has to these hotels. We booked Shangri-la and Kunming hotels ourselves.

Food

The food was not cheap, with the most expensive being $20-25 per person. We ate a range of things mostly rice and 1-2 dishes and 1-2 hotpot meals. Note that Yunnan dishes are served in rather large quantities so don’t order too much.

Lastly we tipped our guide as we felt he did a great job overall.

Some other reviews

Guangzhou Baiyun China Southern Lounge

Since we had a longer layover we decided to visit the lounge. It accepts Priority Pass members!

The food was really good, with wide selections of warm, cooked food and a noodle bar. You have to try the noodle bar it’s really good. Choose your style of noodle then add whatever toppings you like, we highly recommend the stewed beef! There are many drinks and bread/cakes to choose from, you’ll probably be spoilt for choice. Don’t forget to get a cup of ice-cream.

Yunnan in summer: 4 seasons in 7 days