In spring, along with gradually blossoming flowers, in addition to mountaineering, hiking and biking, we specially prepare 20 of the most beautiful camping sites for the ones who love outdoor activities. 

1. Shizong’s Junzi Mountain 

Junzi Mountain is a mountain type scenic tourist area with forest and karst natural landscape as a whole. Here, you can see the sea of blossoming azalea in spring, red leaves all over the sky in autumn, snow forest and ice scenery in winter. In addition, Junzi Mountain is also the largest azalea natural community and the largest aboriginal camping site in Yunnan. Junzi Mountain is a relay station for you to relax. Go camping at Junzi Mountain in holidays, let the warm sunlight shine on you, listen to the voice of the nature, see through the secrets in the mountain, and have a sweet sleep under the bright and starry sky. 

▶ Route – Shizong County, located in the eastern part of Yunnan, adjacent to Luliang, Luxi, Luoping, Qiubei and Xilin counties, 170 km from the provincial capital – Kunming, 130 km away from Qujing. 

▶ Transportation guide: Kunming — Kunming-Shilin Highway — Jiangdi-Zhaokua Highway — Junzi Mountain, totally about 180 km.

▶ Services: barbecue, electricity and living water provided at the camping site. 

2. Zhanyi’s Haifeng Wetland 

Haifeng Wetland is located at the origin of the Zhujiang River. Here you can see beautiful water plants and flocks of migratory birds. It has the reputation of “ninety-nine mountains and ninety-nine peaks” and “Little Guilin in Yunnan”. In the daytime during spring, you can make poses by the side of water to take photos, and you can roll up your trousers and step into the shallow water to catch fish or shrimp. In the evening, before it gets dark, you can find a suitable place to put up your tent, look up at the stars, and listen to the sound of birds. 

▶ Route: Kunming – Qujing – Zhanyi – Dapo Township- Haifeng Wetland, totally about 190 km.

▶ Service: the best season is from March to November.

▶ Attractions: Little Stone Forest Maiden Spring, Carp Pond, Crescent Moon Lake, Calf Pond.

▶ Activities: mountain climbing for wetland panorama, taking pictures of migratory birds, barbecue, camping, catching fish and shrimp, paddling water, lying in the tent to see the stars and moon at summer night and tasting farm food. 

3. Yunlong Heaven Lake 

Yunlong Heaven Lake, quiet and clear water, cloud and breeze, starry flowers around lakeside, it is honestly a good place for people to relax. Heaven Lake is surrounded by lush forests with wild animals and plants, at the quiet and secluded lakeside, mountain scenery and lake scenery reflect with each other and differ in four seasons, and you will feel like in a changing picture scroll. If you decide to go camping at the lakeside, it is commended to prepare some warm clothing and a sleeping bag. 

▶ Route: Yunlong county town is 518 km away from Kunming.

▶ Services: gently sloping ground with green grass around Heaven Lake can be used as camping site for visitors. Several parking lots around Heaven Lake can accommodate dozens of drive travel vehicles.

▶ Food: Nuodeng Ham, black mutton hot pot, sour papaya steamed chicken, etc. 

4. Longling Bangmiao Lake

Under sunlight, sparkling blue water of the Longling Bangmiao Lake, egrets flying to and from small islands on the lake water, rice paddies strewn at random beside the lake, green woods complementing the curl upwards smoke from the black tile-roofed house. Green mountains around Bangmiao Lake, shade created by trees, fish in groups in the water, one in a while some fish jump out of the water surface, swinging the quiet water. Camping in a place like this is a travel, a vacation, and an intimate date with the nature. 

▶ Route: Longling county town is about 600 km from Kunming.

▶ Service: “Shuibo Mountain Villa”, “Bangmiao Farmhouse” and “Bangmiao Lake Farmhouse” are around the lake.

▶ Food: wild mushrooms, black fungus, bracken rice soup, fried fish, hot and sour fish, sour water fish, sliced fresh sashimi, buckwheat fruit, mountain potherb. 

5. Chuxiong Zixi Mountain 

Zixi Mountain Forest Park, vast and lush and green pine forests, lantana hidden in the forests, at the time between winter and spring, they will blossom to turn the mountain into fresh red. Clear streams flow between the mountains, a picture of beautiful scenery, a land of quietness, where anyone would lost in its beauty. 

▶ Route: Kunming-Chuxing Highway, about two hours’ drive to Chuxiong city downtown, Zixi Mountain is located in the southwest of Chuxiong city, 20 km away from downtown.

▶ Service: you can go camping at Zixi Outdoor-Moore Farm National Youth Outdoor Sports Camp. 

6. E’shan Yiren Valley 

E’shan, on the Kunming-Bangkok International Thoroughfare, is a place where Yi people live in. Tens of thousands of bamboos hidden in this place, competing to be the most unusual, cooling and refreshing the air. The most distinguishing thing, of course, is the tents under bamboos. You can choose one of the yurts in the bamboo sea and stay in overnight to experience the fragrance of bamboo forest, to listen attentively to feel elongating bamboo shoots. 

▶ Route: depart from Kunming, drive along the Kunming-Bangkok International Thoroughfare and get off the road at E’shan, then drive 18 km to the old No. 214 National Highway. It takes no more than 1 hour without traffic jams to Yiren Valley.

▶ Food: you must not miss the bamboo feast, over 30 dishes made from bamboo, and you can taste the local chicken bred in the bamboo sea. 

7. Yiliang’s Xiaoshao Eco-village 

In the daytime, you can view the wild flowers, waterfall, or go fishing; at sunset, you can go to Xiaoshao’s Yi style courtyard to taste the authentic Yi style food: bacon, local chicken, or rural barbecue. 

Camping is a hot choice for visitors. After nightfall, they sing and dance around the bonfire with plenty of joy. 

▶ Route: along the direction from Yiliang to Xiaodukou, passing through Pony Street, Dog Street and Lotus Village, you’ll see obvious instruction boards for “Xiaoshao Wild Fungus Eco-tourism Village” all the way, then just drive follow the instruction. 

8. Yiliang Moon Valley 

Colorful wild flowers blossom in spring; flower scent in the valley and trees swing with breeze in summer; yellow leaves reflect with green mountains in autumn; sunshine rather than snow on you in winter. Continuous mountains in green along the large rift valley. Sparsely populated, thus flocks of wild ducks live here beside mountains and water for generations. You might happen to pick some wild duck eggs if you are lucky. And it is also good for camping in the Moon Valley. Waterside, under the trees, tent after tent, you can light up a campfire for barbecue. Next morning, you will wake up and the first sight will be the green mountains and birds in the woods. 

▶ Route: Kunming — Shantou-Kunming Highway (G80, Kunming-Shilin Highway) — Yiliang — Gengjiaying Township — Xinshizipo Village (road end) — walk to the Moon Valley. 

9. Yiliang Triangle Cave 

Triangle Cave, located at a mountain valley 20 km from Jiuxiang in Yiliang, is one of the undeveloped large limestone caves in Jiuxiang Scenic Area. Sun lights come down from the sky pit, casting a bright triangle of sunlight. Inside the Triangle Cave, the ground is open, deep and relatively flat. Various stalactites and stalagmites are imposing and broad in different shapes, which are honestly the works of the nature. 

▶ Route: go on the No. 001 Township Road for Jiumei Section from Jiuxiang Town entrance, drive for about 6 km then turn left, and you will see the parking spot, finally a 200-m walk to the Triangle Cave. 

10. Shilin’s Changhu Lake 

Shilin’s Changhu Lake, shaped like a slim maiden, is the home of Ashima in folklore. As it is hidden in the green mountains where inaccessible to visitors in the past, thus it is also called as “Hidden Lake”. Come and have a two-day-one-night travel at Changhu Lake, eat the barbeque made by yourself and have a foot bath beside the lake. And there is Yi ethnic bonfire party in the evening. 

▶ Route: take medium bus from Shilin county downtown to the Long Lake, walk 1500 meters to the scenic spot. Or you can take bus at all long-distance bus station in Kunming. Admission ticket: RMB 10. 

11. Anning Butterfly Valley 

The Butterfly Valley, located in Xiaojingkou Village, Xianjie Township, Anning city, is about 24 km from downtown. It is a small reservoir hidden deep in the mountain ranges, surrounded by the green mountain and water. Ancient trees towering into the sky, ivy canes surrounding the road, mountain streams flowing inbetween. I’d say the lake and mountain scenery here will make people drunk. As Xiaojingkou Reservoir is hidden deep in the mountains, it is small and unfamous, thus not many people know it. 

▶ Route: Second Ring Road — Kunming-Chuxiong Highway to Anning — Xianjie — Xiaojingkou Dam

12. Haikou Forest Farm 

Haikou Forest Farm is a national precious memento woodland, whose ring surrounding Dianchi Lake plays a comprehensive role in beautifying environment, regulating climate, soil and water conservation and purification of air. In Haikou Forest Farm, you can go to pick wild fungus, and search for traditional Chinese medicine material in the woods. 

▶ Route: along the Gaoyao-Haik[FS:Page]ou Highway, get off at Baiyukou Toll Station and turn left, and you will see direction guides for Haikou Forest Farm along the way. 

13. Fumin’s Douzui Grand Cascade 

Ticket for Fumin County’s Douzui Grand Cascade is RMB 10. The scenic area is totally 5 km long. The base is at 1.5 km with a spring beside. And the end of the scenic area is the Grand Cascade. Please bring your own camping gears, pay attention to mosquitoes there, and the environment is similar to Xishuangbanna. 

▶ Route: start from Kunming, after arrival at Fumin County, drive along the Fumin to hot spring road, turn right at Lemu Village and drive for another 6 km, totally 44 km. Or you can drive through Heilinpu, Tuanjie Town, Woyun Mountain, Luze (turn right after across the bridge then drive for 9 km), then it is Lemu, totally 55 km. 

14.”Wild Hot Spring” in Fumin East Village  

Good water quality, especially at night, you can look up at the stars, lying in the hot spring, drink with friends, make barbecue on the fire beside the pond. You would miss this scene for a long time later. 

▶Route: 63 km from Kunming to the East Village, go from Huangtupo, Kunming to the road fork of Puji, turn right and drive towards Shalang for about two and a half hours, then it is the East Village, and there is 7 km from the East Village to the wild hot springs. 

15. Luquan Guihuajing 

Guihuajing, in Chinese means sweet-scented osmanthus mountain valley, is a name given by the local people, because a kind of trees in this place looks like sweet-scented osmanthus trees. Guihuajing has a waterfall named Amei (means young girl in Chinese language) and a water fall named Alang (means young man in Chinese language), and the two waterfalls are telling a beautiful love story. In fact it is a quiet canyon, trees therein are mostly wild walnut trees. Walk along the ditch, and it takes an hour to a piece of flat grassland beside the stream, which is the ideal camping site. 

▶ Route: Kunming – Luquan – Guihuajing 

16. Jinyuan “Little Qinghai-Tibet Plateau” 

Located at the eastern part of Jinyuan Township in Xundian Industrial Park, the “Little Qinghai-Tibet Plateau” Meadow is about 28 km from Jinyuan Township, covering an area of 40,000 mu. Here you can experience the fun of camping, you can eat the local wheat knot rice, and you can go to the Reshuitang Village for a natural hot spring spa. 

▶ Route: along the Jiaozi Snow Mountain tourism special line to the Jinyuan Township Government, along the road at the right side of the township government to the mountain top, it is there. 

17. Wuding’s Water Spraying Cliff 

La falaise Penshui de Wuding se trouve à Wuding de Chuxiong, les habitants locaux l’appelle la falaise Biaoshui, la qualité d’eau est bonne, elle est distancée de Kunming d’environ 160km. Le relief Danxia, les cascades de différentes tailles attirent les gens, il y a beaucoup d’arbres et ruisseaux, on peut faire un camping pour jouir de beau paysage de la nature, il y a aussi d’activités sur l’eau et de chute rapide de falaise très excitante.

Located at Wuding, Chuxiong, Water Spraying Cliff is called Soaring Water Cliff, which has good water quality. The local traits there are simple, and it is about 160 km from Kunming. Beautiful danxia landform, large and small and one after another waterfalls, you can view the scenery and feel the stimulation. The bottom of valley is gurgling streams, old vines wrap around trees, and you will see countless waterfalls in all shapes. Set a camp here to enjoy the nature, and you can also play games on the water, and the breathtaking cliff downhills.

18. Qujing’s Xianglu Mountain, Wild Flowers Ditch 

Xianglu Mountain and Wild Flowers Ditch, located at the north side of Ma’an Mountain, 40 km from the west of Malong County, Qujing, at an altitude of 2020.8 m,  is suitable for camping, barbecue, sight viewing and hiking exploration. Maguohe Scenic Area consists of three sections: Maguohe, Wanmu Meadow, Xianglu Mountain. It totally has 73 attractions with most featured ones as Maguohe Scenic Area, streams and lakes, steep cliffs and rocks, waterfalls. The scenic area is an organic combination of streams, waterfalls, lakes, mountain flowers, meadows, forests and historical and cultural relics, which has high value for tourism and scientific research. 

▶ Route: from the Kunming North Toll Station, drive on Kunming-Qujing Highway, get off at Jiuxian down exit, drive straight after passing the Jiuxian Toll Station, turn right at every road fork until you see the Wild Flower Ditch Inn. 

19. Mati Gorge 

Mati Gorge originates in Malong County, flows southwards into Niliang, an[FS:Page]d nourishes the karst hilly terrain in northern Yiliang. Mati Gorge is formed because it is hidden deep in the valley, barely seen human footprints, basically an untapped virgin land. The scenic area mainly consists of river valley, mountain view, vegetated beach, and on both sides are lush trees and plants, gurgling water in valley, green liver moss and grass floating downstream. It is really a fascinating environment. 

▶ Route: drive for 45 km along Kunming-Shilin Highway, get off at Yiliang exit, drive for about 13 km on Yiliang-Jiuxiang National Road, drive for 12 km along Y055, 3.5 km on Y056, then it is there. 

20. Jinning Grand Green Creek 

Jinning Grand Green Creek, located in the Lyuxi Village, Xiyang Township, Jinning County, is a lonely scenic area in quiet environment. You can trace the streams for sources, and you will find waterfalls and springs at winding peaks and paths. There is also a 1 to 2 km long Hetaojing with wild fungus spreading in the valley, a good destination for you to look for a beautiful and serene place. 

▶ Route: you can drive there, or go to the Xiaoximen bus station to take No. 14 Bus to Kunyang, and there one shuttle for Xiyang Township every morning, or you can hire a car to the Grand Green Creek.