The Best Places to Drink and Stay in China

Lake views come with the upper floors at this contemporary hotel in Luoyang's new administrative district, where rooms run from the fifteenth floor up and the better categories face water on two sides. The interiors nod to the city's long dynastic past without going full museum about it. Two restaurants cover Cantonese and all-day international, and the Longmen Grottoes are close enough to justify the trip entirely on their own.

A tic-tac-toe mural on the wall and lyf-branded tees hanging as room decor set the tone at this design-forward apart-hotel in Qujiang New District. Rooms run from compact studios with fold-out sofas to a four-bedroom apartment for groups. The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is a short walk, and Tang Paradise is close enough for an evening stroll. Downstairs there's co-working, a shared kitchen, and a gym, for guests who find hotel lobbies a little too quiet.

Steep ornate rooflines in the Dai manner signal immediately that this small resort is doing something more considered than slapping a lotus motif on the lobby. Rooms have freestanding baths and bamboo-screened balconies, and the heavy beam ceilings and earth-toned walls draw directly from the Buddhist architectural tradition of this corner of Yunnan, which borders Myanmar and Laos and feels closer to Chiang Mai than Beijing. The Mengle Great Buddhist Monastery is a short drive away.

A French hotel brand dropped into Sichuan, which sounds like a dare but somehow holds together. Maison Albar runs 97 rooms and three suites with butler service, two restaurants covering Chinese, French, and the space between them, and interiors that swing from grand gestures to quiet corners. The Leshan Giant Buddha is about half an hour by car, Mount Emei a bit further, so the sightseeing is not exactly incidental.

Meliá sits inside Tieshanping Forest Park, deep enough in the mountains that the city of Chongqing feels like a rumor. It's a full resort, with 230 rooms and suites, most of them opening onto balconies that face the forest or the lake below, where a pagoda sits at the water's edge. Six dining venues cover everything from Sichuan cooking to a Spanish kitchen. Two pools and a spa are on site, and the whole thing is about thirty minutes from downtown.

Seven Star Park is three kilometers away, which tells you most of what you need to know about the location. This mid-range hotel sits in Guilin's high-tech zone, a business district that tourists tend to drive through on the way somewhere prettier, but the Wanda Plaza next door covers shopping and convenience, the 142 rooms are clean and functional, and the all-day restaurant handles both Chinese and Western cooking without committing fully to either.

The hotel takes its address from Dongfanghong Square, named for the revolutionary anthem "The East is Red," which gives the lobby small talk more historical weight than most. This Mercure sits on the upper floors of an office tower in central Lanzhou, with Metro Line 1 directly below and shopping centers within walking distance. The 204 rooms follow Mercure's French-inflected house style, and breakfast covers both Chinese and Western options.

A mid-range hotel planted squarely opposite City Hall at one of Shijiazhuang's busier central intersections, the Mercure puts Chang'an Park and Beiguo Shopping Mall within a five-minute walk and the Hebei Provincial Museum not much farther. The 205 rooms run in soft grey and mauve with curved upholstered headboards, and some come with soundproof walls, which you'll appreciate given the address. A 24-hour gym and self-service laundry suit anyone staying more than a night or two.

A mid-range business hotel in Taiyuan's Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Mercure sits near Tanghuai Park and the district's corporate offices. Some of its 164 rooms come with a mini kitchen, fridge, microwave, and toaster, which quietly signals the clientele: people here on a project, not a weekend. Every bathroom has a rainfall showerhead, there's a 24-hour gym, and self-service laundry covers the rest. Chuanshi handles dining.

Six rooms in the Yulong River Scenic Area, with karst mountains doing the heavy lifting outside every window. This small guesthouse near Yangshuo runs cooking classes in Guilin rice noodles and local Guangxi dishes for guests who want more than scenery, and bamboo rafting on the Yulong River is minutes away by car. Rooms go from standard doubles up to family suites with balcony garden views and spa baths, so there's a configuration for most situations.

A slowly rotating Chinese restaurant at the top of a Moxy hotel is not a sentence anyone expected to write. This 360-room property in Jiefangbei leans into Chongqing's go-big instincts: panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, a neon-lit bar with a pool table, and compact rooms with studded walls standing in for wardrobes. Hongya Cave and the Liberation Monument are both an easy walk out the door.

Qiandao Lake's thousand-plus islands are actually submerged mountain peaks, and somewhere beneath the water sits an entire Han Dynasty city, perfectly preserved. The Moxy is a design-forward hotel inside the Qingxi Yintai City complex, with lake-facing rooms and a Ferris wheel in the yard. Bar Moxy pulls double duty as the front desk, which is the brand's move. Hangzhou is two hours by road, making this a proper escape rather than a stopover.

Perched on floors 63 through 80 of a Logan Century tower, this Luxury Collection hotel puts 290 rooms and 26 suites high above the Yong River, with panoramic windows doing most of the decorating. The interiors draw on the Zhuang folk legend of Yuemei, woven through motif and material from lobby to guest room. Three restaurants cover Guangxi cooking, dim sum, and an international spread for those yet to find their footing.

Bar 93 sits on the 93rd floor, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ambitions of this luxury hotel tower, one of the tallest buildings in Hunan province. Rooms split between city views over Martyrs Park and river-facing outlooks over the Xiang Jiang, and even the standard Deluxe rooms are genuinely spacious. Niccolo Kitchen runs an open counter across Asian and Western menus, and the Tea Lounge does afternoon tea with the full skyline behind it.

Arranged like a village along the lakeshore, this Park Hyatt sprawls across Dong Qian Lake in pavilions and villas built in a contemporary Chinese style that manages to feel neither pastiche nor corporate. Rooms are straightforwardly categorized, which is refreshing when every other luxury hotel insists yours is "superior" at minimum. The spa leans into traditional Chinese medicine, and a restaurant focuses on local seafood and regional Zhejiang flavors.

The lake and private gardens visible from the rooms put Kaifeng's long history right outside the window at this full-service hotel, a short walk from Longting Park and the sprawling Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden, built in tribute to the Song-dynasty scroll that every Chinese schoolchild can picture. The Chinese restaurant inside covers Cantonese, Henan, and the city's own Kaifeng cooking, which is reason enough to stay curious about the menu.

Outside, the Pullman reads as a traditional Naxi village, pagoda angles mirrored in a central pond. Step inside and it flips to cool minimalism, all floor-to-ceiling glass and immaculate white. This is a resort in the foothills near Lijiang, with the snowcapped Jade Dragon Snow Mountain visible from the grounds and upscale villas offering outdoor soaking tubs pointed straight at it. The Mandara spa runs regional treatments, pu-erh tea scrubs among them. A fine place to anchor a Yunnan trip.

The Bohai Sea has been a power destination for long enough that the Qing court, the Communist Party, and now the Marriott have all claimed their slice of this coastline. The resort runs 283 rooms split between oceanview and oceanfront categories, with a Cantonese restaurant high enough to see the water and a bar that turns an interesting shade of blue after dark.

The lobby is divided into five zones, each themed to a facet of Guangxi Zhuang culture, rainy season, rice terrace, market, folk song, and the effect is less theme park than a genuinely considered welcome. This business hotel in Wuxiang New District puts Cantonese cooking and French-style steaks under the same roof, with 292 rooms that carry Zhuang textile and pattern details through their interiors. The Guangxi Cultural and Art Center sits next door.

A large resort spread along Yalong Bay's white sand crescent, with rooms looking out over the bay, the mountains, or tropical gardens depending on how optimistic you're feeling at booking. Three restaurants cover Cantonese, Hainan, and Teochew cooking, a Japanese dining room with shogunate-era seating, and fresh local catch on an open-air deck. An oceanfront wedding chapel handles the bigger occasions.

Baotou is an industrial city on the Mongolian grassland, better known for rare-earth mining than hotel lobbies, which makes a full-scale Shangri-La here a mild surprise. The hotel sits near Yinhe Park in the city center, with 360 rooms done in warm wood tones and running to generous proportions. Shang Palace handles Cantonese and regional Mongolian cooking; Xin Cafe covers all-day dining from an open kitchen. A grounded base for Inner Mongolia, selected by the Michelin Guide.

Changchun was once the capital of a puppet empire, and the Shangri-La sits at the center of a city that carries that strange, layered history right up to street level. It's a polished downtown business hotel, generously sized rooms and all, with a Chinese restaurant and an international café covering the bases. Professional, smooth, and well-placed near the main rail hub, with more backstory outside the front door than most guests expect.

Zhongshan Square sits right outside the door, a Parisian radial plan laid down by Russian engineers and ringed by Japanese neoclassical civic buildings, which means the view from this 560-room luxury hotel is one of the stranger skylines in China. Rooms look out over that colonial palimpsest or the hotel's landscaped gardens. Shang Palace handles Chinese cooking; YISEA does Japanese. The Dong Gang Business District is a short walk away.

The rooms at this riverside luxury hotel come with large ink-wash karst murals on the walls, which is a bit redundant given that every window frames the real thing, those jagged limestone peaks rising from the Li River plain that have been making people dramatic for centuries. The garden runs to eleven thousand square metres and includes peacocks and ostriches, which keeps the kids occupied. Shang Palace handles the Chinese dining.

Six hundred rooms stacked above a coastline where the Yellow Sea competes with the city skyline for your attention. This large-scale Shangri-La hotel sits between Qingdao's financial district and the waterfront, walking distance from the German-era architecture and seaside promenades that give the city its odd, enjoyable character. Interiors run to warm neutrals with Asian accents, bathrooms are generous, and the beds are the kind you notice.

Sitting at 12,000 feet with the Potala Palace a short walk away, this Shangri-La hotel leans into its namesake harder than any other in the group. The 262 rooms and suites layer earthy ochres, vivid Tibetan textiles, and carved filigree details over what is otherwise a polished business-class luxury template. The oxygen lounge is not a gimmick at this altitude; visit it before the cocktail bar, not after.

Jinan sits on a network of artesian springs, and Baotu Spring, which an emperor once declared the finest under heaven, is a short walk from this sleek hotel in the central business district. The 364 rooms look out over Quancheng Square or Daming Lake, and the interiors fold in traditional spring-garden motifs without going full theme park about it. Café Spring handles Shandong regional cooking on site.

Six stone-and-timber structures and one salvaged Tibetan house, reassembled around open-air walkways in a formerly abandoned corner of Dukezong Ancient Town, make up this boutique hotel. Guest rooms face the surrounding ridgeline, a converted woodshed holds a circular stone soaking tub, and the resident husky, Xiao Ha, tends to appear at breakfast without being invited. The name nods to a Tang dynasty poem about a traveler hunting for a reclusive monk near a mountain stream.

A thirteen-room guesthouse inside a provincial park, close enough to Dukezong Ancient Town to walk over but far enough to skip the souvenir-shop hum. The rooms go against the local grain, trading rough stone and timber for black tile, dark wood, and glass-walled bathrooms. The communal tea room around an open fireplace is the real draw, and regulars reportedly get invited to stay long after checkout, which is a rarer amenity than it sounds.

Floor-to-ceiling views of the Gan River run through most of the 473 rooms and suites at this large Shangri-La hotel, anchored in Nanchang's glassy Honggutan business district. Zi Yu Xuan handles the Cantonese and local Jiangxi cooking; the international buffet lives in Café Hong. The Pavilion of Prince Teng, one of China's three great classical pavilions, is a short trip from the door for anyone who wanders out of the new city and into the old one.

Check-in is on the 68th floor, which tells you most of what you need to know. This Shangri-La occupies the upper reaches of the tallest building in Guangxi province, its faceted glass exterior designed to echo the region's famous limestone peaks. The 336 rooms run up to the 88th floor, and the outdoor pool sits at 323 meters, with nothing between you and a panorama of Nanning's parks and lakes below.

At 3,200 meters, the name earns itself: the air thins noticeably, and first-time arrivals tend to stand still for a moment. This 16-room retreat keeps things warm and grounded, with amber linens, dark timber, and stone bathrooms, plus balconies facing the mountains or garden. Ganden Sumtseling Monastery, the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, is under two kilometers away, and Dukezong Ancient Town is closer still. Breakfast is included.

Three rivers, the Yong, the Fenghua, and the Yuyao, converge right below this 34-story Shangri-La, and the wave-like facade makes sure you don't miss the point. It's a full-scale luxury hotel with 562 rooms, every one of them angled toward the city or the water. Shang Palace covers Ningbonese and Zhejiang cooking; the Lobster Bar and Grill handles seafood and grilled meats. Tianyi Pavilion, China's oldest surviving private library, is a five-minute drive.

Moshe Safdie designed the stacked-tower beachfront complex it occupies, modeled on his own Habitat 67 in Montreal, which means you're sleeping inside an architectural argument before you've even unpacked. The hotel runs 323 rooms across 23 floors, plum blossom motifs showing up on carpets, headboards, and light installations throughout. The indoor pool is petal-shaped, which tells you something about the clientele. Qin Xiang Ge covers both Dongbei and Cantonese cooking across fifteen private rooms.

Rooms look out over Youth Park's lake on one side and the neon corridor of Youth Street on the other, so you're picking between serene and electric. This large Shangri-La hotel has 383 rooms dressed in warm timber and silk-embroidered panels that nod to the region's craft traditions. The pool sits at a steady 28°C beside Chi, The Spa, and the in-house Chinese restaurant spans Cantonese, Sichuan, and Northeastern cooking in a single menu.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the Songhua River or the Harbin skyline from all 344 rooms at this large, comfortable Shangri-La hotel in Songbei, a short drive from the Ice and Snow World fairgrounds. It's a logical base if you've come for the winter festival and its carved ice palaces. Shang Kitchen handles Peking duck, though you'll need to order well ahead; it takes the better part of an hour to arrive.

Blue carpets that trace the Haihe River run through the rooms at this large riverside hotel, where minibars hide inside custom Chinese cabinets and the indoor pool looks out over the water. Horizon Club guests get a private lounge on the 32nd floor. A mall walkway connects to a cinema, ice rink, and shops, so you never have to brave the elements if you'd rather not. Cross the bridge and you're in the old Five Avenues district.

Sand-toned plaster, arched doorways, and a freestanding bath in every room set the mood at this small boutique hotel occupying a single floor of a commercial tower in Chenghai. The wabi-sabi aesthetic runs all the way to the rooftop, where a pool, tea corner, and bar sit above the city. Below, the streets are deep in Chaoshan food culture, lion head goose and fish porridge within easy walking distance.

Five minutes from Shenyang North Railway Station, this Marriott sits close enough to the Shenyang Palace Museum for a quick detour between meetings. Man Ho serves Cantonese food from an open kitchen with skyline views, Sky Bar runs live music late into the night on the top floor, and Mill & Co. handles the morning with fresh bread and pastry. Middle Commercial Street is close enough for an evening walk.

A Sheraton on Nanhu Road where most of the 187 rooms face the lake, the better ones with full-height windows and proper water panoramas. The old quarter is walkable, with the Xunyang Tower nearby and the kind of literary atmosphere that comes from a city where Tang dynasty poets apparently had feelings. Mount Lushan rises just to the south when you want an excuse to leave the room.

At 168 meters, this Sheraton is the tallest building in Kaifeng, planted in the new Longting District development rather than the old imperial city a few kilometers south. The 236 rooms look out over West Lake or the emerging skyline, and the upper-floor Sheraton Lounge earns the lake-view side. Two on-site restaurants cover local Henan cooking and Hangzhou dishes alongside international buffet options at The Feast.

A lobby wall of metallic relief abstracts the Silk Road's dunes, and that's the hotel's thesis statement from the moment you check in. This Sheraton sits on the Yellow River bank in Anning District, its 354 rooms within reach of the old Zhongshan iron bridge and the Gansu Provincial Museum. The in-house noodle restaurant does Lanzhou's hand-pulled beef noodles, which is the correct thing to eat in this city.

Decorative panels in the lobby recreate the click of an abacus, a nod to the Jin merchants who built Shanxi's old trading networks. This full-service hotel sits on Longcheng Avenue facing Longcheng Park, with Metro Line 2 a short walk away. The communal lobby table comes wired with charging ports, useful if you're working through lunch. Three restaurants cover Cantonese, Shanxi, and regional noodles, plus a buffet for the undecided.

Floor-to-ceiling windows on the 57th floor put the Nanming River and the mountains behind it at eye level, which sets the tone for this full-service luxury hotel in Nanming District. The 273 rooms and suites come with Lanvin toiletries and views of city, river, or peaks, depending on your luck. Le Chinois on the fourth floor moves through Sichuan, Guizhou, and Cantonese cooking across six private rooms for when the panorama can wait.

Every room in this 52-story Sofitel starts at the 27th floor, so even the least impressive view involves most of Kunming. The interiors draw on Dai peacock motifs, curved surfaces, quilted leather in the suites, and black-veined white marble, which keeps things from feeling like any other international business hotel. Dianchi Lake reads clearly from the higher lake-facing rooms. Three restaurants occupy the upper floors, including a 49th-floor buffet with 360-degree city views.

Silk-patterned fabrics in the rooms and rows of vases in the restaurant nod quietly to the Terra Cotta Warriors buried less than an hour east, which is a more elegant tribute than a gift shop. This is a full-service Sofitel luxury hotel on Renmin Square, so the fitout is international and polished. What sets it apart is a halal restaurant alongside the expected Cantonese and Mediterranean options, acknowledging Xi'an's long Islamic history with more than a gesture.

At 11,000 feet in Yunnan's Meili Snow Mountains, this luxury boutique hotel was built from a Tibetan residence, and the bones still show on purpose. The design philosophy borrows from wabi-sabi, leaving rough finishes and imperfect surfaces intact, so the rooms feel grounded even when the thread count says otherwise. Nobody passes through this corner of Yunnan by accident, which means the guests who do make it tend to be pretty serious about being here.

Zhaoyang Architects squeezed what feels like an entire village onto a two-house footprint in Dali's old town, and the result is a 14-room boutique hotel that turns its back on the street completely. Strategically placed windows open onto private courtyards rather than neighbors, so each minimalist room gets light and views without sacrificing privacy. It's a design exercise you happen to sleep in, selected by the Michelin Guide.

Hot springs at the edge of a village that has been frozen in whitewashed Ming-dynasty amber long enough to attract UNESCO designation and a Crouching Tiger film crew. This 80-room resort pairs contemporary dark stone and warm timber interiors with that backdrop, and adds a golf course for guests who find ancient ink-wash scenery insufficiently recreational. Mount Huangshan is about an hour south if the pool isn't enough of a draw.

Ningbo calls itself a city of books, and this luxury hotel takes the hint, building a "Slow Reading Initiative" into the property alongside the expected butler service and indoor pool. Restaurants run from an all-day Western-and-Chinese spot to Lu Yuan, which sticks to Ningbo classics. It's the kind of carefully localized hotel that makes you feel the city rather than just sleep in it.

Deer wander the forested grounds below the battlements, which is either deeply charming or deeply on-brand for a Bavarian castle overlooking the Yellow Sea, depending on your mood. This hotel on Lotus Mountain above Xinghai Bay has 292 rooms with stone walls, handcrafted timber, and ceilings that make you feel appropriately small. The Royal Cellar brews its own beer, and Binhai Road's 32-kilometre coastal route begins at the front door.

Kerry Hill designed this resort, and the man never met a coastline he couldn't make look cinematic. Sitting just across the bay from Qingdao, the Lalu is a monumental high-luxury property where an Ocean View Suite is the entry-level option, and the Cliff Villa is presumably where you stay when you've run out of ways to spend money. Six restaurants, a full-service spa, and a Japanese onsen round things out for anyone who finds a pool insufficiently theatrical.

The lobby sits on the 35th floor, which tells you something about the ambition here. This is a luxury hotel in Hainan's tallest tower on Binhai Avenue, with 249 rooms stacked above it and most looking out over the South China Sea. Cantonese at T'ang Court, an all-day international spread at Atelier, afternoon tea at Palm Court because that's a Langham tradition going back forever, and cocktails at Liquary on the 43rd floor if you need a reason to go higher.

Afternoon tea at Palm Court is the Langham's calling card, a ritual the brand has been doing since its London founding and one that feels oddly right perched on floors 31 to 43 of a tower near Swan Lake. This upscale hotel brings 339 rooms, warm neutral interiors, and two proper restaurants, Cantonese at T'ang Court and Italian at Sapori, to Hefei's administrative and cultural district.

Three minutes from Tianjinnan Railway Station, this 178-room hotel makes no secret of the rail lines outside, framing them floor to ceiling behind mustard-toned headboards. Suites come with full kitchens and marble bar seating for guests who plan to stay a while. Downstairs, two restaurants cover Cantonese, Sichuan, and local Tianjin cooking in one direction, and Southeast Asian in another, which is an unusually wide net.

Arriving guests can request a Rolls-Royce or Bentley instead of a standard car, which sets the tone for a hotel that looks more like a European manor than a business address in Tianjin's CBD. Neoclassical turrets outside give way to chandeliers, blue-and-white porcelain, and dark wood inside. ZEST runs an open kitchen across Chinese, Japanese, and Italian, while Mellō Charcoal Grill handles Australian and South American grilling. The spa works with China Rose extracts.

Joseph Rock spent decades in this corner of Yunnan documenting its plants and people for National Geographic, and this 18-room stone-and-timber hotel at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain carries his name. Balconies face the mountain close enough to make you second-guess the distance. Botanical hikes, horse riding, stargazing, and Naxi cultural evenings around a bonfire fill the days, and the kitchen runs local Yunnan dishes alongside a Chinese and Western breakfast.

Four fashion capitals organize the room categories here, Bangkok's P49 Design dividing 216 rooms across Italian Elegance, French Chic, British Fabulous, and American Classic, each with its own palette. It's an unusual premise for a beach resort on Hainan, and as the first Autograph Collection property in China it skews glossier than its neighbors. The rooftop Pod bar pours cocktails against the Dadonghai Bay coastline, which softens any temptation to overthink the concept.

Floodlit in umber with candle-warm windows stacked against the Himalayas, this St. Regis is the kind of luxury hotel that earns its audacity from its backdrop alone. Three dining venues, a tearoom, a wine bar, and an acid-yellow pool with cabana seating round things out. Rooms lean toward calm minimalism, rescued by warm wood and wool underfoot. Altitude sickness is, as locals will tell you, Tibet's least glamorous amenity, so plan accordingly before the spa day.

The corridors of this 343-room Haitang Bay resort have almost no glass, which is a deliberate choice: the architects, Shanghai firm Neri&Hu, designed the buildings to breathe, letting tropical air and shifting light stand in for walls. Two clay-brick L-shaped wings wrap a central water courtyard, the layout loosely modeled on a Chinese walled city. Fabrics and rugs nod to Li textile traditions. Four restaurants and a sixth-floor cocktail bar with sea views round it out.

Check-in happens on the 51st floor, which sets the tone for the whole stay: floor-to-ceiling windows, a ten-meter ceiling, and the Yangtze spread out below you. This Westin sits at the heart of Yuzhong, two minutes from the Liberation Monument, with rooms on the middle floors keeping things calmer. The hotel's dining runs from panoramic buffet to Chongqing-style hotpot, which is fitting for a city that takes its food seriously.

A private walkway links this 453-room beach resort directly to one of China's largest duty-free shopping complexes, which tells you something about who comes here and what they're planning to do. The water park is a genuine counterargument, with a river pool, an infinity edge, and tropical gardens covering the kind of acreage that makes a lounger feel far away. Three restaurants cover Cantonese, Sichuan, Hainan, kaiseki, and rooftop hotpot with live music.

A business hotel in Heping District, close enough to the Imperial Palace and Zhang Xueliang's former residence that you can feel cultured about spending most of your time in meetings. The 446 rooms run blue and gold with proper desks and 65-inch TVs. Nanbei Kitchen handles Cantonese and regional Chinese, Café Lido covers international all-day dining, and the recreational wing stretches to 3,500 square meters, pool and squash courts included.

Six kilometers of beachfront along Hainan's southeast coast, with Vatica Mangachapoi Forest at the resort's back and Jiajing Island floating just offshore, sets the scene here. The Westin Shimei Bay is a full-scale beach resort with nearly 400 rooms and villas, four restaurants including Cantonese and Hainan cooking and a teppanyaki grill, and a spa for when the surf at nearby Riyue Bay has done its worst.

Room interiors at this Haikou hotel draw from classical Chinese landscape painting, with blush-toned headboard panels, pebble-patterned carpet underfoot, and dark lacquered furniture behind sheer floor-length curtains. The on-site Chinese restaurant seats 200 across a dozen private rooms, each named for a different province. The CDF International Duty-Free City is next door, which tells you something about who the neighborhood is catering to these days.

A boutique hotel tower right on Sanya Bay, where the sea-facing rooms step back in terraced layers to grab a little more open sky. Inside, the rooms and suites run crisp and minimalist without skimping on comfort, and many have open-air terraces. It sits close enough to the city that restaurants and shops are walkable, which sets it apart from the resort compounds further up the coast.

An airport hotel that doesn't look embarrassed to be one. The voco sits directly at Changsha Huanghua International Airport, which is either entirely obvious or exactly the point, depending on your departure time. A sculptural spiral ceiling and herringbone timber floors give the lobby more warmth than the category usually attempts, and rooms are light and smart-controlled. Yu Xiang Hui handles the Hunanese cooking, and the Wink Bar is there for everyone waiting on a delayed flight.

The Sky Bar on the fifth floor frames Yangshuo's limestone karst peaks over sculpted pines, which is either a good reason to book a room here or a very good reason to order another drink. This 73-room hotel sits close enough to the Yulong River to walk, and some suites come with private plunge pools aimed at that same panorama. The restaurant works local Guilin ingredients into a menu that moves between Chinese and Western cooking without committing to either.

A dark bronze spiral staircase rises through double-height glass in the lobby, which gives you a read on the hotel's ambitions before you've checked in. This 205-room property on the northern shore of Chaohu Lake leans hard into smart-room technology: voice-controlled lighting, automated curtains, the works. Two restaurants, one devoted to Cantonese cooking and one running a full Indian kitchen with spices sourced from India, keep things interesting at dinner.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the curve of Dadonghai Bay from nearly every room in this modern beach resort, which sits where Sanya's city blocks start dissolving into the Luhuitou Peninsula. The minimalist interiors keep ornamentation light so the tropical view does the heavy lifting. An outdoor pool and poolside bar hold the daytime crowd together, and two restaurants mean you can avoid leaving until checkout without much suffering.

Thousand Island Lake spreads across a flooded valley holding more than a thousand islands, and this voco hotel sits on a peninsula with water on three sides of it. The architecture borrows whitewashed walls and dark timber from the regional Hui style, folded into something contemporary. Rooms run to freestanding tubs and lake views; family rooms add bunk beds and play tents for guests who travel with people under four feet tall.

A bas-relief of Yellow Crane Tower anchors the lobby, flanked by latticed timber screens and a golden chandelier that gives the whole check-in moment more drama than most hotels dare. This voco on Jianshe Avenue sits along Wuhan's old commercial spine near Northwest Lake, with rooms done in navy and yellow and cloud-patterned carpets. Wan Song Yuan Food Street is minutes away if you'd rather eat where locals eat than where the concierge points.

Gold-framed library shelving towers beside the reception desk, and park greenery fills every floor-to-ceiling window in this 226-room hotel along Fengcheng 9th Road. The double-height lobby announces the voco brand's fondness for warm neutrals and yellow accents early. CaiLing downstairs blends Cantonese cooking with Shaanxi inflections across six private dining rooms, and V Bar keeps the city skyline visible behind full-height glass on the second floor.

The gilded spire of the Grand Golden Pagoda is visible from the upper-floor balconies by day and lit against the night sky after dark, which is a reasonable argument for picking this 142-room voco over any other hotel in the district. Gaozhuang's Southeast Asian-inflected streets are right outside, and the full-glass gym keeps the pagoda in frame even mid-workout. Interiors run the brand's signature yellow and teal, with Elemis bath products and sculpted furniture throughout.

The lobby ceiling was designed to evoke a starry universe, and the architects at Cheng Chung Design apparently meant that literally in the best possible way, non-literally. This is a full-on luxury hotel, theatrical from arrival, with lavish rooms and the kind of high-end comforts that make the bill feel inevitable. The restaurants lean into contemporary Hunan cuisine, which in Changsha is exactly what you'd hope for.

Every one of the 372 rooms comes with a private balcony over Qujiangchi Lake, which sounds like a marketing line until you realize it holds across all 22 floors. This W Hotel plays the brand's signature maximalist hand: teal walls, patterned cushions, marble bathrooms with round mirrors the size of wagon wheels. WEI has open kitchens and theatrical plating, YEN handles Huaiyang fine dining under sculptural pendant lights, and WOOBAR does what WOOBARs do.

Xishuangbanna sits closer to the Mekong delta than to Beijing in spirit, and this boutique resort on the Lancang riverbank leans into that identity hard. Rattan, timber, red brick, and black roof tiles sit inside dense tropical foliage, with private hot spring baths and 24-hour butler service. Rainforest afternoon tea in the courtyard garden is exactly as good an idea as it sounds. A small, unhurried stay in a corner of Yunnan that operates on its own timezone.

A luxury hotel occupying the top quarter of a 263-meter tower on Zhongbei Road, the Wuhan Marriott Wuchang puts Sand Lake and East Lake in the window simultaneously, which feels like cheating. The lobby and corridors lean into Three Kingdoms lore, with Yellow Crane Tower motifs threading through the design. The M Club lounge claims the 61st floor with an outdoor terrace built for watching the city go dark. Rooms split between lake and city views, though at this height, both are doing a lot.

The skywells in the name are literal, narrow internal courtyards built centuries ago to pull daylight into a Huizhou-style mansion before electricity had opinions about it. The property has been restored into a luxury boutique hotel, with weathered old masonry set against freshly crafted traditional woodwork and modern furniture throughout. It sits in the rural Wuyuan hills, well outside anywhere resembling a city, which is rather the point.

The valley where they filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a ninety-metre walk from the front door, which is a strong opener for any guesthouse. This small family-run spot sits at the edge of the Huangshan scenic area, and the hosts have been guiding visitors through the mountain's routes and quieter paths for over two decades. Evenings sort themselves out around an outdoor fireplace and hot tub.

You walk into Barules through a scarlet London phone box, which sets the tone nicely. Inside, this cocktail bar pays quiet tribute to the craft, with portraits of bartending legends lining the walls and glass cabinets full of cocktail kit. The menu leans fresh and fruit-forward rather than classical, which surprises you given all the reverence on display. A bar for people who know the names on those portraits and enjoy the slight irony of ordering something bright and tropical beneath them.

A retro Coca-Cola vending machine in what looks like an abandoned sandwich shop turns out to be the door, which is exactly the kind of entrance Flask deserves. The bar sits behind it down a narrow brick passage that fire marshals would probably prefer not to know about. It's the sort of cocktail bar that makes you feel briefly like a genius for finding it, then immediately guilty for telling anyone.

The 34-metre bar counter was painstakingly rebuilt from old photographs after the building's last tenant, somewhat anticlimactically, was a KFC. This cocktail bar inside the Waldorf Astoria on the Bund channels old Shanghai with enough conviction that the gap in the timeline barely registers. The room feels like it has always been here, which is either a triumph of restoration or a very good illusion, and at this point the distinction hardly matters.

Dial zero on the retro telephone tucked inside El Ocho and a door opens into a 17-seat cocktail bar where there is no menu, only a conversation. The bartender listens, then builds something to order, while hot towels and crystal water glasses set a register closer to Tokyo than Shanghai. The passion here is personal in a way a larger room could never sustain.

A two-storey glazed brewing tower rises through the center of this hotel microbrewery bar, and the smell of yeasty mash greets you before you've found a seat. The brewing kit gives the sleek, woven-brick room something to look at besides itself, and a retro motorcycle with sidecar, pool table, and big screens do the work of keeping it from feeling like a lobby concept. Good for an unplanned second round.

A warren of mirror-lined rooms on the third floor of Zhang Yuan, this cocktail bar runs on velvet seats, low light, and a sunken bar that makes the whole place feel like a speakeasy someone actually finished decorating. The menu skews classical, organized by Old-Fashioneds, Flips, Tiki, and the rest, with dark spirits leading the charge. The name is Spanish for eight, which is lucky, which the Chinese know, which means the odds are already in your favor.

Tucked into the first floor of an apartment block on Wukang Lu, this cocktail bar commits to a decorating scheme where Qing dynasty meets Louis XVI, with gilt, lacquer, velvet in purple and scarlet, lion heads, and birdcages all arriving at once. The menu balances house originals against classics like the Bramble and Sidecar, though the room has already done most of the theatrical heavy lifting before your drink arrives.

A craft brewery bar spread across three floors of Sinan Mansions, Boxing Cat is where Shanghai's American expat crowd discovered they didn't have to drink watered-down lager forever. Exposed brick, leather sofas, outdoor seating, a pool table, and table football upstairs give the place a cheerfully unfussy feel. Big screens run movies on the lower floor while the wifi-dependent tap away at laptops. The house-brewed beers are the whole point.