Q&A: Yunnan Without Tour Guides

What’s the best way to arrange off-the-beaten path travel in a country where you don’t speak the language? I’m hoping to travel to Yunnan Province in China next spring but don’t want to go with a tour and don’t want to completely wing it either. Karla Robertson, San Francisco

A. That’s a tall order, but I may have a nice middle way that will give you a tour-less adventure without the worry over how you’ll eat or where you’ll sleep.

There is something of a tourist triangle that I have taken to the Yunnan cities of Kunming, Dali and Lijiang, above, with reliable public transportation links and numerous lodging and dining options where English is understood.

Kunming, the provincial capital, has excellent hotels, restaurants and night life plus lovely Cuihu Park, great for soaking up local atmosphere. On the Kunming guide you’ll find a great overview of the city from T: Travel magazine, “China Lite” by Sean Rocha (Sept. 23, 2007) with recommendations like the Green Lake Hotel (South Cuihu Road; 86-871-515-8888; www.greenlakehotel.com.cn) and the regional cuisine at Gingko Elite (16 East Cuihu Road).

Dali is a compact town with hostels and outdoor cafes that cater to backpacker aesthetics; a major draw of the town is the looming Cangshan Mountain, which you can get to via a converted ski lift and hike along for hours, and nearby Erhai Lake, which you reach by rental bike. Lijiang is a sprawling maze of a city and a Unesco World Heritage Site where cobblestone streets and small canals are fun to explore.

If you’re feeling confident after those towns, you could venture farther into Yunnan to sites like the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the more remote city of Zhongdian (also known as Shangri-La after the fictional James Hilton site) and the preserved village of Wenhai near Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the destination of Craig Simons in “A Village Preserves a Shangri-La” (Nov. 21, 2004). Even more adventurous is following Edward Wong along the hiking trails near the Yunnan-Tibetan border reported in his “On Foot in the Mountains of Mystical Yunnan” (April 5, 2009).

China can put up a language barrier to visitors. You can’t count on locals, even in the service industry, to speak English. Two easy suggestions are to memorize a couple phrases for common dishes you like (like jiaozi for dumpling) and to pick up business cards at hotels where you stay (they often have maps on them) so that they can be handed to taxi drivers when you need to return to your hotel.