We have been planning a rafting trip to Qingyuan for about a month, but due to the period and rainy weather, we only managed to go at the end of August. After experiencing it, I found the itinerary suggested by the official WeChat account to be the most reasonable.
If you’re planning a two-day weekend trip, departing from Shenzhen, you’ll arrive in Qingyuan around lunchtime. You can start by trying a local specialty: Sauna Chicken. The chicken is steamed in a bamboo steamer, with pig bones underneath, cooked in a broth made with Chinese herbs—looks very nourishing. Don’t steam the chicken too long, or it’ll get tough and hard to chew.
Gulong Gorge is a popular Instagram-worthy spot in Guangdong, a 4A-rated tourist site known as the top rafting destination. It also holds 12 world records, making it the tourist attraction with the most aerial activities globally. From top to bottom, there’s the Skywalk Glass Bridge, Aerial Adventure, the Grand Waterfall Cluster, International Rafting, and the Instagram-famous Valley.
We started with the Skywalk Glass Bridge, the world’s first glass sightseeing combination that includes a suspended glass platform, glass corridor, glass walkway, and glass suspension bridge all in one.
The Glass Walkway is the longest high-altitude glass sightseeing path in the world.
The Grand Waterfall Cluster is incredibly breathtaking whether you look up or down.
The Cliff Coaster starts at the top of the Skywalk Glass Bridge and ends at the entrance to the International Rafting. The track winds around the mountains, crossing three peaks over a distance of 3.8 kilometers, with a height drop of 163 meters and a top speed of 45 kilometers per hour.
After a whole afternoon of playing, it was time for dinner.
I found a highly-rated local restaurant on Xiaohongshu called Peng’s Private Kitchen, recommended by locals. It’s been consistently ranked second on Qingyuan’s Dianping food list.
The restaurant was close to the hotel we booked, so we headed over, showered, and relaxed. Others enjoyed drinking and playing cards—very chill.
The next morning, we woke up early to catch the first round of rafting. Everything went smoothly—no traffic, and we hardly had to wait in line. The first drop was steep, and hearing the people ahead scream like crazy made us nervous, haha. But there was no turning back, especially since we had water guns and buckets—we couldn’t back down!
Who would’ve thought that as soon as we started, I lost my bucket because I didn’t hold on tight enough! During the calm sections, we got soaked in water fights. Luckily, a companion “loaned” me their bucket, so we fought back—and never returned it, haha.
The whole rafting experience lasted about an hour, with five or six major drops. The rest were calm stretches perfect for water fights and taking it easy. It was actually pretty tiring—during the steep drops, you need to hold on tight, or you’ll get thrown out, and during the calm parts, you’re busy fighting water battles. If not, you’d just be getting hit, haha.
After rafting, there are shower areas in the park with hot water and some hair dryers. Aside from the long queues, everything was great.
For our last meal in Qingyuan, we tried the famous Hua Hua Yi Lu Goose, which has been featured on CCTV four times. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
