Climbing Changbai Shan’s Heaven Lake in late Autumn

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wildebeest migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
8
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
3
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
6
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling local market
9
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
4
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
7
Overall TE Score
The overall travel experiences score:  fun factor + avoid the crowds + (best of nature or culture) + (best of world famous or unique). Then convert into a score out of 100
75 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site, based on the travel experience (te) score
101st/454
Top 30%
continent
Asia
country
China
Length of time
1 day or less
Typical daily price
This gives you a rough idea of the daily price based on 2 people travelling where they can split costs like accommodation. It excludes travel there and back, and factors in inflation the numbers in brackets show the price range for the full time of the experience (so not necessarily daily). It is a range to reflect different budget vs higher end
$60 (typically $20 - $110)
Time of year visited
October
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Forests Mountains Volcanic Lake
All Tags
Adventure Cliffs Hiking Lakes Volcanoes
Wow Factor
The wow factor reflects just how much you’re likely to say “wow”. As there’s a lot of experiences in the world, and a lot of wows, i’ve gone with a simple ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ to ⭐️ score, and a separate category for the truly "gash"
⭐⭐⭐

Summary

On the border with North Korea, Changbai Shan is China’s largest nature reserve and by far the top attraction in the surrounding region.

The park itself is beautifully rugged with bitch trees and pine trees eventually making way to a far more sparse other-worldly landscape once you get above 2000m / 6500ft.  But it is the walk up the north slope to the Heaven Lake sitting 2,200m / 7200ft on the top of Paektu Mountain that is the highlight.

The mountain, little know outside of this part of the world, is an important mythological and cultural symbol for parts of China and certainly for Korea.  For example, it is in both North and South Korea’s national anthems and is on the national emblem of the North.

We visited here at the slightly unusual time of mid October which, because the place is waiting to make its transition from summer visitors to opening up for those visiting the ski slopes later in the year, certainly made it a bit harder to reach and in particular harder to find a place open.  The flip side was that it felt we had the walk up to the Heaven Lake almost all to ourselves, which made for a quite unique experience.

Top tip – try to stay at the Lanjing Spa Holiday Inn which is only 500m from the north gate entrance.  It has a feeling of being secluded to very much adds to the otherworldly feel.  Most likely at this time of year you’ll be able to get a discount.  No worries if can’t get a spot there, you can stay in Baihe and just get a taxi for 40mins or so to the entrance gate.

 

Table of Contents

Highlights

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#1 Looking out over Paektu Mountain's Heaven Lake . . . and into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

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#2 Walking up through the slightly bizarre walkway and past the Changbai Waterfall to reach the crater

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#3 Feeling like you're in The Shinning movie as you walk through the almost deserted grounds of the village by the Lanjing Spa Holiday Inn

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#4 Checking out the broader Changbai Shan Nature Reserve - China's largest

Some broad tips for travelling in China

I lived in China for 2 years or so, and have now been living in Hong Kong for 10+ years.  I’m fascinated by what is such an awe-inspiring and vast place.  Here are 3 tips I would give to any first time visitor:

 

China is vast, try to get some context – huge in terms of its sheer land area, population, economy, but also its history and culture.  You could spend a lifetime travelling what is effectively like another continent and still only scrape the surface.  To help start to get your head around it, it helps getting some context.  For this, I would really recommend the book Wild Swans by Jung Chang, which tells the true story of 3 generations of women living in China from 1909 to modern day.  Highly recommend.

The Chinese people – it’s often difficult to interact with locals in China.  There are certainly strong cultural differences that go deeper than you would experience in most other parts of the world, but the main problem is of course the language.   Get out google translate for simultaneous translation.  You’ll be surprised how keen the locals will be to speak to you, and just how interesting you may find their stories.  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest those conversations could be the highlight of your whole trip.

Frustrations – travelling in China can often be difficult.  Scream-out-loud, pull-all-your-hair-out, call everyone a a f***ing ****, never-ever-going-back style difficult.   The language barrier, the often radically different way of doing things, the combo of an often world leading digital country mixed in with archaically manual processes can all make it feel at times like a challenge rather than a joy.   My advice is simply to go with it it’s all part of the adventure, and above all don’t lose your temper.  Shouting at someone or generally showing frustration will just be viewed by the Chinese as embarrassing and, at worst, a loss of face for them.  Which means you’ve got very pretty much zero chance of them helping you.  Patience, politeness and a smile will often see them wanting to help you.  They’re not trying to be difficult . . . most of the time 🙂

 

Experiences Nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

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Score Detail

The scores above are the real point of this site.

Over 20+ years and 100+ countries, I’ve tried to rank the world’s best travel experiences — from genuinely mind-blowing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to the properly gash.

Every one of the 500+ places on this site has both a Wow Factor rating and a more analytical Travel Experience (TE) score based on the things that actually make travel memorable.

If you're curious about the thinking behind it, head to the About page.

Otherwise, explore the map above or on the Home page and see which places truly deliver maximum wow.

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