Hǎinán attractions

The streets around Zhongshan Lu are a looking glass into Hǎikǒu’s French colonial past, with cobblestone blocks of porticoed row houses – some restored, some charmingly decayed. Though still a work in progress, ‘Old…

Seven Fairy Mountain, named for its dramatic seven pinnacles, is found inside Qī Xiān Lǐng Hot Spring Forest Park. It’s a three-hour return trip to the top of the first point along a stepped path through a dense, he…

This sprawling, and pleasantly decaying, mansion was built in 1934 by several brothers who made their fortune in the Indonesian rubber industry. The building was abandoned in 1937 after the Japanese invaded Hǎinán, …

While this geopark encompasses about 108 sq km of rural countryside, the main attraction here is a corny tourist park surrounding a (genuinely cool) extinct volcano cone. Make haste past the snack stands and gift ki…

Yàlóng Bay is the most picture-perfect of Sānyà’s beaches, though jet skis and banana boats do buzz through (there are roped-off swimming areas in the shallows). This is resort central, with all the attendant luxuri…

What sounds like another of Hǎinán’s many tourist traps is actually a worthy retreat: a network of largely traffic-free lanes – where you're more likely to run into a butterfly than a motorbike – snaking through hil…

A crescent-shaped sandy beach about 30km northeast of Dàdōnghǎi, Hòuhǎi is the place for those looking to get away from the crowds (though ironically it lies in the southern reach of Hǎitáng Bay where the scale of d…

Photogenic Měi Shè was built out of the rough grey volcanic stone so prevalent in this part of Hǎinán. Wander the quiet back alleys and gawp at the castle-like five-storey gun tower in the town centre. It was built …

This modern colossus of a building should be your first stop when you arrive in Hǎinán. The displays on ethnic minorities, as well as Hǎinán’s 20th-century history, which included fierce resistance against the Japan…

The long sandy strip off the city centre at Sānyà Bay is where you’ll find crowds of mostly mainland Chinese tourists kicking back. In little covered areas locals play music, sing, write characters in the sand and s…