Vegan Tours International · China
Flavors of Yunnan.
A plant-based journey through China’s hidden paradise — with Yunnan Eco Tours.
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A plant-based journey through China’s hidden paradise — with Yunnan Eco Tours.
Book Now“Discover the hidden treasures of Yunnan beyond the typical tourist trail — from vibrant local markets to traditional villages and forward-thinking sustainable communities.”
Together with our local partner Yunnan Eco Tours, we offer a journey rooted in sustainability and conscious travel. They champion delicious plant-forward cuisine and a mindful, low-waste way of living — values that closely align with our own. Along the way, we support local businesses, celebrate time-honored crafts, and create meaningful opportunities to engage with the people and traditions that make Yunnan so unique.
What Awaits You
June is peak rainy season — when Yunnan’s forests become a forager’s paradise and markets burst with porcini, matsutake, chanterelles, and dozens of varieties found nowhere else on earth. Begin with a wild mushroom hotpot welcome dinner.
Make soy sauce by hand on a family farm. Press fresh tofu from scratch at a food forest. Bake lentil jelly with a Naxi family. Learn pear paste and fermented pear jiaosu from a lakeside village artisan. Every workshop is a living connection to centuries of plant-based tradition.
Dance with a Yi ethnic minority family in the hills above Dali. Join Bai village musicians for the playful whip dance. Witness the Dongba tradition — Naxi culture’s living hieroglyphic writing system and shamanistic ritual.
Walk cobblestone lanes unchanged since the Ming Dynasty in Weishan. Explore a Hui Muslim village that was a key stop on the legendary trade network. Hike pine forest to 8th-century Nanzhao grottoes carved directly into the cliffs above Shaxi.
Day by Day
Kunming · Weishan · Dali · Eryuan · Shaxi · Lijiang · Nanhua
Dinner included
Shujian Boutique Design Guesthouse (2 nights)
You’ll be met at Kunming airport (KMG) and transferred to your hotel. Tonight sets the tone for everything ahead: dinner at a local restaurant specializing in wild mushroom hotpot — probably Yunnan’s most iconic dish.
The rainy season transforms Yunnan’s forests into a forager’s paradise, and the markets burst with mushrooms in dozens of shapes and flavors. Your hotpot will be made with seasonal fungi sourced directly from the surrounding hills — no artificial seasoning, just the pure, earthy depth that makes this dish so extraordinary.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner included
Shujian Boutique Design Guesthouse
Your day begins on a family farm on the quiet outskirts of Kunming: making soy sauce by hand. Using only soybeans and wheat, this family has been following the same slow fermentation process for generations.
An hour’s drive brings you to a food forest organic farm — a lush landscape growing hundreds of varieties of fruits, vegetables, and wild plants. Walk the land, then gather around a stone mill and open fire for a traditional tofu-making workshop.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner included
Weishan Lanting Homestay (2 nights)
Zhuanxin Wet Market is the beating heart of Kunming’s food culture. Wander through stalls overflowing with wild foraged vegetables, exotic fruits, and regional grains. Taste some of Yunnan’s best plant-based street food: douhua mixian, buckwheat and purple rice cakes, and crispy lotus fritters.
Set off on the five-hour drive southwest toward Dali, stopping for the night in Weishan — one of Yunnan’s oldest and least-visited historic towns with over 1,300 years of history.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner included
Weishan Lanting Homestay
Just outside Dali lies a small Hui Muslim village once a key resting point along the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Sit down to a home-cooked halal lunch made with local ingredients — a warm window into a community that has preserved its way of life remarkably intact.
Drive into the hills above Dali to spend time with a Yi ethnic minority family — learn traditional songs, join a group dance, and make your own macramé bracelet. Dinner is a home-cooked vegan spread from the family garden.
Breakfast, lunch & fine dining dinner included
Eryuan Whispering Lodge
Thursday mornings bring one of the region’s most vibrant ethnic minority market gatherings — a weekly event where farmers, artisans, and villagers from different communities come together to trade, share food, and catch up.
Tucked along the shores of Cibi Lake, this ancient Bai village feels like it exists slightly outside of time. Visit a local artisan to learn the traditional craft of making pear paste and pear Jiaosu, tasting as you go.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner included
Shaxi Upstay (2 nights)
Jianchuan has been the woodcarving capital of Yunnan for centuries. A master craftsman introduces you to the tools and traditions of the trade, then guides you through carving your own wooden spoon or small plate.
Drive into the peaceful valley of Shaxi — one of the finest surviving stops along the old Tea Horse Road. Local musicians welcome you with Bai songs and dances, including the playful whip dance and the iconic three-stringed dragon-headed instrument.
Breakfast, lunch & dinner included
Lijiang
Hike through quiet pine forest into the sacred highlands above Shaxi, where ancient cliffside temples and stone grottoes from the Nanzhao Kingdom (8th–9th century) are carved directly into the rock.
Visit the home of a Naxi family in Lijiang for a hands-on workshop. Starting from whole beans, grind, cook, and shape them into silky lentil jelly, delicate lentil skin, and lentil soup — then sit down for a full vegan lentil feast.
Be introduced to the Dongba tradition — one of the world’s only remaining hieroglyphic writing systems and a living shamanistic practice unique to Naxi culture.
Breakfast, lunch & fine dining dinner included
Shujian Boutique Design Guesthouse
Stop at Nanhua — home to one of the largest wild mushroom markets in Yunnan. At its peak during the rainy season, the market is an extraordinary spectacle: stalls piled with porcini, matsutake, chanterelles, and dozens of varieties found nowhere else on earth.
Your final dinner is at a remarkable fine dining vegan restaurant hidden in a quiet corner of Kunming — a four-story home-restaurant run by a couple who cook with obvious devotion.
Breakfast included
Transfer to Kunming Airport (KMG) for your onward journey. As they say in Yunnan: 谢谢，祝您接下来的旅途平安 — thank you, and have a safe onward journey. You’ll leave with handmade keepsakes, jars of wild mushrooms, and memories of a province that fed your body and your soul in equal measure.
Tour Highlights
From your airport pickup in Kunming to your final transfer home — every meal, every entrance fee, every workshop is arranged. All you need to do is show up hungry and curious.
13 – 21 June 2027 · 9 days · China
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