December is one of the country's most rewarding months to travel — cities dressed in lights and festive windows, and mountain country at its clearest and stillest under fresh snow. Plus, Christmas in China is not a public holiday, so the crowds of the warm season are long gone — in many places you will have famous sights almost entirely to yourself.
What makes China different is the range: the same month means −20°C ice festivals in the north and 25°C beach afternoons on Hainan island. That is why this page is built around two Decembers — a frozen north of snow villages, ice cities and winter light, and a warm south of highland sunshine and tropical coast.
Jade Days is an Australian company that designs private, tailor-made China journeys from Sydney. Below, the two Decembers are compared side by side, followed by real day-by-day route frames for five destinations — each one a starting point we rebuild around your dates, your pace and your party.
Why two Decembers can both be true
China is not one December — it can't be. The country stretches nearly 4,000 kilometres from its sub-Siberian north to its tropical south, spanning more climate zones than almost any nation on Earth. In December, the Siberian high sends dry, crystalline cold sweeping across the north — the cold that freezes Harbin's rivers solid enough to carve palaces from, and dusts the Forbidden City in snow under deep blue skies. Meanwhile, nearly two thousand metres up on the Yunnan plateau, sheltered south of the mountains, Kunming keeps its 'eternal spring' — mild sun, green tea hills, lakes crowded with wintering gulls. Further south again, Hainan's beaches sit at 26°C. Same country, same month, two different worlds — about three hours apart by plane.
