Guilin Photo Spots: 6 Free (or Cheap) Views

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The single most famous Guilin view, the one printed on the back of the ¥20 note, costs nothing to shoot. Here are 6 photo spots ranked cheapest first, with what each actually costs and when to show up.

  1. Yellow Cloth Shoal, Xingping, free (¥5-10 for the platform). This is the actual ¥20-note view, a bend in the Li River about 500m downstream from Mural Hill. The riverbank itself is free; only the elevated photo platform charges anything. Shoot at sunrise, May through October, for the light the banknote was drawn from.
  2. Laozhai Hill, Xingping, free. A steep ~30-minute climb up from town for the classic elevated river-bend shot, a wider angle on the same stretch of water as Yellow Cloth Shoal.
  3. Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas at night, free from the lakeside (¥210 for the cruise). The bronze Sun Pagoda and glazed-tile Moon Pagoda sit in Shanhu Lake, linked by an underwater tunnel, and photograph well lit up from the free lake path. The Two Rivers Four Lakes night cruise puts you on the water for the same shot from a different angle: book the Two Rivers Four Lakes cruise .
  4. Elephant Trunk Hill, ¥55. Works twice: the daytime elephant-shaped silhouette against the Li River, and, after dark, the Water-Moon Cave arch where moonlight makes a second “moon” appear to float on the water, a genuinely different shot from the daytime one.
  5. Longji (Longsheng) terraces, ¥80 combined ticket. Two photo seasons: the water-mirror window, roughly mid-April through June, when flooded paddies reflect the sky, and the golden harvest window, late September to mid-October, when the terraces turn amber. Dazhai/Jinkeng’s three viewpoints are literally built for this, one for sunrise (West Hill Music), one for sunset (Golden Buddha Peak).
  6. Damian Hill, Xingping, ¥3. The quieter, confirmed alternative to Laozhai, a wide Li River vista with far less foot traffic. Some sources mention a “Xianggong Hill” as a separate sunrise viewpoint nearby, that name didn’t check out on its own this round, it may just be Damian Hill under a different transliteration, so don’t go hunting for it as a distinct location.

Is “Xianggong Hill” a real, separate spot from Damian Hill?

Unconfirmed. Multiple sources reference a sunrise/mist viewpoint by that name near Xingping, but nothing pins down whether it’s genuinely distinct from Damian Hill or just an alternate transliteration of the same place. Treat Damian Hill as the reliable pick and don’t build a shoot around a location that hasn’t been verified.

Do you need the Li River cruise to get the classic karst shot?

No. The cruise (¥215-480 one-way) covers the Yangdi-to-Xingping stretch from the water, but Yellow Cloth Shoal and Laozhai Hill shoot the same karst corridor for free from the shore. The cruise is worth it for the moving-boat perspective and the stretch between piers you can’t otherwise reach on foot, not because it’s the only way to get the shot.

For where to stand and what else costs nothing nearby, see Guilin’s free and cheap things to do and Guilin’s nature spots . One habit worth keeping: check the weather the night before any sunrise shoot, Yellow Cloth Shoal and Laozhai Hill both lose their reflections fast once cloud cover moves in, and neither refunds you for a wasted 5am wake-up.