Eight days across three provinces and three living wellness traditions — Daoist forest-bathing in the Sichuan hills, a Yao herbal bath in the Dayao Mountains, and precision medical tourism on the Hainan coast.
Begin in Chengdu, where Wenjiang’s geothermal springs and Mount Qingcheng’s Daoist forest paths set the slow rhythm of the week — guided forest-bathing on the back ridges, a tea tasting and tai chi morning with a resident master at a working Daoist temple. Fly south to Guilin and continue overland into Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, China’s first Yao autonomous county and the densest concentration of Yao branches anywhere — a national-heritage Yao herbal bath, a visit to the medicinal-plant terraces where the bath ingredients still grow, and a session at the Jinxiu Yao Medicine Hospital with a resident Yao doctor. The final stretch flies to Hainan’s Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone — China’s only special-policy zone for international medical tourism — for a precision health screening, a one-on-one expert reading of the report, and a closing seaside mindfulness retreat that pulls the trip’s three traditions into a personalised wellness plan to take home.
Your guide meets you at Chengdu on arrival — a private vehicle takes you west of the city to Wenjiang, the eco-garden district where the trip begins. From here, everything is handled.
The afternoon is yours to settle in at the hot spring resort. The grounds are built around a mature ecological garden — quiet paths, mature trees, and the kind of unhurried environment designed to dial down the travel-day adrenaline.
Dinner is a hot-spring buffet at the resort — seasonal organic vegetables, lighter cooking, and the slow-food sensibility that sets the trip’s pace.
The evening closes with the first Wenjiang geothermal hot spring soak. Mineral pools, optional aromatherapy oils, and quiet music — the trip opens with rest, not ambition.
After breakfast, a 90-minute drive west takes you into the foothills of Mount Qingcheng (*Qingcheng Shan*) — one of the birthplaces of religious Daoism, where the second-century master Zhang Daoling is said to have founded the Way of the Celestial Masters. The mountain has carried Daoist practice continuously for nearly two thousand years.
A shuttle bus carries you to the quieter back ridges (*Hou Shan*), away from the main pilgrim circuits. Here a wellness teacher leads a Mount Qingcheng forest-bathing walk — the practice is unhurried by design, with stops to breathe deliberately, listen to the forest, and feel the texture of bark and water rather than to count summits or steps. There is no aspiration to reach the peak; the goal is the felt experience of how Daoist forest practice was originally taught.
A midday tea break in the woods opens out onto the second half of the walk. The afternoon descent winds back along the same ridges at the same unhurried pace — slowness is the point.
Dinner is at an ancient town at the foot of the mountain — clean, light, mountain-style cooking that fits the day’s slow rhythm. Overnight at the Wenjiang Geothermal Hot Spring Resort, with another optional soak available before bed.
After breakfast, the morning opens at a working Daoist temple on Mount Qingcheng. A resident master leads a Qingcheng Daoist tea and tai chi morning — first a tasting of the temple’s offering tea (*gong cha*), then a slow tai chi (*taiji*) session in the courtyard. The session covers the mountain’s wellness foundations: how Daoist practice approaches breath, posture, and the relationship between rest and movement.
Lunch is a Daoist temple meal (*dao jia gu fa cai*) — grain-led, vegetable-led cooking from the temple’s traditional kitchen, the same dishes the resident community eats. A short closing reflection summarises the day’s Sichuan segment — what carries forward into the Yao section that begins this evening.
In the afternoon, transfer to Chengdu Tianfu International Airport for the flight south to Guilin — the karst-peak city in northern Guangxi. From Guilin, a chartered bus continues into the Dayao Mountains and across to Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County — the self-styled World Yao Capital and China’s first Yao autonomous county. The drive takes around three hours through forested ridges and river valleys.
Check in at the Jinxiu Yao Mountain Inn, an inn that sits inside the village landscape. Dinner is a Yao mountain banquet — wild greens, mountain herbs, and ingredients gathered locally that morning. The evening closes with the first Yao herbal bath, a national-heritage practice in which a Yao practitioner blends a custom selection of medicinal plants — simmered into a dark herbal brew — and pours it into a wooden tub for a thirty-minute soak.
After breakfast, a short drive into the village outskirts brings you to the Jinxiu medicinal-plant terraces — the working herb plots where the plants used in last night’s Yao herbal bath are grown. A resident herbalist walks you through the species the Yao bath relies on: fengjiang (Chinese galangal), jixueteng (spatholobus vine), jiulongteng (a nine-flowered climbing vine) and others, with explanations of how each is harvested, dried, and combined for the medicinal-bath tradition. The session covers the Yao logic of damp clearance, detoxification, and seasonal balance, and it grounds the abstract idea of “herbal bathing” in actual plants on actual ridges.
Lunch is back at the inn — a Yao mountain-style meal that uses some of the same wild greens you saw on the terraces.
In the afternoon, transfer to the Jinxiu Yao Medicine Hospital (*Jinxiu Yaoyi Yiyuan*) — the county’s specialist Yao medicine institution. A resident Yao doctor receives the group for an introduction to Yao medical practice, the lineage of the medicinal-bath tradition, and the practical techniques used in the clinic. After the briefing, each guest takes part in one Jinxiu Yao Medicine Hospital session — either a Yao herbal meridian massage (*yaoyao jingluo anmo*) or a Yao herbal fumigation therapy (*yaoyao xunliao*), chosen by the doctor based on a brief consultation. The session is hands-on but unhurried; nothing happens that you have not consented to.
The evening closes with another Yao mountain banquet at the inn and an optional repeat of the Yao herbal bath — a deliberate echo of Day 3, designed to deepen the felt impression of the practice.
The morning at the inn closes the Yao segment — a short reflection on the bath, the terraces, and the medicine session, plus time to pack at an unhurried pace.
After breakfast, the chartered bus drives back to Guilin and onward to Guilin Liangjiang International Airport for the flight to Hainan — landing at Haikou Meilan International Airport or Boao Airport depending on schedule, then transferring east to the seaside town of Boao.
In the afternoon, the route enters the Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone (*Boao Lecheng Guoji Yiliao Lvyou Xianxing Qu*) — the only special-policy zone in China for international medical tourism. A medical-tourism host walks the group through the zone’s policy framework, the categories of imported drugs and medical devices that arrive at Lecheng before the rest of mainland China, and the cross-border medical-care pathways the zone supports. This is the conceptual bridge between the traditional wellness traditions of the first half of the trip and the precision-medicine afternoon of Day 6.
Check in at the Boao Seaside Wellness Resort. The evening opens with an anti-aging and precision-medicine briefing on the resort grounds, hosted by a resident Boao expert — a structured 90-minute session covering the current state of anti-aging practice, the evidence base for precision-medicine screening, and how to read the kind of report Day 6 will produce.
The morning runs at the Boao Lecheng pilot zone. Guests who selected the Wellness Diagnostic Package at booking complete the chosen track — either a PET-CT precision cancer screening using imported equipment available at the zone, or a genetic health screening with hereditary-risk and personalised-wellness analysis. Each track closes with a one-on-one expert reading of the report by a resident physician — the goal of the morning is not just the numbers, but the conversation about what to do with them. Guests who did not select the package follow a parallel programme: a guided introduction to the screening clinic and a longer reading session with the precision-medicine host.
Lunch is light — coastal vegetables, local fish, and the kind of careful menu the wellness side of the resort runs by default.
In the afternoon, the group visits two of the zone’s anchor medical institutions — the Ruijin Hospital Hainan branch and the Boao Super Hospital — for a guided walk-through of how anti-aging treatments, regenerative-medicine programmes, and cross-border tele-consultation services are operated inside the pilot zone. The afternoon closes the formal medical day.
Dinner is a Boao coastal wellness dinner at the resort — a tasting menu built around steamed fish, tropical vegetables, and the lighter wellness-style cooking that anchors the third trip segment. After dinner, a guided debrief on the resort’s seafront pulls the journey’s three traditions — Daoist forest practice, Yao herbal medicine, modern precision medicine — into a single conversation. Overnight at the Boao Seaside Wellness Resort.
A deliberately quiet day. There is no high-intensity programme — the day is built around slow walking, mindfulness, and integration of the previous six days’ experiences into something portable.
The morning opens with a coastal mangrove walk on the Boao boardwalk — a wellness teacher leads a short seaside mindfulness session along the water, with the mangroves, egrets, and morning sea breeze as the structure. The focus is on integration: the breath patterns from Mount Qingcheng, the body-temperature memory of the Yao bath, the new information from the Day 6 screening, all gathered into one calm hour.
Lunch is a Boao light-tasting wellness lunch at the resort — local seafood, tropical fruits, and the same low-sodium, low-sugar sensibility as Day 6’s dinner.
The afternoon is given over to one-on-one wellness consultations. A resort wellness adviser sits with each guest privately to draft a personalised wellness plan: home-care routines drawn from the trip’s three traditions, recommended periodic-screening cadences from the Day 6 conversation, an at-home Yao bath simplification, and a Daoist breathwork practice that fits each guest’s daily rhythm. The remaining time is unstructured — the resort’s seaside pool, optional spa, or a long beach walk.
The evening closes with a seaside closing dinner at the resort — quiet, lightly lit, and built around what the week has settled into. Overnight at the Boao Seaside Wellness Resort.
After breakfast and check-out, a short closing-circle session at the resort hands over the printed personalised wellness plan from yesterday’s consultation, plus a Boao wellness gift pack — a small parting gesture that doubles as a take-home reminder of the trip’s three traditions.
In the afternoon, your guide assists with departure — a private transfer to Haikou Meilan International Airport or Boao Airport for your onward flight. From here, everything is in your hands.
