A note on how this site is put together

Xinjiang is a large region with a short tourist season and a long list of things that change without warning: a road closes for resurfacing, a lake freezes early, a bus timetable shifts by an hour after the national holiday. Generic travel advice goes stale here faster than almost anywhere. That is the reason this site exists in its current form, and it shapes everything below.

Who works on it

The guides are researched, written and edited by the editorial team behind Xinjiang Attractions, with input from travellers who have recently returned from the region and from drivers, guesthouse owners and guides working locally. When a guide leans on one person’s trip rather than on our own reporting, the text says so. We would rather name the limits of what we know than imply a depth of coverage we do not have.

How we research

We start from primary sources: railway and coach timetables from the operators themselves, opening hours and ticketing rules from scenic-area administrations, administrative and elevation data from prefecture and county government portals, and heritage or ecological claims from museum and reserve publications. Where a detail cannot be confirmed in writing we either leave it out or say plainly that it is unconfirmed. Distances and travel times are given as ranges, because the same drive takes two very different lengths of time in July and in January.

What we check before publishing

• That the place described actually exists under the name we use, in the prefecture we say it is in.
• That elevations, distances and travel times match at least two independent sources.
• That every internal link points to a live page, and every external claim has a source a reader can check.
• That photographs are honest about what they show. Where we use a representative image of a landscape type rather than a picture taken at the exact spot, the caption and alt text say so.
• That the guide tells you something you could act on: how to get there, what it costs, when to go, and what goes wrong.

Advertising and how we are funded

This site is funded by display advertising, which is what allows the guides to stay free and free of sponsored content. Advertisers do not see articles before publication, do not choose what we cover, and have no say in what we recommend. We do not accept payment for a positive review, and we do not run paid placements. If a link earns us anything, we say so. The editorial policy sets out the full process, and the privacy policy explains what advertising cookies do and how to opt out of personalised ads.

Tell us when we are wrong

Guidance in Xinjiang has a shelf life, and ours is no exception. If a price, timetable, opening hour or access rule in one of our guides no longer matches what you found on the ground, write to us through the contact page and tell us which page and what changed. We check the report against a primary source and update the article when it holds up. Corrections are made openly, with the date noted, because the point of the guide is that the next reader can trust it.