Dali Travel Guide (Updated Jan 23, 2026)
A local's guide to Dali covering weather, transport, accommodation, food, and cafes at reasonable prices.
This guide is for travelers who want a complete experience of eating, staying, and playing in Dali. It focuses on places locals frequent, not just tourist hotspots. For foreign travelers, see separate guides on payments, SIM cards, and train tickets. For families, check kid-friendly activities.
Weather & Clothing: Jan-Mar: Windy season, sunny but cold at night (0-20°C). Bring a down jacket, lip balm, and sunscreen. Cherry blossoms bloom but fade around Spring Festival. Jul-Aug: Rainy season (18-26°C). Mushrooms appear. Bring rain gear. It often rains briefly then clears, sometimes with rainbows. Wear layers; a jacket is needed even in summer.
Altitude: 2,000m, generally no altitude sickness.
Getting to Dali: Fly into Lijiang (cheaper, 2h drive to Dali) or Kunming (more flights, then 2h train to Dali). Dali airport has fewer flights and can be windy.
Fire season is over; most mountain trails are open but driving up is restricted. Bring hiking shoes, sandals for streams, and swimwear for hot springs.
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Jason | Using AI to Create Your Own Mini Program/Website
Two months ago in Chiang Mai, I stumbled upon the chance to start learning how to build mini programs. My AI programming mentor, Wangshen, told me, 'Once you finish your mini program, write a summary report.' Now I've completed the new mini program for Cangshan Hiking Home, and it's already being tested. It not only solves problems I've wanted to address for a while, like adding age tags to filter activities and providing an English version, but it has also introduced new features, such as browsing restaurants, guesthouses, and meeting points on a map for a more intuitive experience, and using AI to provide quite intelligent responses.
Learn AI Programming Together
Some information about AI programming
Celebrate the Torch Festival in a Nanzhao Royal Clan Village
Over the past two years, we have taken guests to celebrate the Torch Festival in Songhe Village, Eryuan. Together we slaughtered a sheep, and with the whole village, erected a huge torch in the center of the village square. Everyone made their own torches from hemp stalks, and together with the older and younger villagers, we rushed to grab the blessing baba (cakes) from the big torch, passing blessings to each other with fire. Even for me, a native Bai person, these are rare and precious traditional festival experiences. Dali has endless festivals, and I want to experience them more before they fade away. I remember the Torch Festival of my childhood: torches were no longer enough for me. Before the festival, I would tell my dad to prepare a bucket of waste engine oil and diesel, mix them together, and then I would tightly bind cotton and old cloth with rope into a ball (some kids would secretly take cotton from their quilts at home to make it). Finally, I would make an iron wire ball, soak it in the bucket of oil, and secretly take it out every day to look at it, looking forward to having a great time on the day of the Torch Festival. We would compete in the village and by the rice fields to see whose fireball or torch was more impressive. When the torches and fireballs were almost burned out, we would rush home, walk around the potted fruit trees in circles, and say blessing words, hoping they would grow even better in the coming year.