The Yanan Travel Guide

What is Yanan travel like and is it worth visiting? While not a particularly interesting city in itself, Yan’an is an essential stop if you want to understand old, as well as modern Chinese Communist Party history.

This is because it was the final stop for Mao and his cohorts at the end of the Long March. As such it is littered with revolutionary sites which attract both Chinese and international red tourists. Therefore, and as you might imagine, YPT are pretty into it.

What the Yanan?

Yanan is a medium-sized city in northern Shaanxi Province with a population of around two million including the wider area. It sits on the Loess Plateau in northern China and is most famous as the base of the Chinese Communist revolution from 1935 to 1948, when Mao and his cohorts were based here after the Long March. It became the political, military, and ideological centre of the revolution, with leadership operating from cave dwellings carved into the surrounding hills.

These caves were used as homes, offices, and meeting spaces, many of which are now preserved or reconstructed. Today, Yanan is a major domestic tourism destination focused on “red tourism”, with visitors coming mainly for revolutionary sites, museums, and memorials rather than the city itself.

What do in Yanan Travel Guide

Most of the main things to do in Yanan and the surrounding area are based around the CCP and Mao, with a few natural and regional detours.

7 Things to see in Yanan

7. Zichang surrounding area

A mix of rural landscapes and scattered revolutionary-era remnants. These are minor historical sites and village-level locations rather than major attractions, but they show how the revolutionary network extended beyond Yanan itself into surrounding counties.

6. Hukou Waterfall (Yellow River)

One of China’s most powerful natural sights, where the Yellow River is forced through a narrow gorge, creating a dramatic and loud waterfall. It is usually visited via Zichang or Yichuan and sits outside the core Yanan revolutionary circuit.

5. Baota Mountain

A historic hill overlooking Yanan with a pagoda at the top. It has long been a city landmark and was used as a natural observation point during the revolutionary period. Today it is mainly a viewpoint over the city.

4. Yanan Revolutionary Memorial Hall

The main museum in the city, covering the full historical period of the Communist Party’s time in Yanan, including ideology, strategy, propaganda, and daily life.

3. Yangjialing Revolutionary Site

A key administrative base for the Communist leadership, with restored cave residences and working spaces where major organisational decisions were made.

2. Zaoyuan Revolutionary Site

A preserved leadership residence complex where Mao and senior officials lived and worked, including cave dwellings, courtyards, and garden areas.

1. Wangjiaping Revolutionary Site

One of the main Communist headquarters in Yanan, containing preserved cave dwellings, offices, and meeting spaces used for leadership and planning work. Mao was here!

Eating and drinking in Yanan Guide

Yanan is not Xi’an, so do not expect Western restaurants or curated street food streets. It is Northern Shaanxi cuisine, focused on heavy, simple, filling food.

Typical dishes include hand-pulled noodles, lamb, coarse grains, and preserved vegetables. A local speciality is goat’s feet, slow-cooked and eaten with vinegar and chilli.

There are a few Chinese-style Western bars and some clubs, but most drinking is informal: beer at BBQ spots or baijiu with locals. Drinking culture is strong and local-heavy.

Click to read about Shanbei Cuisine.

Sleeping in Yanan Travel Guide

Yanan has a wide range of hotels due to its domestic tourism market. For something different, cave hotels are available and based on traditional cave dwellings that were once common across the region.

I stayed at the Old Yanan Cave Dwelling Hotel (延安老延安窑洞民宿), which cost around $27 for a large room and offered good value and service. There are many other hotel options across the city.

Digital Nomad Yanan

Could you live in Yanan? Only if you speak Chinese and are interested in Communist and Shanbei culture. Housing is very cheap, with decent apartments around RMB 1000–1500 ($130–$200).

The city is reasonably developed with good internet and basic cafes, but there is no expat scene and almost no English spoken. There are no Western bars or food beyond McDonald’s. Xi’an is a better base unless you want full immersion.

Digital Nomad score: 4/10.

Click to read about being a nomad in Xian.

How to get to Yanan? And where to go after…

Yanan is a well-connected regional hub in northern Shaanxi, and most travellers arrive either by high-speed rail from Xi’an or by flying into its small domestic airport. It also sits on a wider transport loop linking nearby northern Shaanxi destinations like Zichang and Yulin, which are often combined in the same itinerary.

By train

• Xi’an North → Yanan South: high-speed train (~2.5–3.5 hours)
• Yanan → Yulin: regional trains (~2–4 hours depending on service)
• Yanan → Zichang area: regional connections (~1–2+ hours depending on route)
• Main station: Yanan South Railway Station

By air

• Xi’an (XIY) → Yanan (ENY): direct domestic flight (~55 minutes)
• Beijing (PEK) → Yanan (ENY): direct domestic flight (~2 hours)
• Ordos → Yanan: seasonal domestic routes (~1–2 hours depending on schedule)
• Limited additional domestic links depending on season

After Yanan

• Yulin: frontier history and desert landscapes
• Xi’an: main transport hub for onward travel across China
• Zichang / Yellow River region: rural and natural detours

So, is it worth visiting Yanan?

Is it worth visiting Yanan? As they say in China, “different people like different vegetables”, or as I say, “opinions are like arseholes”. Yanan is worth visiting if you are interested in Communist history. If not, there are few reasons to come here apart from as a stop on the way to Yulin, which is mainly interesting for its remote Great Wall sections. So yes, I like Yanan.

Could you live in Yanan?Not unless you really are special…