Guilin

By ship

You can get to Guilin by cargo boat from Guangzhou via Wuzhou, but there are no passenger boats to Guilin anymore, except the boats to and from Yangshuo. You can take a cargo boat if you want to at almost no cost from Wuzhou to Yangshuo.

From Yangshuo

Minibuses ¥18 depart when full from the square in front of the Guilin railway station. Although the signs are written in Chinese, there are always conductors yelling out Yangshuo. As the buses pick-up and let down passengers along the way, the journey time can take anything from one to one-half hours. Express buses ¥18 depart from the Guilin bus terminal off Zhongshan Nanlu, several hundred metres north of the railway station and on the same side of the road as the station. Buses depart about every 20min from 7AM. Buy tickets from the ticket office in the bus terminal.

By plane

There are daily flights to Guilin Liangjiang International Airport KWL from major mainland cities and from Hong Kong, Bangkok not regular, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka and Seoul. Book air ticket early as the price will increase as it approaches your traveling day. At off season, air ticket may be cheaper than train ticket even the hard sleeper price, it is worth a try to check the difference.

Air Asia provides flights to Guilin from Kuala Lumpur 4 times per week.

Airport bus to town is ¥20, but drops just south of the city centre. Taxi should then be around ¥10 to most hotels. The bus only leaves when full-ish so there may be a wait as the bus fills up.

A taxi direct from the airport to a city centre hotel is about ¥100. Back to the airport, a hotel may arrange the trip for ¥80.

By train

Guilin has two train stations. Guilin Station Guilin Zhan is in the centre of town on Zhongshan Nanlu while Guilin North Station Guilin Bei Zhan is far away from downtown area. Most, but not all, trains which originate/terminate in Guilin go to or come from Guilin North while trains which come through Guilin from elsewhere usually only go to Guilin Station and not Guilin North.

There are trains from North Beijing, Changsha, Wuhan, Shanghai, Xian, West Kunming, South Liuzhou, Nanning, Zhanjiang, and East Guangzhou, Shenzhen.

From Beijing

If for some reason you need to rush from Beijing to Guilin or vice-versa, there are three trains on either direction. To Beijing, trains depart from Guilin not Guilin Bei at 12:59AM train from Zhanjiang, 3:06PM from Nanning and 7:30PM. Journey time is between 22 hour and 30 hours, with the 3:06PM train being the fastest.

From Hong Kong via Shenzhen

Take MTR to Lo Wu via the East Rail line. After going through immigration and customs, keep to the left when exiting. To get to the area for long distance travel, you need to walk past the Guangzhou trains area. The T38 departs 5:51PM arriving Guilin 6:42AM. The ticket will cost approximately ¥430 for a soft sleeper and ¥245 for a hard sleeper prices vary slightly depending on the bunk position. The return trip T40 departs Guilin at 9:28PM arriving Shenzhen 10:35AM.

From Guangzhou and Shenzhen

Two trains to Guangzhou daily, leaving at 6:04PM from Liuzhou and 9:20PM. The latter goes all the way to Shenzhen.

From Hong Kong via Guangzhou

It is relatively easy to book a train ticket to either Shenzhen or Guangzhou on MTR, however note that if going to Guangzhou there are two stations in this city, the MTR trains terminate in Guangzhou Station and the domestic trains depart from the other East Station, which is on the other side of the city and a fairly long metro ride English is on the Metro ticket machine. There is a metro entrance in the train station when you arrive in Guangzhou, and it is a bit of a pain to find, just look for the stairs going down in a corner of the station. The tickets to Guilin are sold around the corner from this exit, you have to go outside the station and you will see another set of ticket stalls. Whether there will be tickets available depends on how early you are booking, do not expect to get them for the day of travel.

From Kunming

The fastest trains from Kunming are those which go via Nanning and the scenic Nankun railway, taking around 20 hours. Those going via Guiyang take at least 28 hours. If traveling to Kunming, trains depart Guilin at 5:46AM from Zhengzhou via Guiyang, 8:52AM via Nanning, 1:34PM from Nanjing via Guiyang and 7PM from Shanghai via Nanning.

From Nanning

There are around ten trains to choose from if coming from Nanning 5 to 6 hours. From Guilin not Guilin Bei to Nanning, trains depart at 12:13AM train from Xian, 6:22AM from Nanchang, 7:48AM, 8:09AM train from Zhengzhou, 8:26AM, 8:52AM train to Kunming, 2:36PM train from Beijing, 4:13PM from Wuxi, 4:05PM, 7PM from Shanghai to Kunming. The fastest train is the 8:26AM, taking just 5 hours. All these trains stop at Liuzhou 2 hours from Guilin. One way hard seat ticket cost ¥65.

From Chengdu

There is one train per day from Chengdu, the K652. It departs Chengdu at 3:15PM and arrives 25 hours later. Cost is about ¥230.

Once you get out of the train station, you will be approached by cab drivers/other drivers alike. While their cab meters are trustworthy, they might use a few tricks to cheat you out of some RMB, for example, aggressively pushing tours or adding false charges to the tab.