Discover the best things to see and do in and around Turpan, in Xinjiang, a Silk Road oasis known as one of the hottest places on earth.
Turpan (吐鲁番) was once a major oasis on the Silk Road, and during the Tang dynasty, it became an important stop for traders moving between China and Central Asia. The nearby city of Jiaohe, built entirely out of mud bricks on a natural plateau, was the capital of the region for over 1,000 years before it was abandoned in the 14th century after Mongol invasions.
Located about 150 kilometers east of Urumqi, Turpan sits in a Depression, one of the lowest points on earth at more than 150 meters below sea level. People in China call it Huo Zhou, which means “a place as hot as fire,” and that’s no exaggeration. Turpan is officially the hottest place in the country. In summer, the temperature in the depression can get to an incredible 50° Celsius, and the sun feels relentless.
Despite this premise, I can tell you that this area is extremely interesting and beautiful to visit. Here you’ll find ancient Silk Road cities built from mud, Buddhist caves painted centuries ago, and small Uyghur villages shaded by grapevines. The contrast between the harsh desert and the green oases is striking, and it’s what makes Turpan so unique.
It’s a great place, along with Kashgar (here is my travel guide), to explore what’s left of the local culture and visit some of the most impressive landscapes in all of China.
Best Time to Visit
The best time to visit Turpan depends a lot on how well you handle the heat. From April to June, the weather is nice, the vineyards start to leaf out, and the temperatures are nice without being overwhelming. July and August are the toughest months, with temperatures often soaring above 40°C. This is also when grapes ripen, which makes for beautiful photos, but shooting in the middle of the day is almost impossible.
The end of September and October is a good time. The air is crisp, the harvest season gives the whole region a lively mood, and it’s the best time for hiking around the ruins and valleys. Winter is quiet and very cold. Some seasonal sites reduce their hours, but if you want empty ruins and a peaceful atmosphere, it can be nice.
How to get to Turpan and how to get around
You can get to Turpan from Urumqi by high-speed trains, which take about one hour, with frequent departures. This means that technically, you can visit Turpan on a day trip from the Xinjiang capital, but I recommend staying at least two nights since there are quite a lot of places to visit, and if you don’t stay long enough, you will surely feel like you are missing out.
In Turpan, you can either take a Didi to the different scenic spots that you are planning to visit or hire a local driver. This is the best option, especially for the most interesting places, such as the Huayun Valley, where you want to spend quite a lot of time driving inside the Canyon. I booked my trip across Xinjiang with a Chinese company. Send me a DM on Instagram if you need their contact.
Where to stay
I stayed in the Turpan Grape Valley Scenic Area, an oasis in the middle of the Turpan Depression. The valley is famous for its vast vineyards and a special type of grape that, due to the extreme heat and long hours of sunlight, is incredibly sweet. Farmers have created an ingenious system of underground channels called karez to bring melted snow from the Tianshan Mountains for irrigation.
It’s a great place to experience the local culture, try some sweet grapes, and see how a community thrives in such a harsh environment. This is one of the many homestays in the Scenic Area.
Things to do and see in Turpan in 3 days
The things to do in Kashgar depend mainly on the time you have. If you are coming from Urumqi and you are on a day trip, then your options are limited. If you are planning to stay for at least a couple of nights in Turpan, then there’s much more to do and to see.
Gaochang Ancient Town (高昌古城)
These massive, crumbling ruins are about 45 kilometers southeast of Turpan. Gaochang was a major oasis city and a critical point on the Silk Road for over a thousand years, from the 1st century BC until it was abandoned in the 14th century.
Walking (or rather riding the electric car) through the ruins, you get a sense of how big this place was. The city was protected by two massive sets of walls and was split into three sections: an outer city, an inner city, and the palace area. You can still see the remains of temples, residential homes, and even a large Buddhist stupa.
It’s a place that shows you the layers of history in this part of the world. It was a key center for trade, a military fortress, and a hub for Buddhism. The ruins are a testament to the rise and fall of these ancient Silk Road cities.
If you have time, you can visit the nearby cemetery. It’s similar to the one in Kashgar, but it’s a bit smaller. In Xinjiang, many traditional Uyghur cemeteries are made from mud bricks. They are simple, rounded mounds often marked by a small wooden plank with the deceased’s name. They blend into the desert landscape, reflecting the local architecture and the traditional way of life.
These cemeteries hold deep cultural and religious significance, representing a spiritual and historical connection for many Uyghur communities.
Flaming Mountain (火焰山) and Tuyugou Great Canyon (吐峪沟大峡谷)
The name “Flaming Mountain” comes from how it looks: the intense heat and the deep, red gullies make it seem like it’s on fire, especially during sunrise and sunset. The place is ridiculously hot, with ground temperatures hitting well over 50°C in the summer. Beyond the heat, it’s famous because of the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West. The story says the heroes had to get through these fiery mountains.
There is a tourist center right at the beginning of the mountain with a giant thermometer where most Chinese tourists stop for a picture. I skipped it since there isn’t really much to do besides that.
The nearby Tuyugou Great Canyon is quite spectacular and culturally important, as it was a major center for Buddhism and Islam. This place was a key point along the Silk Road, and you can still feel that mix of cultures.
Towards the end of the canyon, you can visit the Tuyugou Thousand Buddha Caves (吐峪沟大峡谷), which are a series of ancient grottoes carved into the cliffs of the mountain. They’re some of the oldest Buddhist caves in the region, with some dating back to the 3rd century. Unfortunately, like many other similar caves (for example, the ones in Gansu), most paintings have been damaged by time and history, but what’s left gives you a clear picture of the diverse cultures that thrived in this once remote area.
Tuyugou Xia Village (吐峪沟夏村)
I’ll be honest with you: after having visited hundreds of “ancient towns” in China, my expectations are pretty low now when I have to visit another one. Most of them have been rebuilt and turned into an amusement park (see, for example, Xijiang in Guizhou). But this one is actually a pretty nice Uyghur village located at the end of the Tuyugou Canyon.
Like almost every other “ancient village,” it has been renovated, but it somehow retains an authentic vibe, and there aren’t that many tourists. Traditional Uyghur homes are typically built with mud bricks and timber, often featuring a courtyard with trellises and an outdoor pavilion for shade during the hot summer months, and this village will take you back in time to a way of life that has been preserved for centuries.
Kumtag Desert (库姆塔格沙漠)
Located on the eastern edge of the Turpan Basin, just outside the city of Shanshan, this desert is famous for being one of the only deserts in the world that’s right next to a city.
There are two ways to explore this area. The main part is the tourist scenic spot, which is easy to get to. It’s set up with camel rides, ATV rentals, and other activities. It’s a good spot to get a quick feel for the desert and get some photos without much effort, but as you can imagine, it’s overcrowded.
But if you want to get away from the crowds, you can arrange a trip with a local driver in a different part of the desert. They have off-road vehicles that can take you much deeper into the dunes, where the landscape is more remote and untouched. This is where you can see the real, endless desert; it’s a completely different experience from the main scenic area, and this is what I recommend doing. You can opt for a shorter 45-minute ride or a longer 90-minute ride. I recommend arriving in the late afternoon so that you can head into the desert for sunset. Honestly, this was one of the highlights of my entire trip.
Jiaohe Ancient Town (交河故城)
Jiaohe Ancient Town is another major ruin on the Silk Road, but it’s different from Gaochang. Instead of being built with mud bricks, this city was carved out of a huge loess plateau, a giant earth terrace that sits between two rivers, which is where it gets its name, meaning “Confluence of Rivers.”
The city was founded over 2,000 years ago and was a critical military and political hub until it was destroyed by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century and later abandoned. Because the entire city was carved from the ground, the ruins are incredibly well-preserved. You can walk through the original streets and see the walls of what were once homes, monasteries, and government buildings.
This is by far my favourite archaeological site in all of China. It’s pretty rare to come across something so ancient and so huge yet quite well protected.
There is an electric bus that will take tourists all around the peninsula (with a quick stop in a museum), and then you can walk right inside the ancient town: 100% recommended, especially if you go in late afternoon when the light is warmer.
Huoyun Valley Scenic Area (火云谷)
Along with the Kumtag Desert, for me, Huoyun has been the highlight of the Turpan Area. This place is wild.
Huoyun Valley is a massive natural landscape located about 20 kilometers north of Turpan. It’s a “geological museum” of red sandstone, with deep ravines and towering crimson cliffs carved by millions of years of erosion. The place looks like it’s straight out of a movie. It is somehow similar to the rainbow mountains in Gansu but more spectacular and, so far, completely untouched by mass tourism. Local legends say it’s also where a character from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West got his fire magic.
The best thing about this area is that, unlike other tourist spots, you can actually self-drive deep into the mountains. You’ll need a 4WD, but it’s one of the best experiences you can have in China, and you’ll be completely alone out there. The valley is vast, about 38 kilometers long, and the roads are unpaved. Plan to spend half a day exploring it, and make sure you bring plenty of water and supplies because you won’t have phone service.
The valley is generally open from 10:00 to 19:00, but I recommend arriving in the late afternoon when the light is warmer and the mountains turn red and yellow: sometimes you won’t believe your own eyes.
You can check out key spots like the Tongtian Ladder (通天梯) for some fantastic panoramic views, but the whole place is a paradise for photographers, so if you have a professional camera or a drone, bring it. You can pick the route that you prefer since there are many different roads and all of them are pretty spectacular.
Emin Minaret (苏公塔)
Built in 1778, the Emin Minaret (called Sugong in Chinese) is the tallest in China. A minaret is a tower where the muezzin would traditionally stand to make the call to prayer (the adhan) five times a day so that it could be heard across the city.
The tower was built by a local Turpan leader named Sulaiman to honor his father, Emin Khoja, for his service to the Qing Dynasty. Its architecture is a mix of styles: the conical shape and intricate geometric patterns on the outside are classic Islamic design, but the use of local, sun-dried mud bricks gives it a unique Uyghur character.
It’s worth a visit if you have some spare time in Turpan.
Final Thoughts
Just like Kashgar and the Karakoram Highway Area, the best part about exploring Turpan is the incredible landscapes and the ancient ruins. Unlike the Tibetan plateau, though, where you can still see a lot of people devoted to Buddhism (for example, in this incredible area), there isn’t much culture left. I’m telling you this because I want you to have the right expectations while arranging your trip.
The desert area and the mountains are some of the most spectacular in all of China, and you won’t regret visiting them. Just keep in mind that you won’t find traditional villages, like for example Jingmaishan in Yunnan, where people are still living as they did 100 years ago.
Do not underestimate heat or distances: even short transfers can run long with checkpoints and traffic in high season.
If you are looking for some inspiration for another road trip, check out this travel guide to Western Sichuan.
As always, don’t forget to get a VPN before traveling to China. I recommend this one. If you prefer an eSIM, this is a great option. Finally, don’t forget to get a good travel insurance such as this one. Here you can find some more pictures I took during the trip.
