Making tracks

A train on the Hefei-Fuzhou high-speed railway rides across the mountains in Jiangxi province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Northeast route

The 11-day Northeast tour departs on July 26 and will stop at the Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Hulun Buir and Manzhouli; Helongjiang province's Daqing and Qiqihar; and Jilin province's Changbai Mountains and Tianchi Lake, from where you can peek across the border into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

A ticket costs 4,580 yuan ($739) for an adult and 1,580 yuan for a child.

"Northeast China's cool weather makes it an ideal summer getaway," Wang says.

Northeast-route passengers will see reed marshes and red-crowned cranes in Qiqihar's Zhalong National Nature Reserve, view vast prairies in Hulun Buir and experience border-town life in Manzhouli, which bounces off Russia. Heilongjiang's highlights include the landmark Flood Control Monument, Stalin Park and the Songhua River.

Northwest route

The Northwest route threads through Inner Mongolia's grasslands and stops at attractions in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and Gansu and Qinghai provinces. The trip starts on July 17 and lasts seven days. Its sequel, starting on Aug 8, lasts eight.

Tickets cost 4,280-4,580 yuan ($689-737), depending on the bunks and travelers' ages. (People above 70 get a discount.)

The Northwest route is conceived in accord with the Belt and Road Initiative's goal of developing western China's tourism, Wang says.

Passengers can view landscapes with deserts, rivers, mountains and oases in one vista at Shapotou in Ningxia's Zhongwei city.

They can experience Mongolian culture on grasslands bristling out from the Tengger Desert between Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.

Passengers also visit Gansu's largest Tibetan Buddhist temple, Labrang Monastery; Nuoergai and Ganan grasslands; and the Great Wall's westernmost terminus, the Jiayuguan Pass.

"Seeing the vast Gobi Desert after we passed the Jiayuguan Pass was breathtaking," says Wei Hongtao, who took his parents on a rail tour from Beijing to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region on June 19.