Wild China

Two days on one of the world's deepest gorges. Your guide grew up in the village you will sleep in. The trail clings to cliffs 2,000 meters above the Yangtze — and you will have it largely to yourself.

These are the peaks that inspired Avatar's floating mountains. Arrive by private cable car before it opens to the public. Mist fills the valleys. Stone spires pierce through like islands in a sea of cloud.

Limestone peaks rise from rice paddies like giant teeth. You ride quiet farm roads between them, past water buffalo and cormorant fishermen. Lunch is at a farmhouse with a view that has not changed in a thousand years.