Tickets and booking
Yangdi itself keeps no gate hours to worry about - the pack lists it as open all day, every day of the year - but the activities are all ticketed, and the rafts are the item to line up ahead. Gate prices run 216 yuan per person for the Yangdi-Xingping raft, 95 yuan per person for the shorter Yangdi-Nine Horses Fresco Hill run, and about 80 yuan per person for Xingping-Nine Horses Fresco Hill. Each raft seats four, and parties smaller than that pay a supplement to make up the boat. The pack’s own advice is to contact the boat operators or a travel agency in advance and negotiate the price; the listed enquiry number is 15878369226. Booking ahead is the reliable move, since the figures above are list prices.
Entrance and routes
Two docks serve as gateways: Yangdi dock, in Yangdi Township inside the Li River Scenic Area (Yangshuo County, Guilin), and Xingping dock at the downstream end. From Yangdi there are three ways onward: the 16-yuan hiking ticket to Xingping, the full raft to Xingping (216 yuan per person at the gate), or the shorter raft to Nine Horses Fresco Hill (95 yuan per person plus a 118 yuan entrance ticket collected at Yangdi dock). From the Xingping side, the raft to Nine Horses Fresco Hill runs about 80 yuan per person and takes roughly 1.5 hours. The Yangdi-Xingping raft ends with a free electric shuttle from the drop-off point to Xingping bus station for the ride back to Yangshuo.
Photo spots
The pack names the landmarks rather than cataloguing viewpoints, so treat these as the fixed points on any camera plan. Nine Horses Fresco Hill is the one named landmark, and both raft routes - from Yangdi and from Xingping - turn around there, so every raft itinerary puts you in front of it. The Yangdi-Xingping stretch is the scenery itself: the raft gives water-level angles along the run, while the 16-yuan hiking ticket keeps you on the bank for the same stretch. Xingping, the endpoint of the long route, is where the free shuttle to the bus station picks up.
Timing and crowds
Access runs all day, all year - the pack lists opening hours as round-the-clock, Monday to Sunday. The real constraint is transport: buses from Guilin run 7:30-17:00 and from Yangshuo 7:00-17:30, so a visit has to fit inside those windows even though the site itself never closes. Budget 1-3 hours on site, the pack’s suggested duration; the Xingping-Nine Horses Fresco Hill raft alone takes about 1.5 hours. The pack carries no visitor-volume data, so nothing can be said about crowd patterns - plan around the bus schedules and raft availability rather than gate hours.
Walking and effort
The hike in the pack is the Yangdi-to-Xingping walk, ticketed at 16 yuan, with boats and rafts available at extra cost if you would rather ride. The data includes no distance, elevation, or surface information, so the walk’s difficulty cannot be graded from the pack - call 15878369226 to confirm conditions before committing. Two structural points help with planning: Yangshuo buses serve both docks, which makes a one-way hike (start at Yangdi, finish at Xingping) a workable shape without doubling back, and the raft option covers the same endpoints if the walk proves too much.
Getting there
From Guilin, shuttle buses leave the South railway station and the bus station for Yangdi dock between 7:30 and 17:00, roughly every 20 minutes; the ride takes about an hour and costs around 20 yuan. From Yangshuo, buses run from Yangshuo bus station to Yangdi dock or Xingping dock daily between 7:00 and 17:30, every 15 minutes, with the trip to Yangdi dock taking about an hour. On the return leg, anyone rafting Yangdi-Xingping gets a free electric shuttle from the drop-off point to Xingping bus station for connections back to Yangshuo.
Cost breakdown
Entry-level option: the Yangdi-to-Xingping hiking ticket at 16 yuan. Raft prices at the gate: Yangdi-Xingping 216 yuan per person; Yangdi-Nine Horses Fresco Hill 95 yuan per person plus a 118 yuan entrance ticket collected at Yangdi dock; Xingping-Nine Horses Fresco Hill about 80 yuan per person for a 1.5-hour run. Every raft seats four, and parties under four pay a supplement to charter. Getting there adds around 20 yuan each way by bus from Guilin; the pack does not price the Yangshuo buses. The free electric shuttle to Xingping bus station after the Yangdi-Xingping raft is the one cost-free leg. The pack’s own money tip: contact the boat operators or a travel agency in advance and negotiate, since the figures above are gate prices.