I was very nervous about bringing my dog to Guizhou, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Let’s start off getting this out of the way. Yes, they eat dog in Guizhou. Yes, we did see some dog meat shops. No, no one tried to buy or steal our dogs. To my surprise, many people had dogs as pets, but unlike Shanghai, every dog was on a leash, and we rarely saw purebred dogs.
Kaili is a city in Guizhou and is known as the hub to visit minority villages in Guizhou. There are different minorities all within a half-hour drive of the city. Some of the villages are well known and touristy while others are very rural and unknown. We went to both the more rural and unknown villages and well as the touristy minority villages. And we did so with our dogs of course.
Kaili as a city is very quaint, it’s very small and laid back. Sichuan is known for deliciously spicy food; well Guizhou had its own unique style of food and it was amazing! People, there are so friendly and not at all afraid of dogs. We had people stopping to pet our dogs and we were even able to take them into our favourite breakfast shop.
There are many minority villages nearby Kaili, hence why it’s known as the hub. All of the minority villages we visited were extremely dog friendly (which I will write about in a separate post).
Overall, my experience in Kaili was that it was extremely dog friendly.
Tongren is a beautiful little town and is most famously known for Fangjingshan (梵净山). This mountain seems to be very popular with local tourists. The mountain itself is shaped like a thumb and is not dog friendly. The mountain itself was a hassle to visit. Getting tickets was a mess. All the extra temperature checks and forms because we’re foreigners was beyond annoying. To top it off it was so foggy, we couldn’t see anything!
However, don’t give this spot a miss. It is beautiful and the air is so clean. We stayed at a guesthouse near the mountain and went on a day hike with the dogs and there was a creek that the dogs liked paddling through. The guesthouse owner was very welcoming to us and our dogs. There were roads through the village and the creek went right behind the guesthouse. We actually stayed at this guesthouse twice on our summer road trip.
Airbnb link to our guesthouse:
Note: I am not affiliated with this guesthouse.
There are a few things that are important to note.
- Huangguoshu (黄果树瀑布) – online there were a few claims stating the waterfall was dog friendly. It is not dog friendly.
- Xiaoqikong (小七孔) scenic area is also not dog friendly.
