Chengdu
ChinaCwa
© OpenStreetMap, CARTO
老在成都，不愿离开。 | Once you live in Chengdu, you don't want to leave.
Why visit
Chengdu is Sichuan at an urban pace: teahouses, hotpot, pandas, parks, museums, and routes toward Dujiangyan or mountain sanctuaries. It works when the trip wants food and everyday city life beside big-name stops.
When to avoid
Do not visit Chengdu expecting every worthwhile stop to be close together or easy to improvise. In Chengdu, a good plan starts with the constraints, not with the number of sights. In Chengdu, it is better to build a tight route than to rely on long transfers between secondary stops. If the main interest is one nearby site, it may be better to treat Chengdu as a base rather than the whole destination.