Race Across the World is back, baby! This time, five new teams are embarking on a mahoosive 14,000-kilometre journey across three countries and we’re following them each week through tears, tasty food, and totally-shouldn’t-have-spent-that-much-money-on-that-taxi. 

On a shoe-string budget of just £1000 (!) they’ll be making their way to the finishing line to claim a £20,000 jackpot. As they head from A to B, C, and D, we’ll be catching up each week with where they went, giving you some tips on what you could get up to there and how to get around in prep for your own Race Across the World adventure…

This year, Race Across the World stretches across three countries, from the Great Wall of China to Kanniyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, with stops in Nepal along the way.

We last left this year’s Race Across the World contestants in Huangling, an ancient settlement and living canvas of Hui-style architecture, terraced fields, and traditions that have danced through the centuries.

The next checkpoint

Sanya, Hainan Island: 1,960 km from Huangling

The next checkpoint for this year’s contestants of Race Across the World is down, waaaaaay down.

Sanya, the sun-soaked, sea-sprayed jewel of Hainan Island, is China‘s southernmost tropical flirtation with paradise. It was known to emperors as ‘Tianya Haijiao’ – the ‘end of the sky and the sea’. More recently, it’s been dubbed the “Hawaii of China”, it’s got palm trees, cocktails, and white sands – but it’s also draped in a unique tapestry of Chinese, ethnic Li and Miao cultures too. There’s nowhere else quite like it in the country.

Speaking of white sands, its beautiful beaches are many. Yalong Bay is the show off, with pristine, postcard-perfect looks and lined with fancy five-star resorts. Closer to downtown is Dadonghai Bay, a little more casual (if a little more crowded), it’s fantastic for swimming and wind-surfing.  Sanya Bay, meanwhile, is long, lazy, and lined with coconut palms. A little less flashy, but sunsets here? Chef’s kiss. It’s also where you’ll find locals doing tai chi at sunrise and playing cards at dusk. For an offshore day-trip dream, hop over to Wuzhizhou Island for clearer-than-your-conscience waters, coral reefs, and water sports galore.

We told you Sanya was a right mix, so alongside all that time spent being beach bums, there’s also plenty of opportunities to explore places like Nanshan Temple, a Buddhist complex (and also home to that giant 108-metre-tall Guanyin statue), Yanoda Rainforest, a lush green escape into the mountains with a zipline and waterfalls galore, and Tianya Haijiao, literally ‘The Edge of the Earth.” Think lots of dramatic rocks and poetic legends.

For foodies, Sanya is a beautiful collision of Cantonese seafood, tropical fruits, and spice. It runs the gamut from fresh-as-can-be seafood BBQs to Hainanese chicken rice, delicate, savoury and basically a hug on a plate – made famous in Singapore, but born on Hainan Island.

On their way to Sanya, this year’s contestants of Race Across the World will once again be faced with the choice of either the speedier route down the east coast of the country, making full use of China’s massive high-speed train network, or taking the slower inland route and zigzagging their way down to the bottom of the country.

Don’t think that by taking the more direct route down the coast means you’ll miss out on seeing the sights – the high-speed train network will let you take in some serious bucketlisters along the way, including Shenzen, Hong Kong and even Macau, the gambling capital of the world that makes way more money than Vegas.

This is how you do it

Wuyuan to Hangzhao

Starting back at Wuyuan, the closest major station to Huangling, you’ll first want to take a high-speed train to Hangzhou, lasting about 2 to 4 hours depending on the train.

This route takes you back up north for a bit, so you’ll think you’ve taken a wrong turn. Fear not, get to Hangzhao first and you’ll be in a great position for getting yourself down the coast, with plenty of departures to choose from.

Hangzhao to Xiamen

In about 6 hours on another high-speed train, you’ll reach Xiamen, a coastal city just across the strait from Taiwan. It’s a major port with a rich history of trade, colonization, and revolution, but unlike most big Chinese cities, it has a distinctly island energy.

Gulangyu Island is its darling – car-free, piano-filled, and cat-sprinkled, it’s got colonial mansions, whimsical alleys, art galleries, and banyan roots clawing through brick walls. Visit Nanputuo Temple while you’re here, as well as what might be China’s prettiest university.

Xiamen to Shenzen

Another 3 to 4 hours on the train and you’ll reach Shenzen, China’s glittering cyberpunk fever dream made real. Once a humble fishing village, Shenzhen is now a megacity of over 17 million people, bursting with neon-lit skyscrapers, tech start-ups, mega malls. It’s one of the wealthiest, fastest-growing cities in the world.

But it’s not just a skyscraper thicket – it’s got lush green escapes tucked into nearly every district too. Wutong Mountain is the highest peak in Shenzhen, where you can hike up for views of Hong Kong, and there’s even a Fairy Lake Botanical Garden.

Shenzen to Sanya

This is the tough bit. No more simple high speed trains. You can hopscotch with multiple transfers if you stick to the train route, but we recommend getting yourself on a bus to Haikou instead, one of the first places you’ll reach on Hainan Island. It’s not a quick trip, though. It’ll take you just over 10 hours, so try and catch a night bus if you can.

From Haikou, it’s a quick hour and half on a high speed train down the island to Sanya.

You don’t have to hug the coast to get down to Sanya, you could always stick to an inland route and see some lesser-known, but definitely not less incredible, spots along the way.

Wuyuan to Shangrao

If you start from Wuyuan Train Station, you can take a quick high speed train to Shangrao – a city that sits on the Xin River, in a basin cradled by mountains, like it’s been carefully set into a natural bowl – in just over 30 minutes. From there, you can hop on another high speed train down to Ji’An in about 3-5 hours.

Shangrao to Ji’An

A city with a literary soul and revolutionary grit, Ji’An is perched on the west bank of the Gan River and was a big deal in ancient China. Back in the Tang and Song Dynasties, this region was known as a cultural and scholarly powerhouse. It was lovingly referred to as “the cradle of talents”. If you were good at the imperial exams, odds are you were from Ji’an. Today, it’s a jumping off point for some fantastic adventures in nature, like the Jinggang Mountains – rugged, misty, and red with revolutionary significance, where you can hike through pine forests, past old Red Army sites, waterfalls, and cliffs – Taihe Cave, a stunning underground cave system that shows off nature’s flair for drama with stalactites and underground rivers, and  Anfu County’s countryside, known for its laid-back rural beauty and ancient buildings.

Ji’An to Guangzhao

From Ji’An you can take a direct train to the major city of Guangzhao in around 7 hours. Think of Guangzhou as a little bit ancient scroll, a little bit neon skyline, with a whole lot of steam rising from bamboo baskets filled with dim sum. It was the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road, making it a melting pot before melting pots were cool. When the British rolled up with tea and gunboats, this was where the Opium Wars kicked off, and later, Guangzhou played a pivotal role in the fall of the Qing dynasty and the rise of modern China. Must sees include Shamian Island, Guangzhou’s colonial time capsule, the Five Rams Statue (that’s the city’s symbol), and the Canton Tower, the second-tallest building in China.

Guangzhao to Sanya

There are a couple of sleeper trains that can take you all the way to Sanya from Guangzhao direct (it’ll take about 16 hours), but there are more services that hop between cities instead, including transfers at Haikou, the capital of Hainan Island, from where you can catch another quick high-speed train down to Sanya itself.

Whichever option you go for, both include the Qiongzhou Strait crossing. Since there’s no bridge or tunnel connecting the mainland to Hainan, the train is loaded onto a ferry for this segment for a one hour hop across the island. 

Fancy trying your own Race Across the World? Get started with cheap flights to China