The history of the honeycomb of chambers by unidentified settlers remains an enigma.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Guyaju (Yanqing)

Holes in the wall were prime real estate for the unidentified settlers who whittled Guyaju's cliff face into a honeycomb of chambers a millennium ago. They left no written record beyond that which they carved in stone, by chiseling 350 rooms into 117 caves over a 5-kilometer span. And visitors to "China's biggest maze" - as it's colloquially known - agree, it's quite a legacy.

While archeologists argue the compound would have been impenetrable, Guyaju's inhabitants vanished centuries ago for reasons as mysterious as to why they appeared at all.

DAY 2

Kangxi Grasslands (Yanqing)

It is saddled in horse country. That said, camel riding also features prominently among its offerings. These beasts of burden graze alongside cows and sheep among the Mongolian yurts that speckle the prairie.

Picnics, barbecues and bonfires offer opportunities to eat, drink and be merry upon vast emerald expanses.

Tianmo Desert (Zhangjiakou, Hebei)

Real ruins of fake ruins poke from Tianmo's dunes.

They're film sets deserted in the desert. The sandy swath of land just outside Yanqing district has served as a shooting location for 4,000 episodes of more than 300 TV programs and several box-office blockbusters.

Not without reason.

Visitors can explore the forlorn film sets intentionally crafted to look windswept when brand-new that have since been actually ground down by the sandblasts of time. That said, their reappearances and disappearances depend on shifting slopes.

Visitors can also hop atop plodding camels, zip down slopes on sand skis and kick up rooster tails of dust in dune buggies.