4th October 2026 – (Dunhuang) China’s National Day holiday triggered a travel surge across major attractions, with Dunhuang’s Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Lake in Gansu drawing such vast numbers that visitors filled entire dune slopes and joked the scene looked like scattered mosaic beads. Some onlookers exclaimed it felt like “one hundred million people” were present, while aerial footage showed a giant five‑star red flag on the sands and crowds seated in colour‑coded sand‑proof overshoes.
The site staged special Golden Week programming under a Silk Road theme, featuring evening parades with performers and song‑and‑dance, supplemented on some nights by drone displays. A tourist from Nanjing highlighted the popular camel rides, which last about 40 minutes per person; demand was so heavy that camel caravans reportedly queued at traffic lights and stretched for kilometres, with visitors describing people “everywhere” across the dunes.
Travellers also remarked on crowd management and pricing. A visitor from Guangzhou said that despite the huge turnout the area remained orderly, with free shuttle buses laid on after events to disperse people. Another tourist from Dalian noted the presence of vending machines and was surprised that bottled water was priced at just 2 yuan per bottle.
Elsewhere, Hangzhou’s West Lake and the Broken Bridge were similarly packed. A visitor from Shenzhen said they adopted an off‑peak routine—sleeping at 9.00pm and rising at 6.00am for three consecutive days—to avoid the heaviest flows, adding that West Lake was far larger than expected.
Transport data indicated the second day of the holiday saw more than 280 million person‑journeys on the national road network, while the railways were expected to carry about 20.4 million passengers. Authorities estimated that cross‑regional movements on 2nd October would surpass 300 million person‑journeys overall, with short‑ and medium‑haul trips between scenic spots and within regions particularly prominent.