Your Unmissable Experience Essentials in the Future City — Shenzhen
Welcome to China’s future-city playground par excellence! Where buildings tower like bamboo groves, technology laboratories hum with the promise of tomorrow, and traditional Hakka villages hide behind glowing boulevards. Ready to explore the planet’s most skyscrapertastic city? Let us unveil these can’t-miss experiences that will reboot your travel imagination.
Window of the World
A theme park where you can see the world in an afternoon! Window of the World has over 130 exquisite miniature replicas of the world’s most famous landmarks, ranging from the Eiffel Tower to Egyptian Pyramids. On Sunday nights, a fabulous drone light show illuminates the sky, while robots march and play with visitors accompanied by the park’s world-famous replicas during weekends.
Shenzhen OCT-LOFT Creative Park
This old factory complex now pulses with indie art galleries and coffee roasting houses within transformed industrial buildings. Scour for limited production sneakers at “Sneakerhead Heaven,” view experimental films at the outdoor movie theater, and have craft IPAs at vinyl record-only bars where DJs spin retro Cantopop.
Dafen Oil Painting Village
Where 10,000 artists copy out Van Goghs as they live-stream to TikTok. Wander through backstreets lined with dripping paintings, commission your portrait in Picasso-cubist style (30-minute turnaround!), and try “paint-and-sip” classes using local tea as watercolor solvent.
Sea World Culture & Arts Center
Architect Fumihiko Maki’s titanium-clad spaceship hovering over the bay. The rooftop “Horizon Library” offers uninterrupted sea views through floor-to-ceiling windows – perfect for reading with Hong Kong’s skyline as your backdrop. Don’t miss the underground sound-art installations!
Futian Mangrove Nature Reserve
Escape skyscrapers at this city wetland where 200+ bird species breed. Walk the 9km high boardwalk at sunset and watch egrets perform synchronised fishing dances. Free binocular stations reveal fiddler crabs battling in the mudflats.
Shenzhen Contemporary Art & Planning Museum
Dubbed “The Silver Doughnut” for its space-age curves. On the inside, discover interactive digital forests and AI-generated calligraphy screens. The real showstopper? The rooftop “Cloud Ring” – a mirrored pedestrian walkway suspended 40m above the city.
Huaqiangbei Electronics Market
Eight floors of blinking gadgets in the world’s largest tech bazaar. Build your own drone from component stands, experiment with prototype VR headsets, and find phone cases with built-in air purifiers. Insider tip: Floor 5’s “Robot Cafe” serves lattes by mechanical arm.
Wutong Mountain Cloud Trail
Walk up subtropical rainforest to “Sky Ladder” – 1,200 stairs up into fog. At the 943m summit, a glass tea house serves honeyed oolong as clouds cover skyscrapers down below. Sunrise diminishes the city to a horizon of floating towers.
Dameisha & Xiaomeisha Beaches
The beaches at Shenzhen are an escape of the concrete chaos. Dameisha and Xiaomeisha are the among most famous urban beaches in the city, situated on the right side of the city, where you can find a nice place to sunbathe, play volleyball or simply have a nice stroll at the beach. It is also expected that one will find smooth sands and a lively environment particularly on weekends.
OCT Harbour
OCT Harbour is a day-night shopping, nightlife, culture and nature entertainment destination. It is a man-made lake and canals around which boast waterfront restaurants, the best ultra-luxury shops, chattering pleasure bars, family destinations, and night-time light spectacles set over the water a perfect presentation of Shenzhen metropolitan zeal.
Lianhuashan Park
The view is spectacular as you ascend to the top of Lianhuashan hill where you have a panoramic view of the downtown, and a view of the Deng Xiaoping statue, which celebrated the pioneer of the city reforms. The ponds, the vast lawns that are suitable to have picnic and other landscape feature make it one of the favorite places of locals to enjoy or fly kite.
Splendid China Folk Village
Traveling around the country within an afternoon! Watch Uyghur dancers twirl on Xinjiang’s reproduction grasslands, learn Mongolian throat singing from yurt classes, and step on a 1:100 scale Great Wall where uniformed “soldiers” hold flag ceremonies every hour.
Dapeng Ancient City
Take a step back to the Ming Dynasty and visit the best-represented walled city of Dapeng in Shenzhen. Stroll in dark maze-like alleys of granite buildings and blue-stones, old temples, and the ancient gates. Now, it is also dotted with snug cafes, shops, and a museum on the history of the region.
