Winter gulls in Kunming

China's biggest holiday. In the run-up, Kunming's Dounan Flower Market 斗南花市 sells armfuls of blooms for the home, families gather on New Year's Eve for a reunion dinner, and in the first days of the year temples such as Yuantong Temple 圆通寺 fill with people burning incense for luck. Warm Xishuangbanna and the old towns of Dali and Lijiang are favorite holiday escapes for families from across China.

How to join: Visit a temple on the first or second morning of the year, walk a flower market, or ask to share a family's reunion dinner. Book trains and rooms well ahead: this is the busiest travel period of the year and prices climb sharply.

Etiquette: Wish people 'xin nian kuai le' (Happy New Year) and avoid talk of death or illness. Many small restaurants and shops close for the first three days.

Each spring Kunming's jacarandas flower purple-blue, and Jiaochang Middle Road 教场中路, lined with them, becomes the most photographed street in the city. The bloom overlaps the May Day holiday, and many visitors time their Kunming stops around it.

How to join: Walk the road at 7–8 am on a weekday, before the photographers arrive.

Etiquette: It's a working street with traffic and residents: stay on the sidewalk and don't block doorways or driveways for photos.

When the summer rains arrive, the whole province turns to wild mushrooms: markets fill with porcini, termite mushrooms, chanterelles and matsutake, and hotpot restaurants build their menus around them. Kunming's Mushuihua Wild Mushroom Market 木水花野生菌交易市场 shows the full range, Nanhua county in Chuxiong is famous for its mushroom trade, and Shangri-La is matsutake country.

How to join: Order a wild-mushroom hotpot at a busy, established restaurant and wait the full cooking time the staff give you before eating. For a foraging walk, go with a local guide.

Etiquette: Never eat mushrooms you or a stranger picked unless an experienced local picker has checked them and a restaurant cooks them, and make sure jianshouqing 见手青 is cooked through: undercooked, it causes hallucinations and puts people in hospital every summer.