Originally Posted by
hkskyline
鳳凰 (Fenghuang) is in Hunan province and is a good side trip from the natural marvels at Zhangjiajie. It is a beautiful historic town with a river setting.
I completely forgot about Hunan because I haven't been since the "Super Girl" days (had a number of friends who worked on the show). Changsha doesn't fulfill the "small city" criteria, but it's pretty nice, and once you're there, it's easy to get to more quaint places.
Back on the Xinjiang topic that I introduced in post 2, I sort of like Kashgar, but mainly because the train ride (~half the way back to Beijing or Shanghai) is really cool, and there are numerous places to break the trip up along the way.