A traditional saying describes Guizhou as a land where there are "no three days without rain, no three kilometres without a mountain, and no three coins in any pocket". Superficially this is accurate. Despite a generally mild climate and growing industrial output, Guizhou has the highest rainfall in China and a poverty ensured by more than eighty percent of its land being covered in untillable mountains or leached limestone soils. Perhaps this is why tourists scorn the province, but it is, in fact, a fascinating place, largely because of its undesirable reputation.

Chinese influence was established here around 100 BC, when farms and garrisoned towns spread along the accessible and fertile Wu River , a tributary of the Yangzi which settlers followed down from southern Sichuan. Beyond the river valley, however, the Han encountered fierce opposition from the indigenous peoples they were displacing, and the empire eventually contented itself less with occupying the province than with extracting a nominal tribute from its chieftains. Full subjugation came as late as the Qing era, after war and population growth in central China saw waves of immigrants flooding into Guizhou's northeast. The tribes rose in rebellion but were overwhelmed, and finally retreated into remote mountain areas. Consisting of about thirty nationalities and forming a quarter of Guizhou's population, they remain there today as farmers and woodworkers: principally the Miao and Dong in the eastern highlands; the Bouyei , a Thai people, in the humid south; and the Yi and Muslim Hui over on western Guizhou's high, cool plateaus. Generally welcoming to outsiders, they indulge in a huge number of festivals , some of which attract tens of thousands of participants and are worth any effort to experience. There is also an accomplished artistic tradition to investigate, notably some unusual architecture and exquisite textiles .

Though visitors travelling around in winter will experience the province's poverty in the miserably limited range of food available, Guizhou's countryside nevertheless hides some wonderful scenery . Even the innocuous provincial capital, Guiyang , has some good parks, and its central location makes it a comfortable base from which to plan a thorough exploration of the province. Just a couple of hours away to the west, Anshun marks the starting point for easy excursions out to the mighty Huangguoshu waterfall , and, rather more distant, the lake of Caohai Hu on the Yunnanese border, a haven for wintering birds. Elsewhere, the north of the province is steeped in Long March lore surrounding the historic city of Zunyi , while those on a cultural quest will relish the villages, traditions and festivals of the Miao and Dong Autonomous Region , reached through the easterly town of Kaili . Finally, away on the northeastern border with Hunan, is the town of Tongren and Guizhou's own holy mountain, Fanjing Shan , whose cripplingly tiring stone staircases rise into an impressively undeveloped nature reserve for the endangered golden monkey.