Forest Park Stays: The Woodland Guesthouses by Dongping’s Metasequoia Rows, the Misty Mornings and Barbecue Evenings of Central Chongming in Chongming District, Shanghai

水杉如帐雾如纱，林下人家一盏茶。Shuǐshān rú zhàng wù rú shā, lín xià rénjiā yī zhǎn chá – Metasequoias for curtains, mist for gauze; under the woods, a household and a cup of tea.

The stay by 东平国家森林公园 Dōngpíng guójiā sēnlín gōngyuán Dongping National Forest Park is Chongming’s green-room bed – guesthouses, cabin blocks and farm inns scattered along the forest’s edge in the island’s wooded centre, where the metasequoia rows stand so close that the morning mist waits between their trunks until the sun collects it (worth confirming the details for the park-edge room premiums, which follow the autumn colour). The stays share the forest’s tempo: bicycle paths from the door, barbecue pits for the evening, and a night soundscape of leaves rather than traffic. The register is the woodland holiday – families on the lawn, couples on the bikes, and the tallest trees in the municipality for a ceiling.

Two guest books keep these forest beds full: barbecue-and-cycling families who treat the park as the weekend’s whole programme and book the nearest rooms to extend it, and autumn colour chasers who come for the metasequoia turning and photograph the mist before breakfast (worth confirming the details for the barbecue-pit bookings, which the fair-weather weekends fill). The stock answer in kind: the park gate minutes from the pillow, farm kitchens smoking the day’s catch, and the island’s most reliable shade on hot weeks.

Call it honestly: the forest edge is a one-note beauty – trees, paths, more trees – and travellers wanting villages, ports or water views will exhaust the theme in a day (worth confirming your weekend plans if you stay past one park morning, because the second morning is the same trees). What the map repays is the sensory simplicity: mist, birdsong, the metasequoia corridors at their two seasonal peaks, and nights dark enough for stars. Against that: the barbecue crowds own the fine weekends, the cabins price up in autumn, and the midweek quiet is the real product. Book midweek if you can, keep the dawn walk before the gates open, and the forest will renew the same day twice.

The Stays

The woodland pick is the 东平林间客栈 Dōngpíng línjiān kèzhàn Dongping Woods Inn – the timber-clad guesthouse whose balcony meets the metasequoia rows (worth confirming the details for the upper-balcony rooms, which catch the mist best). The family default is the park-gate cabin blocks – sturdy timber cabins with barbecue terraces minutes from the gates (worth confirming the details for the pit rentals, which the park manages). The budget sleep is the village farm-stay cluster on the forest’s farm lanes – simple rooms, smokehouse suppers and orchard mornings at half the cabin price (worth confirming the details for the winter heating, which the older houses run on space heaters).

Nearly everything else on this Chongming list trades a different mood on the same map: choose 明珠湖住宿 Míngzhū Hú zhùsù the lake-side resorts for the water mornings, 东滩民宿 Dōngtān mínsù the Dongtan farmhouses for the reserve dawns, 南门住宿 Nánmén zhùsù the Nanmen port hotels for the river lights and 长兴岛住宿 Chángxīngdǎo zhùsù the Changxing Island stays for the orchard air – four more doors into the same 崇明区 Chóngmíng Qū Chongming District. Once the bed is booked, our Chongming travel guides and the district’s food map fill the daylight hours.

The Stays

flowcloud would say that a forest-park night is bought for the mist and the trees – metasequoia dawn to barbecue dusk in the October 2026 snapshot, all worth confirming the details – and that the honest move is to pick your season rather than your room, because the forest changes costume and the beds only watch, keep the dawn walk and the barbecue terrace as the plan, and let the tall trees close the day early. All checked October 2026.

Where to stay: Base yourself by the 东平 Dōngpíng forest gates for the dawn woodland walks, or on the farm lanes for the smokehouse suppers, favouring rooms facing the metasequoia rows. All checked October 2026.