陆河县 Lù hé xiàn is the hill county of 汕尾市 Shàn wěi shì and the prefecture’s odd one out: it speaks Hakka rather than the 福佬话 fú lǎo huà of the coast, it has no coastline, and its villages are rammed earth and tiled roofs on terraced slopes. This is the interior half of what the old maps call 海陆丰 Hǎi lù fēng. The county calls itself 中国青梅之乡 Zhōng guó qīng méi zhī xiāng, the plum capital of China, and holds hot water underground at 上护镇 Shàng hù zhèn and white blossom on the slopes of 水唇镇 Shuǐ chún zhèn and 东坑镇 Dōng kēng zhèn for two or three weeks in winter, two things almost never found in the same week.
上护温泉 Shàng hù wēn quán, the Shanghu hot spring, is why the county has a hotel trade at all. Development began in 2015 with 润福源温泉休闲山庄, 45 rooms each with its own hot-spring pool, and the core area now runs to eight themed zones. The water is documented as a metasilicate spring reaching the surface at 42 to 53 degrees, with the bathing area open 9:00 to 22:00. The one resort with a paper trail is 华发清泉谷温泉度假酒店 Huá fā qīng quán gǔ wēn quán dù jià jiǔ diàn, whose main building has five floors and 136 rooms, a figure three sources agree on. Its opening date is contested: the hotel and two booking platforms say 2021, the county says 2023.
The plum blossom is the county’s other season and it is a concentrated one. 螺洞世外梅园 Luó dòng shì wài méi yuán at 螺洞村 Luó dòng cūn in 水唇镇 is the largest connected plum orchard in eastern Guangdong and a national 4A scenic area, with more than ten thousand mu of trees threaded by the 螺洞河 luó dòng hé, with a 20 yuan ticket. 共光万亩梅园 gòng guāng wàn mǔ méi yuán at 共光村 Gòng guāng cūn in 东坑镇 is the other orchard, with more than 5,500 mu of 青梅 qīng méi trees and more than 800,000 visitors a year. The window is mid-January to early February, around the 大寒 dà hán solar term; the flowers are white because the crop is green plum.
Beyond the two big properties the accommodation is a Hakka trade with several documented gaps. 螺洞世外梅园人文客栈 Luó dòng shì wài méi yuán rén wén kè zhàn at the orchard is the most completely documented guesthouse in the county: opened in 2018, renovated in 2020, 35 rooms and free stays for dogs and cats. In the valley the alternatives are private-pool rentals: 富米·清泉一号温泉院子 from about 578 yuan, and 陆河丰源温泉酒店 from about 166. The county town holds 维也纳酒店 Wéi yě nà jiǔ diàn and 人人迎宾馆 Rén rén yíng bīn guǎn. Three places have no room count, no rate and no way to book: the guesthouses at 共光村, 华侨城·螺溪谷 Huá qiáo chéng luó xī gǔ, and 南万花海 Nán wàn huā hǎi.
What the Rooms Are Like
A room here is a Hakka house or a hot-spring villa, and the two are different propositions. A converted 围屋 wéi wū or rammed-earth farmhouse has thick walls, a tiled roof, a courtyard opening to the lane; you get cool rooms in summer and cold floors in winter. A hot-spring villa room is a modern building with a large balcony and a private pool fed from the same metasilicate source. April to September carries 94 per cent of the year’s rain and the hill villages hold that moisture, so shoes with grip and mosquito repellent are not optional.
Practicalities
Price. The hot-spring resort runs about 440 to 520 yuan a night on OTA pages checked on 29 September 2026, within a published band of 440 to 580; a solo hot-spring ticket is about 98 yuan. Private-pool villas and guesthouses run 578 to 787, the economy hot-spring hotels 166 to 370 and chain rooms in the county town 100 to 150. The 35-room plum guesthouse at 螺洞 has no public 2026 rate anywhere in the record, so for the blossom weeks the honest answer is to check the platform and book early. Every figure is a snapshot and floats.
Address. The stays are in 上护镇 Shàng hù zhèn for the hot springs and in 水唇镇 Shuǐ chún zhèn and 东坑镇 Dōng kēng zhèn for the plum, all inside 陆河县 Lù hé xiàn in 汕尾市 Shàn wěi shì, reached from the county town on the X134 and X128 county roads, with 螺洞村 Luó dòng cūn 15 kilometres from the town and 南万镇 Nán wàn zhèn deeper in the hills with its own flower valley and red-bark forest.
Rooms. Ask which kind of stay you are actually booking, because a hot-spring villa with a private pool and a converted Hakka farmhouse in a plum valley are both sold as a rural stay and are not the same night. Ask whether the pool in the room is fed by the spring, since the public bath area in the big resort runs from 9:00 to 22:00. Ask whether pets are allowed, because the plum guesthouse takes dogs and cats free while the resort does not. And ask about the blossom dates before booking into the plum valley.
Getting there. There is no reliable published source for a rail passenger station in 陆河县 Lù hé xiàn, and the material’s own finding is that one could not be confirmed, so this is a county reached by road: the nearest stations are 汕尾站 Shàn wěi zhàn in the city’s 城区 chéng qū and 陆丰站 Lù fēng zhàn in 陆丰市, and both are followed by a long road leg. The coach from 汕尾汽车总站 to Luhe is about 96 kilometres for 20 yuan, running via 河口 hé kǒu. By car the county is reached from the coast on the Shenhai expressway and then local roads north through 海丰县 Hǎi fēng xiàn and 公平镇 gōng píng zhèn, after which the roads to 上护, 水唇 and 东坑 are winding and slow.
Where to stay: a private-pool villa at 上护镇 Shàng hù zhèn or the 35-room guesthouse at 螺洞世外梅园 Luó dòng shì wài méi yuán, depending on whether the trip is about hot water or white blossom, in 陆河县 Lù hé xiàn, 汕尾市 Shàn wěi shì. Take the spring for a winter night and the plum for two weeks in January, and remember that everything here is reached on a mountain road rather than a railway.
flowcloud would say that a Hakka county which heats its water underground, runs a free public bath beside the paid one and then covers its hillsides in white blossom for a fortnight has given itself two seasons that have nothing to do with the beach an hour away, and that the correct way to sleep here is to take both, in the order the weather decides.