White prairies

Herdsmen celebrate the winter Nadam festival. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Inner Mongolia is making a particular push to lure youth. This year it earmarked a 100,000 yuan ($14,760) travel fund for college students at a Beihang University event in Beijing this month.

It has developed routes featuring food, photography and "snow leisure" for young explorers.

They can snowmobile, "join the polar bears club" by swimming in freezing temperatures, paint in snowy fields and craft ice lanterns.

Chifeng's Meilin Valley, Yakeshi's Phoenix Mountain Villa and the Jinlong Mountains in Zhalantun are popular ski spots.

"China's coldest village" offers Christmas culture, plus bonfires, fireworks and Mongolian dances.

Inner Mongolia has also developed several driving routes for travelers who take the wheel and steer their own destinies on the road.

Road trips through the Hinggan League-Hulunbuir-Manzhouli wind through birch forests, stop in at Russian restaurants and slip through rime-encrusted landscapes. That's not to mention ice fishing, lava formations and ice sculptures.

The Xilingol-Chifeng-Tongliao-Erenhot route features a dinosaur museum, camel pageants and wildlife hunting.

The Ulan Qab-Hohhot-Baotou-Erdos itinerary hosts auto-stunt shows, Mongolian dairy and desert exploration.

And the Bayannur-Wuhai-Alxa axis offers an ice run atop the Yellow River, camel riding and hiking.

Indeed, those who journey through Inner Mongolia at its most frigid will discover a place that truly is a winter wonderland－although perhaps not in the most conventional sense.

Rather, in a way in which wrestling in snow banks, swilling liquor from herders' bowls and skiing down volcanoes are what makes winter wondrous.

Contact the writers through yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn