I wanted to go somewhere that wasn't thronged with tourists, and would be interesting to my preteen and teenager, and this was the perfect day trip.
The cave has over 2K of paths and stairs, so be ready and take good shoes since parts were slippery. Well worth it. Great for a rainy, hot, or cold day, since the cave maintains a steady temperature all year long. Pro tip: Don’t lag too far behind the guide, or the lights go off automatically!
The Peking Man museum was also just our speed--quite small, just 30 to 40 minutes, but with lots of evocative statues and paintings to bring to life the significance of the bone shards found there. When traveling with kids, I like museums like that, that tell an interesting story, and are not too huge and overwhelming!
The lunch was local and delicious. After, we passed a glass-bottomed bridge over a deep valley and asked Lisa if we could stop there instead of the historical Marco Polo bridge, and she happily agreed. The kids liked the rush of adrenaline from looking down and seeing 60 meters of air below their feet!