CHANGCHUN, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- In early autumn, Chen Mo, a self-driving tourist from Hangzhou, pulled into a themed rest stop along National Highway G331 in northeast China's Jilin Province.
Setting off from Dandong in neighboring Liaoning Province, he planned a seven-day journey along the border road to Hunchun in Jilin, hoping to experience Korean ethnic customs, pick local mountain produce and take in the riverside scenery along the way.
"I used to think border areas were just places to pass through," Chen said. "Now, they are worth staying for."
Stretching 1,240 km across Jilin, G331 runs along the province's border, skirting the Changbai Mountains and tracing the Yalu and Tumen rivers. The route passes through 10 county-level areas and links 216 border villages, 12 border ports and 45 scenic attractions rated AAA level or above. Parts of the route were once narrow, winding and difficult to navigate, making many border villages and attractions hard to reach.
After years of upgrades, the Jilin section fully opened to traffic in September 2025 and has since drawn a growing stream of travelers to the region. During the 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday -- the first major holiday after the road opened -- traffic volume along the route topped 307,000, up 410.82 percent year on year, with a daily peak of 50,100.
Ji'an, the first stop in Jilin for travelers arriving from Liaoning along the route, was once a key departure point for the Chinese People's Volunteers as they crossed the Yalu River to fight in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-1953). The city boasts a wealth of revolutionary sites, many of which once lay off the beaten track.
Now, the G331 is bringing these areas within easier reach for tourists. The city has renovated historic sites, upgraded study trails and improved visitor services, linking them with border landmarks to create routes that combine revolutionary history, border sightseeing and self-driving travel.
"I brought my child here by car to experience history firsthand," said visitor Wang Junjun. "Seeing the border landscape and the Yalu River up close made the trip both meaningful and memorable."
At the eastern end of G331's Jilin section, Hunchun is seeing another type of longer stay. The city, Jilin's only land-port city open to Russia, has attracted more Russian visitors as travel between the two countries has become easier under visa-free policies. Passenger traffic through Hunchun Port reached a record high of 754,000 in 2025.
Traditional Chinese medicine and wellness services are becoming a particular draw for Russian visitors. Acupuncture, moxibustion and massage are among the treatments gaining popularity, with some visitors shifting from brief trips to longer wellness stays and opting for short-term therapy lasting seven to 10 days.
"I was worried about the language barrier, but everything went smoothly," said a visitor from St. Petersburg after an acupuncture session in Hunchun. "The doctor also showed me some simple stretches I could do at home."
The growing flow of visitors is also creating opportunities for local residents. An Guangri, a retired soldier in Fangchuan Village in Hunchun, converted an idle farmhouse into a border-themed homestay.
"Since the highway opened, we've seen more self-driving tourists, as well as visitors from Russia and the Republic of Korea," he said, adding that during the peak season, rooms are often booked two weeks in advance.
For Wu Meihong, the changes along G331 offered her a reason to come home. She returned to Qushui Village in Tumen in 2023 and, with her sister, renovated an unused old house into a rustic countryside cafe. Her social media videos of daily village life drew viewers, some of whom later came to visit.
"Once the road opened, more tourists came, and I realized there are just as many opportunities back home as in the city," she said.
The changes are reshaping local industries as well. As more visitors arrive, villages along the border are moving beyond simply selling raw produce, instead developing new products and experiences for tourists.
In Baoshan Village of Linjiang, blueberries have been grown for more than a decade. Poor mountain roads once made fresh fruit difficult to transport, resulting in losses and limited sales. With better road access, tourists can now enter the village to pick berries, while cold-storage facilities and processing have helped expand the business beyond fresh fruit.
Dried blueberries, jam and wine are sold to visitors and shipped nationwide online. The industry now brings the village more than 10 million yuan (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars) in additional annual income, boosting per capita income by over 20,000 yuan.
Similarly, in Nanping Township of Helong, six border villages have joined forces to develop local specialties with tourists in mind. Soybean paste, jujube juice and forest honey -- once sold only locally -- are now packaged uniformly as tourism souvenirs and promoted through both livestreaming and in-person sales events.
"In the past, we sold whatever we produced. Now we think about what visitors want," said Ji Huadong, a local official.
Gao Yun, an official with the Party School of the Jilin Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, said better connectivity can help turn scattered tourism resources and local specialties into new sources of local growth.
"Developing border tourism routes and high-quality tourism products can meet visitors' diverse needs while driving the growth of related industries and the broader regional economy," Gao said.
The benefits can extend beyond the economy. As folk traditions and traditional crafts become part of tourism and generate income, local communities have greater incentive to preserve and pass them on, creating a virtuous cycle between cultural preservation and development, experts said.
What is happening along the G331 in Jilin is also part of a wider effort to improve transport links in China's border regions. China will advance the high-quality development of transport corridors and support opening-up and development in border regions during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), according to the Ministry of Transport.
Over the next five years, China plans to fully connect and upgrade three major highways -- the G219 along the western and southern frontier, the G331 along the northern border and the G228 along the coast -- as part of a "golden outer ring" running along the country's land borders and coastline. Together, they will stretch more than 26,000 km.
Ma Jiangbo, deputy director of the China economic research center under the China Institute for Innovation & Development Strategy, said the three corridors will link land and sea routes, turning once-remote border areas into new frontiers of opening-up.
"Improved road networks can lower cross-border logistics costs, helping resources from border and coastal regions reach wider markets, and promoting a more balanced industrial layout," Ma added.
As dusk settles over the villages along G331, homestays light up. Travelers sit in courtyards sampling local food, while villagers prepare specialties to sell the next day.
For places that travelers once merely passed through, the road now offers more reasons to stay -- and gives the communities along it more to build upon. ■
