I saw some comments on travel website saying:Lijiang's a place like Chinese Disneyland full of tourists and souvenir shops,so I don't reccommend travellers to go there.
Based on my experience,I regard 90% of the total tourists are stupid! They are just traveling in Longly Planet,which means staying in the hotels where LP reccommends to stay,seeing what LP tells to see,eating in the places where LP reccommends to eat! Who wrote the LP? Travellers! As I've never seen a word in the LP written by Lijiang Local. Stop following the Longly Planet,as it only takes you to the touristy places.Lijiang with a total area of 20,000 Square kilometers, only 10% of the area is touristy where you see big groups of tourists,the rest area are very few visited by tourists. So,don't be hesitated to come to Lijiang,it's still a very nice place for tourists(it's said it's one the 100 places people should visit in their lifetime),but you need some correct information before coming here.
Nice but not touristy places in Lijiang:
1 Daju(the real Shangri-la in the world)
2 Stone Drum Old Town
3 Yuhu Village
4 Places by the Yangtze River most are very nice
5 Zhiyun Tibetan Buddhism Monastery
6 Wenhai,a village inhabited by the Naxi,the Tibetan and the Yi,it's a beautiful valley surrounded by snow mountain.2800 meter in altitude and 25 kms away from Lijiang Old town,nice place for hiking!!!