Bo'ao is a small town on Hainan's east coast that punches well above its weight diplomatically: it is the permanent home of the Boao Forum for Asia, the Asian equivalent of Davos, which brings heads of state and business leaders here every spring and has given the town an infrastructure of luxury hotels and conference facilities entirely out of proportion to its actual size. Outside forum season it is a quiet, pleasant place — a peninsula where three rivers meet the sea, with fishing boats, mangroves, and the Jade Belt Beach (Yudai) that requires a short ferry crossing to reach.
The town's identity as a diplomatic venue has done little to change its underlying character. The Wanquan River — the third-longest river in Hainan — winds through coconut and banana plantations before emptying into the sea here, creating the peninsula's distinctive three-river geography. The fishing port at Tanmen, about ten kilometres to the north, has been a working harbour for centuries and retains a rough vitality — seafood restaurants, boat-repair yards, and a museum dedicated to the South China Sea's long history of Hainanese fishing, smuggling, and territorial dispute. The Bo'ao Lighthouse at the peninsula tip flashes three white pulses every nine seconds, visible 35 kilometres out to sea.
Bo'ao is an easy half-day from either Haikou or Wanning and makes a good stopping point on any east-coast itinerary. The golf course on a river island is championship standard and remarkably uncrowded outside the forum weeks.