The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is the easiest place on earth to see giant pandas doing what giant pandas do: eating, sleeping and falling out of trees. Founded in 1987 with six rescued animals, it now runs the world’s most successful captive breeding programme and houses well over a hundred pandas in large wooded enclosures.
Go at opening time. The difference between 8am and 11am is the difference between watching cubs wrestle over bamboo and watching black-and-white rugs snore. The red panda enclosures — faster, cheekier animals with no queue — are the base’s most underrated corner.