Service area becomes the first stop for road trips! Free coffee at Qingshuihu this National Day

This August, the Ministry of Transport issued the Implementation Plan for Boutique Self-Driving Tourism Highways, mapping out a roughly 60,000 km backbone of “three rings, four east-west corridors, five north-south corridors.” Zhangjiajie in Hunan was included in the network. Departing from Changsha and heading west along the G5513 Changzhang Expressway for just over 100 km, a striking building in maillard-toned hues comes into view — this is the Qingshuihu Service Area, hailed as “the first stop of the Greater Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone.”

On October 1, the first day of the 2026 National Day holiday, the weather was less than ideal, yet the Qingshuihu Service Area still saw dense traffic and streams of visitors. “I’d seen this place online and only planned to stop for a rest and a photo, but I found a car show here and even got a free cup of coffee,” said a tourist, Ms. Chen, snapping and sharing photos as she spoke.

In the forecourt of the service area, the Xiaomi Pengcheng “Nth Space” National Day tour brought the Xiaomi Pengcheng N90 — launched just this September — straight to the expressway front line, drawing plenty of onlookers and test riders. At the same time, Xiaomi Pengcheng offered free Americano coffee throughout the holiday, “recharging” travelers and dissolving their fatigue.

What is it like to stumble upon a car show at a highway service area? This year, Mr. Wang welcomed twin babies as his second child — a joyful event, but his five-seat SUV suddenly felt too small, and he began considering a larger vehicle for family trips. He told the reporter: “I’d followed the Xiaomi Pengcheng launch event but never had a chance to test-drive it. I couldn’t believe I ran into the actual car right here at the service area and got a real feel for it. The cabin is genuinely spacious, and the rear-screen keeps the family entertained — basically meeting every need of a multi-child household. And since it runs on both fuel and electricity, range anxiety is gone too.”

According to the Report on the Development of China’s Self-Driving, Caravan and Camping Tourism (2024–2025), China’s self-drive trips reached 4.35 billion person-times in 2024, a net increase of 750 million year-on-year. This July, Hunan released Several Measures to Support the Construction of the Greater Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone, explicitly backing the functional, distinctive and artistic upgrade of a batch of expressway service areas, cultural-tourism waystations, scenic-route facilities and leisure districts.

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