Throughout his lifetime, Yuan Mei travelled extensively throughout southern China, visiting Huangshan, Guilin, Tiantai, Wuyi and other famous mountains. On some of those visits, Yuan kept journal entries, representative of which is the You Guilin zhu shan ji (Record of tours of the mountains of Guilin). He also accepted students. Since he admired women's poetry, he also took several female students and helped them publish their work under their own names.