Abstract: In recent years, many researches show that the strategy of intensification and the strategy of diversification are very important in tabu search, but they are usually conflicting. How to solve the conflict has become a topic worthy of paying attention. A novel adaptive search strategy of intensification and diversification is proposed to solve TSP （traveling salesman problem） in this paper. This strategy adjusts dynamically the numbers of intensification elements and diversification elements in candidate list respectively by interactive cooperation between neighborhood and candidate list. Experiments show that this strategy is feasible and effective.