Travel Alone in China

The globe is flattening! People easily access huge amount of online travel information to guide their trips to any corners in this world without or with less help from a travel agency.
Things were a world of difference 20 years ago. During that non-online period, people traveling relied heavily on a traditional travel agency. A travel agency played a key role in lingking travelers and target places. Now things have totally changed with the advent of internet. We are all in a small and flattening village. Now people know how to travel on their own and no more need travel agencies or less depend on them as before.
So how to plan your independent travel to China particularly? Below are some useful independent travel tips for your references:
Where to go
China is so huge that it is necessary for you study meticulously to map out your travel itinerary before you go. The 4 cities – Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Guilin are usually among the top list.
Needless to say, Beijing is a must visit place. It is the political, cultural and commercial center in China. To learn about China’s history, you should go to Xian with over 2000-year history. Its highlight is Terra-cotta Army, the most outstanding archaeological findings in twentieth century.
Shanghai, the site 2010 World Expo, is the vanguard in the global battle against the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Shanghai leads China’s charge toward modernization. Guilin is the most mesmerizing city in China with beautiful Li River and water town – Yangshuo and some other destinations of China scenery tour.
Besides the 4 cities, you have a variety of choices – Lhasa Tibet, Chengdu (panda), Jiuzhaigou, Lijiang Yunnan, Hangzhou, Mt. Huangshan, Silk Road, Yangtze River Cruise, Zhangjiajie, and many more.
When to go
One of the views catching your eyes when you step on any of the cities in China is the amount of its people – “People Mountain, People Sea” as the Chinese Proverb goes. To avoid the crowds, you are strongly advised not to schedule your trip to China on the following public holidays in China:
New Year’Day ( 1st Jan, three-day holiday )
Chinese New Year ( later Jan and early Feb )
Tomb Sweeping Day ( Early April, 3-day holiday )
Mid-Autumn festival ( Aug-Sept, 3-day holiday )
May Day ( 1st May, three-day holiday)
National Day (1st Oct, week-long holiday
The best season to go
Later March, April, May, September, October and early November are the best time to visit China. The travel expenses during these periods are relatively higher. To get a better deal in traveling to China, you are advised to come to China in low season – Later November, December, January, and February.
Where to book your international flights for China
So you know where to go and when to go for your China trip, the next thing you should do is to book your international round trip flights for China. You may use your own travel agency at home or the online flight booking travel webs such as CheapTickets.com – Expedia.com – Hotwire.com – Kayak.com – Orbitz.com – Priceline.com – Travelocity.com.
Where to book your hotels, flights and trains in China
For China hotel booking, you may ask your travel agent to do it for you. Or you may check the hotels through the online hotel booking travel wesbsites such as hotels.english.ctrip.com – expedia.com – travelocity.com – booking.com – priceonline.com and many more. For the Beijing hotels booking, please visit www.beijingpage.com/hotels or www.beijinghotellist.com for more information.
As for the train ticket booking, you will have some difficulty since there is no official online train ticket online booking travel website at present. You are supposed to reserve your train tickets through the local travel agency. Booking and delivery fees will be charged. The tickets go on sale 10 days in advance of the departure. So you are requested to reserve your tickets at least 12 days in advance.
What to learn before you go
1. You need a passport and a tourist visa
2. Learn how to pack – carry the light, right clothes
3. Learn some basic knowledge about Chinese culture and history
4. Learn some Chinese simple sentences:
Are you going to visit Beijing China? Worried about your inability to speak Chinese ? Please find below the useful information for you:
a. It’s better to pick up some simple Chinese phrases before going. How to learn Chinese?
You may turn to the following page for help:
Learning Useful Chinese Phrases for Travellers
Note: Chinese is a phonic language , very often similar words have different meanings based on pronounciation and different words have similar pronounciation. No pain, no gain!
b. You may go to your local bookstore or library and getting some audio tapes for Chinese learning.
c. You also try to find a community college or school offering Chinese learning for beginners.
d. Each year a huge number of travellers with little knowledge of Chinese language visit or even work in China, actually you will have no big problem at all. You know more and more local Chinese are learning English. And they are pleased to practice with you. No worry! You can find assistance anywhere.
On the road
There ar some aspects you need to give consideration to when on the road and how to deal with them:
1.Staying healthy and avoiding Food Poisoning
Choose clean restaurants to dine and reduce the chances of diarrhoea during a long trip.
2.Trains
Be extra mindful of your things at night, as theft is rampant on popular routes – chain possessions up and keep them near.
In some bigh cities, there are two or more than two train stations. So you should be clear of which train station you are going to take.
3. Buses
To take public buses n Chna is an experience in itself. Buu they are often over-crowded, and sometimes getting a seat is impossible. So get ready to squeeze in or stand. The bus service is not very punctual, so make sure to have much patience for your bus trip. Usually on some busese there is a person whose main job is to sell tickets. However, many bus lines don’t have a person selling tickets – a kind of no-person selling tickt bus. It is written on bus windows. In these cases, you have to be ready for some exact changes or small money for the tickets.
4.Taxi
Black drivers are quite active in some cities. Official taxis have a taxi sign on the roof, and on the dashboard on the passenger side is a placard with the drivers registration number. If this placard is missing then avoid it. At your destination, you should requrst a fappiao (a receipt, which is generated by the meter). If the meter isn’t working, you can refuse to pay, and if the driver threatens to call the police, encourage him to do so. At this point he will write a hand-written fappiao, but make sure he (or you) writes down the car registration and the driver registration before paying your mo for the taxi.
5. Flights
For domestic flights, you will get better discount from local travel agency or flight booking agent than in your originating country or booked on the budget carriers website. In some big cities, there is more than one airport and each airport has more than one terminal. So make sure you get the right airport and right terminal.
6. Hotels
In some hotels, there exits sex service offered by clandestine sex workers. They have three ways to contact you for the servce: 1) Sneakily deliver small card under the door to your room. The card is printed with the hotline for sex service 2) Official message on your desk in your room regarding message information. Many of the message services including sex trade 3) At mid-night, very often you will receive a call from your the sex trade provider. If so, just avoid it!
7. Pick pocketing and casual theft
Quite frankly there is no reason to carry around anything near to a large sum of money or important documents in your pockets.
8. Dealing with hassle and beggars
In many cities in Chin, like else where in the world, you have to deal with the day-to-day hassle of touts, street vendors as well as beggars in the tourist areas. You also have to get used to the constant need to bargain.
Don’t give to beggars that are specifically targeting tourists and especially not to children.
In dealing with touts, salesmen, please be firm, polite and accompany your firm “no thank you” with a smile. After that don’t make eye contact, don’t keep repeatedly saying “no” or get angry. Try to deal with minor irritations with humour rather than being too assertive or worse, aggressive
9. Toilets
The majority of toilets at tourist sites are of the squat type. This is pretty much always the case where facilities are geared for locals such as at bus stations, restaurants and cheap hotels. But things are better in the luxury hotels and restaurants. For squat toilets, you have to get used to the pungent smell as well as to the squat method and hey. One lucky thing by using a squat type toilet is that at least you won’t catch anything off a toilet seat. There is often no supply of toilet paper at cheap places. So always make sure you have a small supply with you. Remembering not to throw your toilet paper in the toilet. The pipe systems are too narrow and will get clogged up.