A short stay in Beijing (北京, Běijīng) forces travelers to make some difficult choices. If you have one day for the Great Wall (长城, Chángchéng) and only one full day left for central Beijing, should you try to squeeze in the Forbidden City, Jingshan Park,...
One of the biggest practical worries for first-time visitors to China is surprisingly simple: How am I actually going to pay for things? China is famous for QR-code payments. In restaurants, convenience stores, taxis and cafés, it can sometimes seem as...
Finding a hotel in Shanghai (上海, Shànghǎi) for a couple is relatively straightforward. Finding one for two adults and two preschoolers staying nine nights is a different problem. A room that looks perfectly adequate for a weekend can feel very small after a week of...
Shanghai can easily fill a week, but for many first-time travelers, spending one day outside the city adds a completely different perspective. One popular idea is visiting a traditional Jiangnan water town—canals, stone bridges, narrow lanes and historic buildings that feel far removed from...
Planning a first trip to China can be surprisingly difficult—not because there aren’t enough places to visit, but because there are far too many. Beijing? Xi’an? Shanghai? Chengdu? Guilin? Zhangjiajie? For someone who simply knows “We want to visit China”, starting with a...
A 24-hour layover in Beijing (北京, Běijīng) sounds like plenty of time—until you realize how enormous Beijing is. Should a first-time traveler use those precious hours to travel out to the Great Wall (长城, Chángchéng)? Or would it be smarter to stay in central...
How much should you try to fit into 12 days in southern China when traveling with a 3-year-old? It can be tempting to look at 12 days and immediately start adding destinations. But traveling with a young child changes the calculation. Another...
A short stay in Beijing (北京, Běijīng) forces travelers to make some difficult choices. If you have one day for the Great Wall (长城, Chángchéng) and only one full day left for central Beijing, should you try to squeeze in the Forbidden City, Jingshan Park,...
Traveling around China with a baby changes the itinerary question. It isn’t simply “How many destinations can we fit into three weeks?” The more useful questions become: How many hotel changes are sensible? Which cities work well with a stroller? Can trains and...
With only 7–8 days for a first trip to China, choosing the right combination of destinations matters more than trying to see as much as possible. One traveler was considering three very different possibilities: Shanghai and Suzhou (perhaps adding Hangzhou), Shanghai with Wangxian...
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