A friend of mine is going to be in Hong Kong with a friend in March but on March 10 her friend is going while my friend will have another week over there. She wants to take a tour or do something else appropriate for a solo traveler. She is thinking of flying to Beijing or Shanghai but she isn’t sure.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
I went to Shanghai and Beijing in February, and shit it was cold. Kunming and Yunnan province may be nicer climatically (Chengdu was certainly a bit warmer when I got there).
That said “things to do in China” is like asking “things to do in the US”. It’s huge and diverse and there are thousands upon thousands of things to do… Your friend should choose an area or city, and stick to that for a week.
A tiny few ideas:
Yunnan is a really amazing place to explore, particularly Dali and Lijiang, and the weather will probably be pleasant until she gets to Lijiang. (Fly in to Kunming or direct to Lijiang.)
Yangshuo and its sugarloaf mountains are also major tourist destinations, and are the “archetypal” Chinese landscape. (Fly in to Guilin.)
More unusually, I once took a “cruise” ship (post-Communist-style, i.e. not very nice) from HK to Hainan Island over Christmas, which was pretty nice, tropical beaches in the south of the island and so on. Again, Chinese style, which means not as luxurious as it could be.
ETA: avoid Guangzhou, the nearest Chinese city to Hong Kong - it’s horrible.
Shanghai is a fascinating city with a variety of things to do (museums, architecture, shopping, sight-seeing, beautiful gardens, etc.) and I highly recommend it. The same could probably be said about Beijing, but I’ve never been there.
Yeah, Beijing is bloody amazing. And vast. I liked it more than brash Shanghai - which in itself was amazing - but then I’d come from Hong Kong which is also brash, but in a way more tasteful. I also found Beijingers to be friendlier than Shangies.
Beijing is the best city I’ve been to in the world. It’s that great.
Skip Shanghai. That’s my advice.
I suggest:
Go to the Great Wall. Most touristy thing you can do, but you have to. It’s…great.
Go to Silk Road, which I believe is in a building now. Haggle, haggle, haggle, and you can get some great stuff for insanely cheap prices.
Visit the Summer Palace. Beautiful.
Oh, anyone who goes to Beijing has to eat at Quanjude. Best Beijing(Peking) Duck in the world. I’d eat there alone, if I had to. It’s that good. Unbelievable and not that expensive.
Thanks for your advice everyone.
I agree that Shanghai doesn’t have much going for it if you are not in it for the nightlife. It’s a world-class city, and if you’ve been to plenty of those, it doesn’t seem particularly special. Beijing is amazing, but will be crazy, insane cold during that period. Chengdu will be chilly and drizzly, but at least bearable. Yangshuo is beautiful, but the weather may or may not cooperate. Last time I was there in Feb is was unbearably cold and buildings in the area are poorly heated. But the year before that, it was sunny and warm. Hainan is not worth it- there are better beaches just about anywhere else.
I second the idea of a Yunnan trip. Yunnan will be sunny and reasonably warm, and it’s one of the most friendly and relaxed places in China to travel (well, as long as you don’t need a cab in Kunming.) It should be a cheap and easy flight.
I’d skip Kunming, which is fun but doesn’t have a lot to offer a visitor. Dali and Lijiang are fun old towns with more than a hint of Disneyland to them. They are fun picture-perfect places to explore, watch the madness of Chinese local tourism, buy souvenirs and sample local foods. Both towns resemble what the fantasy China in your mind might look like.
For a more authentic experience, there are tons of opportunities to hike or bike to local villages. Yunnan has a high concentration of minorities, and is one fo the few places in China where traditional lifestyles are winning out agains the bland corporate white-tile-and-KTV sameness that is steamrolling through China as sure as McDonalds and WalMart generalized America. It’s one of the few accessible places where you can see people in traditional costume going about their everyday business.
Hiking Tiger Leaping gorge is totally worth it if you have any interest in the outdoors. Beautiful! All of this should be more than enough for a week.
If you are looking for hostel-level accommodations, the Hump in Kunming, Mama Naxi in Lijiang and of course Jane’s Guest house on the way to the gorge are the only places to go. All three are friendly, informative, full of interesting people to meet, and will do their damndest to make your trip a ton of fun. All are comfortable and have private rooms, and I would choose them in a second over the sterile cookie-cutter white tile hotels that dot China.
If she decides on Beijing, I can also recommend a pretty special hotel. Let me know.
If there is any way she can get used to the idea of travelling solo, I would highly recommend that. China’s organized tour industry is still monopolized by the state tourism companies, which appear to be stuck a couple decades back. Even places that look independent are actually just fronts for the three state tourism agencies. And that means you’ll get lots of boring commentary about the size of every room and questionable historical information, hours upon hours of enforced shopping trips to state-owned souvenir emporiums (disguised on your iteniery as a “trip to a silk factory” or “visit to stone carver’s workshop”), bland institutional food served in cavernous dining halls that deal only in package tours, and large, empty government owned hotels with crystal chandeliers in the lobby and no hot water in the rooms.
I know going solo is intimidating with the language barrier, but the tourist trail (especially in places like Yunnan) is well, well travelled and geared towards solo travel. You’ll meet tons of people in the “go to” hostels to explore during the day with, and your hostels will be absolutely ready to help you arrange transportation, write down the names of locations to show taxi drivers, etc. They have ample experience with what Western travelers need, and can give it to you.
If you must take a tour, go to Tibet, which is only really accessible on a tour.
Depends on what your friend wants to do. China, as pointed out, is a big place. Beijing is butt cold then. If your friend is dying to see some of the Beijing stuff, then it’s probably worth the cold. Again, it really depends on personal preference
The only temperate area is Southern China, including Yunnan. Heck, Yunnan is a big place. You could go to the tropical Xishuangbana bordering Burma, to Tibetan areas (which have their worst temperature in Nov/Dec but will still be cold) to the Dali and/or Lijiang areas.
One could explore the tropical Hainan island (no one goes outside of the Haikou or Sanya beach areas.
The non-Chiense speaking backpacker / non tour group set have being going to most of these southern areas for 25 years. There may be some challenges but it’s not overwhelming for mosst people.
I second Xishuang Banna, but don’t expect a typical “Chinese” experience there. I stayed there two weeks, enjoyed myself, but barely felt like I was in China at all. Xinjiang might also be good.
Others have said that Beijing will be cold that time of year, but BJ has nothing on dongbei! Don’t even think about coming up to N/E China unless you want to freeze to death.
Here are my friend’s current thoughts. This is the busiest time of year for her so she’s getting overwhelmed:
Sounds like your friend needs something “easy” to do and decide what she wants to do. For China, she needs to take a direct flight to one place and just hang there. Take day trips from the base after she gets there, maybe meets some other travelers, has a chance to decide what might be interesting, etc.
I would not recommend hanging out in HK for an additional week as it’s just not that big nor interesting. Day trips to China from HK are pretty lame and I don’t have any to recommend. Not sure what her budget or interests are.
If she likes the beach and wants to go hang in a resort to unwind, then go to Sanya on Hainan Island. (Personally, I would recommend one of the Thai beaches or Malaysia’s Kota Kinabalu over Sanya.)
Tropics and tribal minorities, head to Xishuangbanna (IIRC Jinghong is where the airport is), which borders Burma. It will be hot.
Mountains, tribal minorities, spectacular scenery, then fly to Lijiang in Yunnan Province. Make that the base for Zhongdian (Shangri-la and a Tibetan area), Dali (Bai Nationality), Chicken Foot Buddhist Holy Mountain (Jizushan) or Tiger Leaping Gorge. This won’t be warm but not brutally cold.
Guilin for karst scenery. Probably want to stay in Yangshuo or another town on the LiRiver. This will be by far the easiest trip to do. Could also do a day trip to Sanjiang Dong Nationality Area or to the terracing.
Again, as a ex SW China guidebook writer, I strongly recommend that your friend takes a direct flight from Hong Kong to one single destination. Then does day trips out and about. From a language and low hassle factor, this is the way to go. I’ve spent at least weeks in each of the above destinations.
Your friend is over thinking things. Maybe she should relax a bit until this busy time is over. She still has a lot of time to plan.
China should be a very easy place to travel in. It’s still extremely cheap and there are so many people on the move that travelers have a lot of options. Last-minute planning is the norm. Outside of peak travel season, there are pretty much always flights and hotels, especially if plunking down an extra $10.00 now and then isn’t going to break the bank. I really hope she doesn’t give up on this- travel in China is amazing, and Hong Kong is nowhere near the whole experience.
If she wants to go to Yunnan, all she was to do is mosey over to eLong and book a flight directly to Lijiang. Then go to HostelWorld and book a room at the incredible Mama Naxi’s. If you email them ahead of time, they can have a car for you at the airport. If not, taxis are affordable even over long distances. Even if you get ripped off, it’s going to be for less than ten bucks. Don’t worry about that part.
Once there, Mama Naxi’s can arrange anything else she might be interested in. If she wants to visit Dali or Tiger Leaping Gorge, the front desk will help her book bus tickets, make sure she gets to the bus station, etc. If she wants to stick around Lijiang, the hostel can help her rent bikes, plan day-trips into the country side, etc. Lijiang has tons of English menu restaurants, but if your friend is feeling lazy, Mama Naxi serves a very cheap ($1.50) family-style Chinese meal at night. They really are really good at this stuff, and have lots of resources to make sure you have a good time. When it’s time to go, arrange with the hostel for transport to the airport. All the prices they quote you should be reasonable- if there is a markup up on anything, it’s along the lines of a few dollars.
It’s that simple.
If she just wants to relax a bit in some beautiful landscape, I can recommend the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. She’ll want to fly out to Guilin (use eLong!) and probably just take a taxi to the hotel…it’ll cost a bit, but not a crazy amount. It’s a bit out from Yangshuo town and a little on the pricey-for-China side, but it’s absolutely a stunning place. You could spend a week there just riding bicycles into the countryside. The hotel has taxis that go into Yangshuo town, and can arrange all kinds of activities for you (although they will be slightly pricier than if you go the backpackers-route.) My mom spent quite a bit of a time there, and she loved it.
Still need motivation? Look at pictures of Lijiang and Yangshuo. Don’t you wish you were headed there?