Which Chinese city to fly into?
- Thread starter timmothy
- Start date
Caporegime
Bejing would be the obvious choice.
To see the Great Wall you need to be up north, although there is a direct 9hr bullet train now from Hong Kong...
To see the Great Wall you need to be up north, although there is a direct 9hr bullet train now from Hong Kong...
Soldato
Not much help if you are dead set on China but I’d be going to Taiwan where you can see most of your list minus the obvious. Research Taiwan and visit before China “take it back 
Soldato
Zhengzhou, then get yersen down the road to Dengfeng.
Associate
Beijing, culture and great wall, then train down to Xi'an for the terracotta warriors. Truly stunning. Ti'an and Tai mountain was great, as was Nanjing and Sun Yat-sen's tomb.
Train services are pretty good, just need to book in advance and don't go there over Chinese New year.
Train services are pretty good, just need to book in advance and don't go there over Chinese New year.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Jun 2011
- Posts
- 6,015
Suggest it would be better to fly to an airport, flying into a city might cause some damage to the plane
Man of Honour
China is a massive country - you really need to plan an agenda before randomly choosing a city.
For the Great Wall you need to be in Beijing, but to be honest I don't really like the city itself - much preferred Guangzhou and Shanghai, and preferred HK to both of those.
Personally, I would:
Fly to Taiwan and spend some time there. Fly from Taiwan to Hong Kong, Spend some time there. Get a boat to Macau, spend a day or 2 there. Get a bus/train from the Chinese side of the border in Macau to Guanghzhou, Spend some time there. Fly/Train to Shanghai, spend some time there. Fly or sleeper train Shanghai to Beijing, see the wall and the city (1 day) and fly from Beijing home. You miss out on Xi'an but that's a big diversion.
Single entry visa as you are only entering China once.
Sleeper trains and high speed trains are brilliant and fairly priced but you MUST MUST MUST book them in advance or you will be left stuck at a station with zero availability if you turn up on the day. Avoid any Chinese holidays like the plague, can't emphasise that enough.
China is interesting but to be honest it isn't that nice a place to go as a tourist, it can get pretty frustrating.
Do not underestimate how big a country it is and how long everything takes. Just getting from Shanghai airport to the other side of the city can take in excess of three hours on the Metro!
Source:
Lived in China for 5 months working last year and did lots of the above.
For the Great Wall you need to be in Beijing, but to be honest I don't really like the city itself - much preferred Guangzhou and Shanghai, and preferred HK to both of those.
Personally, I would:
Fly to Taiwan and spend some time there. Fly from Taiwan to Hong Kong, Spend some time there. Get a boat to Macau, spend a day or 2 there. Get a bus/train from the Chinese side of the border in Macau to Guanghzhou, Spend some time there. Fly/Train to Shanghai, spend some time there. Fly or sleeper train Shanghai to Beijing, see the wall and the city (1 day) and fly from Beijing home. You miss out on Xi'an but that's a big diversion.
Single entry visa as you are only entering China once.
Sleeper trains and high speed trains are brilliant and fairly priced but you MUST MUST MUST book them in advance or you will be left stuck at a station with zero availability if you turn up on the day. Avoid any Chinese holidays like the plague, can't emphasise that enough.
China is interesting but to be honest it isn't that nice a place to go as a tourist, it can get pretty frustrating.
Do not underestimate how big a country it is and how long everything takes. Just getting from Shanghai airport to the other side of the city can take in excess of three hours on the Metro!
Source:
Lived in China for 5 months working last year and did lots of the above.