China travel suggestions

[Wobblybobble]

We will be in China for a bit next spring, and we’d like to take two weeks to see some sights. Bearing in mind the fact that we’re starting and ending in Beijing (and would like to spend a few of our days exploring there), how much is reasonable to do in 2 weeks? Zhangjiajie and Chengdu have caught my attention, but I worry the former in particular will be too far to go for just a two week trip.

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

Hopeful bump!

If you go to shanghai go to an overnight to a wee island called puto shan, used to be a monastry island. Lovely visit to temples and beautiful beach.
It WAS 20 plus years ago though so better look it up first😁, but it is strong in my China memories.

I would include Xian then on to Chengdu. Yangshuo is beautiful, but possibly too far. Guilin possibly. But I'd also seriously consider a short cruise on the Yangtze. I have found that moving around China isn't too difficult and you can cover decent distances (although I'd probably have opted for 3 rather than 2 weeks).

Travelling around China is straightforward and high speed trains are excellent.
i would include Xian on your itinerary: terracotta warriors and the city is also very interesting with a Muslim quarter, drum tower, goose pagoda.
chengdu for pandas and a trip to leshan giant Buddha.
From Beijing the high speed train to Nanjing takes about 5 hours. Nanjing is the former capital of China and is a beautiful city with sun yay sen mausoleum, purple mountain, presidential palace.
from Nanjing it’s under two hours by train to Shanghai which is amazing for museums, architecture, markets. A day trip to Suzhou is an option from Shanghai.

We went to Beijing, Xian, Guilin, Chengdu, a 3 day cruise on the Yangtze to Three Gorges Dam and Shanghai in 2.5 weeks. However, we flew between cities; but DD did pretty much the same, apart from going near Tibet and Hongkong as well the next year. She went everywhere by train.

For me, Beijing, Guilin and Xian were the absolute highlights! I loved The Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall at Beijing.

If you go to Chengdu..don't forget the Panda sanctuary. one of the absolute highlights of our trip..so many of them and so close.

Tours often take you to Kunming in Yunnan Province. There is an amazing park that is a sort of living museum of the 50+ ethnic groups that live in China - the houses, costumes, music, food etc. There is also a wonderful park. If you sew then Shanghai is the place to buy silk. And don’t miss the terracotta warriors in Xian.

You could go to Wuhan and see where COVID started. That would be quite interesting.

Thanks for the input! Here is a rough sample itinerary. Thoughts on changes we should make??

You could go to Wuhan and see where COVID started. That would be quite interesting.

When we did the cruise down the Guilin gorges, we got off the boat at Wuhan and spent the night there. This was before Covid, and it just seemed an ordinary Chinese city then! It was quite nice walking through the park and by the river!

China travel suggestions 11 replies
Wobblybobble · 05/07/2023 22:42
We will be in China for a bit next spring, and we’d like to take two weeks to see some sights. Bearing in mind the fact that we’re starting and ending in Beijing (and would like to spend a few of our days exploring there), how much is reasonable to do in 2 weeks? Zhangjiajie and Chengdu have caught my attention, but I worry the former in particular will be too far to go for just a two week trip.

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

OMG, your so lucky, my whole favourite place in the world, seriously.

So starting in Beijing is great, you could very easily fill 2 weeks in Beijing alone.
The problem you may find is booking train tickets to go to Chengdu, or Chongqing etc.
Train tickets sell very fast, and it's not going to be that easy for you.
Personally, for just 2 weeks, I would stay around Beijing and Tianjin, and maybe try for Jinan, Yantai, Qingdao, and Weihai.
Jinan, Yantai and Qingdao are all in the same general direction, they are all several hours on the train.

Xian, Chengdo, Choingqing are all the opposite way, and far, but absolutely amazing.

This is interesting info about train tickets. I’ve been looking into the ticket purchase for China trains, but there seem to be websites like China Travel Guide where you can request the purchase (prepay and give them a scan of your passport) and then they do it for you as soon as the tickets open up. Seems like 12goAsia but for China… is that right? It seems like they all are digital tickets now too, so they don’t even need to send paper copies to our hotels anymore.

I also just read that as of July 2023, WeChat and Alipay now allow foreign bank cards on their payment platforms, which should make our lives a lot easier!

For train tickets, Try 12306.cn/en

May I also suggest the ancient city of ping Yao. It was my favourite part of China. Absolutely amazing place.