Beijing - Where to stay

[beiji]

We're going to Beijing in a few weeks (I know, mad in this heat! But all booked) and it's our first time. We have a list of all the main places to visit, but what's a good, safe area to stay? Or avoid. Any recommendations for hotels or any tips would be appreciated.

Guilin and
Yangshuo,
For a river cruise, bike ride, scenery and countryside.

It was good to see Shanghai but if I had to drop one place from my five places this is the one.

I would prefer a few nights in Beijing and a couple in Guilin/ Yangshuo and than five nights in Beijing.

Zhangjiajie - Avatar mountains, glass bridge, Grand Canyon, caves, amazing scenery and town nearby. A total change to the cities.
Guilin and Yangzhou is also very scenic but was incredibly humid and hot when we were there in June.

That sounds very wow, it’s going on my list for next time.

Pingyao - a beautiful, quiet ancient city about 2 hrs train journey from Beijing North station. All Ming and Qing dynasty buildings. Some lovely hotels. My favourite place when I visited China.

https://therealtraveler.com/china/pingyao-ancient-city-travel-guide

We didn’t do shanghai but I heard that as a megacity it is perhaps the least interesting place.

Thinking of your itinerary specifically

beijing to xian to somwhere to Chengdu

Fairly close by you could try zhangjiajie (National park with so called avatar mountains) before going to chengdu or Lijiang (the ancient city is nice plus there is yulong mountain and blue moon lakes).

if you can make it work though, Yangshuo is amazing, and the impression theatre show is out of this world

Thank you so much to everyone who's responded. You've really helped me by sharing your experiences and ideas.

Any experience of Dujiangyan panda valley? I've read that in the summer it's better to go there instead of Chengdu panda base because less crowds and it's cooler so more chance of seeing the pandas properly. Any thoughts on that please? We really really want to see pandas.

We only went to the panda base, which whilst a bit crowded, is quite large and affords ample chance to see the Pandas and Red Pandas. I think which ever one you go, go early to watch them eat before they sleep etc. If the other place works better for your location the go there, don’t think you can go wrong, the pandas are so cute!!

Toilets in the hotels will be fine. But most public lavatories we found to be of the squat variety and it was certainly advisable to have your own paper.

I think 5 days in Beijing is probably too much. If you were going to squeeze in an extra place to your itinerary I would second a PPs suggestion for Yangshuo. This was my favourite place on our tour. Beautiful landscape and a really nice town.

We had a morning riding bikes there and, even though I hadn't been on a bike in about 15 years, it was great. Easy riding. We also went on a bamboo raft on the river. Quite a lot to do there actually. We also did a trip to Ruyi Peak which I initially thought would be not my cup of tea at all, but in fact it was terrific fun.

I would avoid Dadong for Peking Duck as they've got high on their own publicity over the last decade and the price/quality is not what it was (quality still good but high prices). Try one of the Siji Minfu restaurants - I was at the one near Wangfujing earlier this year and it was great, though you'll have to take a ticket and wait.

Other recommendations:
Have a look around the Houhai/Nanlouguxiang areas but avoid the weekends.
Go to Jingshan Park to climb up the little hill to get a great view of the Forbidden City.
If you are on a budget the Atour, Ji or Orange Hotel chains are generally good value (and a cut above the basic economy brands). Use Trip.com to book them.
Anywhere inside the third or fourth rings near a subway station is basically fine (it's all pretty safe) but in general I'd say the east and north sides of central Beijing seem more active places to be. The foreign community generally chooses to live in these areas.
Use Didi for Uber-style taxis - you can do it through Wechat on the Pay and Services section.
Get an e-sim - the ones through Trip.com are cheap.

In Chengdu, in addition to the usual tourist stuff like the pandas and Taikoo Li:
The Eastern Suburb (Dongjiao) Memory area is interesting for late afternoon/evening
Yulin Road (actually a few streets around there) has a lot of night time activity.
The area a few km to the south of the centre (the Financial/IT area) is now the main business/retail area of Chengdu with glitzy malls like SKP. Interesting to see if China's modern development interests you.

I'm so excited now! Not long to go. I've been planning and noting down everything furiously.

Can I ask, what type of plugs did you need there? When I google they mention three plug types, which isn't very useful! Do hotels have USB A or C ports as standard? Or should I take an adapter?

I would take a universal adaptor that you can plug all your cables into - that’s what I did as I was visiting other parts of Asia as well. I can’t remember offhand for China, i think it was either European style plug or US one. The adaptor worked everywhere perfectly.

I stayed in three hotels recently that all had USB A ports available, as did most airport terminals (but not Beijing T2). Would be easy and cheap to pick up a local charger plug if needed.

Mains plug I type is most common, so take an adaptor just in case. Usb should be available but might not be for some hotels.

Also consider buying a local power bank there (CCC type) as this is very useful on the go.

If you are taking domestic flights don’t bring a non CCC power bank, they won’t let you board with it. If you’re taking trains then this should be fine.

Thank you. Plugs packed.

Another question: power banks. Were they confiscated at the airport? I thought this was only for domestic flights as that's what it says online, but a friend said that hers was confiscated cos no CCC mark. Wondering if this was a one off annoying experience or standard always.

We took power banks on all internal flights, bullet trains and international flights.

On internal flights they definitely do confiscate power banks that are not marked with CCC, I had 2 taken away the airport. They see them in the security check.

domestic trains and international flights there is no issue with these.

I bought a ccc power bank in the local airport for about £15

Having phone power at all times is crucial in my view so I recommend buying one there

Power on your phone is definitely important. Worth mentioning that charged power banks for rent are absolutely everywhere. There are Youtube videos on how to do it, but just ask some young people around and they'll almost certainly be happy to help.