China for a holiday in Oct good or bad idea?

[raisinbran]

Have the travel bug and nobody else to go with so thought I would take my 2DS 12,7yrs for a 2 week holiday to China in Oct half term to see as much as we can.

How easy would it be to get a round by yourself with a local guide?Where do you find a local guide.

Booking flights and hotels seems straight forward.I don't really want a fully escourted tour as it would be nice to do our own thing relax by the pool shopping some of the time and dont want the tours to be too detailed or drawn out so my youngest gets bored.

Some family tours with children in mind look great on the itinery but the accommodation seems a bit too basic.

Am I being a bit ambitious would it be too much for children. Other places we have not been to are India or Latin America but I presume these would be even more tricky?

I think your DC's are old enough to manage China but where were you thinking of going in China? Its a HUGE country, I spent 6wks backpacking from the north down to the south and only scratched the surface of it.

I was in the Beijing in mid-Nov and it was already pretty damn cold, i nearly froze to death walking around the Forbidden City (wearing thermal underwear) and I got the most awful cold/flu as well. (During the whole trip i got food poisoning 3 times as well but thats another matter, in general the local food is fantastic)

If you're thinking of the south that would be much more bearable, i.e. Chengdu which has the Panda Breeding Centre just outside the city and some of the lovely villages in that province ie. Lijiang and Dali. Or Guilin where theres beautiful atmospheric landscape with the karst limestone 'turrets' that stick straight out of the flat plains like a chessboard is cool too. Don't know about Shanghai, we missed it out by going inland via Xian (where the Terracotta Soldiers are)

China was the most challenging place to travel independently that i've been to. Given the short time you want to go, I would stick to a family-focussed tour, and the accommodation levels - well, thats China really.

Oh, CTS is the govt tourist travel service, they're everywhere and could arrange local guides if you're hell-bent on doing it independently...!

Actually I think india would be easier - everybody speaks english there and everything is written in english too. Latin American is somewhere I haven't made it to yet....

Ooh thanks for the response, sounds as if you like your travel and its exciting hearing where you have been.

Think I need to research a bit more,but initally thought of visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Xian and Guilin basically following other tour lay outs but choosing my own hotels and just need a guide then.

My biggest hesitation for India is getting ill and having two DC to look after, or they become sick and we are stuck in hotel rooms and miss the sights we came to see.

They are used to travel but in the past have always been to more westernised places or been with my ex when we have sampled more exotic family trips.

Thanks for feedback though.

I went to China in 2005 and spent 7 days in Beijing and 3 days in Xian. I went on an organised tour (trekked the great wall for charity) and the company sorted out all the paperwork for the visa so you'd need to look into that.

In Beijing I'm sure there must be loads of tours that would take you to the main places, ie great wall, Tianamen (sp?) square, Summer palace, forbidden city and same with Xian with the Terracotta army. I stayed in a mixture of hotels. Some of the ones whilst trekking were VERY basic (ie toilets a hole in the ground)but one of the ones in Beijing after the tour (i stayed on aftewards for a while) and the one in Xian were excellent, easily 4/5*.
Food was excellent too (although fried egg and lettuce sandwiches on top of the wall on day 1 were a bit different) Dim sum dinner in Xian was interesting and as a result I can never eat another dim sum (the whole meal was just dim sum) - no rice, noodles, meat, just platters and platters of dim sum. The more we ate, the more they brought.

Don't be put off. Contact the tourist board and find out about visas etc and have a great time. The sights in China are awesome and its a once in a lifetime trip

I have been to China, India and latin America (but all pre-dc) and of those 3 I would say that India was the easiest to travel around, China probably the hardest.

If you are travelling with dc I think it is definitely worth trying to book a custom-made tour of China before you leave - with guides to get you to and from the train stations/airports as it can be very confusing - if you want to build in some down time they should be able to do that for you. You will also need to be quite firm with your guides that you don't want to be dragged off to tourist shops at every opportunity.

Beijing, Xian and Shanghai all amazing and well worth seeing. Enjoy.