Our family of four, including our two sons, ages 14 and 10, are getting ready to book our flights to China. We are planning to go with our friends from Singapore who have 2 sons the same ages. Both families have been to Hong Kong, only.
As of now, we arrive in Beijing, and leave 15 days later. We might be able to squeeze in another day or two.
We are currently looking at:
Beijing – 4 days
Xian – 2 days
Shanghai -2 days
End in Beijing on day 14
For the other 5 days, we are considering the following but are open to your ideas.
- Nanning
- Kunming??
- Guilin with Yangshao??
- Xitang
- Other ideas??
Please let us know where we should fly versus train. We have put a lot of this together, already, from your suggestions.
Thanks for your time!
Help on our Itinerary
Travelling in China by train is fantastic. But I think you would struggle to add to your current three destinations. Unless you have everything pre booked you may find it difficult.
Currently the number of days you have in each city means you are only going to see the primary tourist site. Shanghai is only another big city but there is Hangzou very close just south of Shanghai which deserves a look.
Yangshuo is amazing - you have to do a baloon ride if you go - needs three days !! - but as your itinerary stands now it is a bit out of the way - unless you fly !
Trains are great and even the hard sleeper is quite comfortable and a lot cheaper than the soft sleeper. At all costs avoid hard seats !!
The problem with trains is that you have to plan ahead, especially for so many tickets as you might not find what you want on a specific date. The moment you arrive in a place you have to book your next tickets - dont know if you can pre book tickets from an agency outside of china ?
We never flew in China so cannot advise about flying.
Good luck and enjoy.
Help on our Itinerary
Hello,it%26#39;s nice to travel in china,now ,everything is cheap for it%26#39;s low seaon for tourism.
and by train is also nice ,while i suggest you by air
1) the time you saty in china is limited,if you travel by trian ,that means you take more time on the trian and the less time for the places of interest.
2) the peak time for trian is coming ,so many students will back honetown by trian and it %26#39;s hard to buy.
and if you want to buy tickets,you have to go to the train station (someone who english help you)n or find travel agency to help.
i saw one foreigh friend who buy train ticket,while no good communication with the waiter in trian station,i help him to get the ticket at last.
and if you can%26#39;t get sleeper in the trian ,the journey will be crazy,so many people in the trian.
Ayway, good luck in china tour.
please ask me freely i%26#39;m xi%26#39;an loca man if you get any questions.
Peg (fourinthefamily), I%26#39;ve tried to reply to your last email to me but it bounced back. Are you still using the same email address, or are you having problems? Please contact me, thanks. :)
Hi. Thanks for everyone%26#39;s help. We have a total of 17 full days, not counting our arrival and departure days.
Our latest itinerary-
Beijing 4 days.
X%26#39;ian - 2 days
Kunming - 2 days
Yangshuo/Guilin - 3 days
Lijiang, Dali, Zhongdian - 6 days
Thanks!
Kunming,Guilin and YAngshao for another 5days is better,2days for Kunming,3days for Guilin%26amp;Yangshao,but Guilin%26amp;Yangshao first then To Kunming,for the big city is easy to get flight to Beijing again.
Returning from a bigger city to Beijing is great suggestion. Thanks. We are thinking we might fly out of Kunming and back into Chengdu. That way, we would be flying from Chengdu back to Beijing which is probably easier.
What is the minimum amount of days for the Lijiang area to make it worthwhile to go?
Thanks!
This is very interesting. Our kids are used to moving around but we are actually a bit concerned about the other family.
We were trying to hit the highlights and expose the kids to as much culture and history as possible.
We had originally planned to include Shanghai but decided the Lijiang area might be more interesting from a cultural point of view.
In addition, we had planned to fly in and out of Kunming but we were advised to spend a little time there. We could just fly through it. That would eliminate 2 days. On our way back from Lijiang, we thought we would fly through Chengdu, to save time and possibly see the pandas, if it worked out.
How would you divide up the full 17 days?
If everyone had a year to visit every country in the World they would obviously see everything but unfortunately most people don%26#39;t. Some people have very difficult circumstances and this maybe there only chance of visiting China, so only seeing the main places is perfectable acceptable in certain circumstances.
You%26#39;ll see all the main places in those cities in those times, yes you won%26#39;t see everything, but you%26#39;ll get the idea - you may realise that in a couple of years you%26#39;ll want to revisit a place.
There are a lot of places to go to in the World and so little time - is it better to see everything once and briefly or to see 10% of it well?
It%26#39;s a matter of choice.
4inthefamily,
We are going to Yangshuo (6 days) and then Lijiang (4 days) with a 9 and 6 year old next week. If you fly to Lijiang via Kunming be advised that the flights seem to change often. China Southern cancelled the Guilin to Kunming flight we were going to take before connecting to an Air Chaing Kunming-Lijiang flight not too long ago, and we just found out last night that Air China changed the Guilin-Chengdu-Kunming routing that we had just ticketed last week. As a result we will spend the night in Kunming and fly to Lijiang in the morning. Just make sure that you or your agent checks things periodically for you.
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