Travelling to China was certainly an experience. There was so much to see and do, with a completely different culture to experience. Whilst it was amazing and I’d recommend it to anyone, travelling through China was challenging at times. In this post, I will share all of my tips for travel in China.
Interested in the amazing places we visited? Head over to my China destination page!
*DISCLAIMER* I’m not sponsored by any of the companies mentioned/linked; this article is purely based on my experience in 2019.
Why I recommend taking a tour to travel through China
My family and I chose to take Peregrine Adventures’ “Best of China” tour to explore the cities of Shanghai, Luoyang, Xi’an and Beijing. The tour was 8 days long and included highlights such as visiting the Great Wall and a tour of the Terracotta Warriors museum. We chose this tour because we felt it included all of the main highlights which we wanted to see. To be honest with you, I can’t imagine travelling through China without a guide. Here’s why:
Transport around the country is organised for you
The main benefit (in my opinion) of taking a tour through China is that almost all of the transportation to various places is organised for you. Train tickets to each city were included, as well as mini-bus transfers to tourist attractions like the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors and Shaolin Temple. Our guide was also able to provide directions to other sites we may want to see in our spare time. Most of the time we could walk, but if we chose to visit somewhere as a group he would book Ubers.
I believe that once you are in a city, it’s pretty easy to get around. The public transport system is quite good and I have been able to find a lot of information online about how to get to various attractions. However, I think travelling between cities could be potentially difficult without a guide. There are very few other foreign tourists and you may encounter people who can’t speak English. With the train stations being so big and busy, I for one was definitely grateful we had a guide to tell us where to go and when we needed to be there!
Your guide can provide recommendations for activities to do and food to try
In my last post about eating vegetarian in China, I mentioned that our guide came out to dinner with us almost every night and ordered a variety of food for us. I won’t go on about it because I wrote about it over there, but I would have had no idea what to order if it weren’t for him! There are certainly some foods I never would have tried or thought to order. I feel like I mention this in every tips post (can you tell I like taking tours?), but your guide can also provide recommendations for where to go and where not to go in your spare time.
The tour company will help with your visa application
There are quite a few rather specific things you will need to get a visa to travel to China. For example, the photo you submit with your application must be of a certain size (you can get one taken at your local post office in Australia). We were also told that we needed a letter of invitation to enter the country. It says online that you can also provide your return trip details and hotel bookings if you would prefer not to book a tour. Anyway, if you choose to book a tour, the company will provide you with a letter of invitation to include with your visa application. I personally think this is great; one less thing to worry about before you go!
Money in China
Most people in China pay using their phone via an app such as WeChat or Alipay. In some places, it’s actually ONLY possible to pay with your phone. For example, I couldn’t get an ice cream made by this robot because we hadn’t set up paying by phone. I was rather disappointed. Visa or Mastercard are not widely accepted except in tourist hotspots like Beijing and the Terracotta Warriors. Most places will also accept cash if you don’t want to set up paying by your phone. ATMs are available if you need to get more cash out, but you should bring a decent amount of Chinese currency to begin with.
This was one of the other benefits of travelling with a tour. Our guide paid using his phone for dinners and many other activities, such as our visit to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. We then paid him back using cash.
Internet usage in China
The websites that people are able to access in China are strictly limited. If you use any of the wifi in China, you will not be able to access social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or google sites such as Gmail. I personally wasn’t phased about having a 10-day break from social media and emails. It meant I didn’t have to deal with any of my problems back home! However, if you would like to access these sites, I recommend you bring or purchase a VPN. Vodaphone’s international roaming also works in China for any Aussies reading.
Health considerations for China
Vaccinations
I’m scared of needles. So vaccinations are the worst part of travel for me! However, since it had been less than a year since I got 50 million different needles to go to Africa, I didn’t need to get any for China! Lucky me! It is recommended you have your Hep A, Hep B and Typhoid vaccines up to date to visit China. You also may wish to consider getting vaccinated for Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis if you are embarking on a longer-term trip.
Medications
My family is prone to taking an entire pharmacy with us when we travel, and our trip to China was no exception. We also brought a full first-aid kit. Aside from our own prescription medications, we also brought medications such as pain killers, cold tablets and medicine to help with food poisoning. Make sure you bring along a copy of your scripts for any prescription medications.
Beware… Many museums and attractions are closed on Mondays!
Something we didn’t know before arriving in China is that most museums and attractions are closed on Mondays. Unfortunately, this was not taken into account in our tour itinerary (though I noticed it has changed now) so we had to do things differently. One day ended up being insanely long as we had to cram two days’ worth of activities into one. On this particular day, we went to the Great Wall early, drove the 2 hours or so back to Beijing, then explored the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square before heading to an afternoon acrobat show. Only after all of that did we make it to our hotel! You had better believe we slept well that night.
We were also affected by the whole museums closed on Monday thing in Shanghai. We actually ended up visiting the Shanghai Museum twice. Whilst we were scheduled to visit the museum on our first full tour day (a Monday), we ended up visiting before catching the train to Luoyang on the Tuesday. But because my mum didn’t want to miss out, we ended up going ourselves on the Sunday before the tour started! Visiting twice ended up being fine; even in two visits we didn’t see all of the exhibits! The Shanghai Museum is also free so it’s not a really big deal. But my point is to make sure you don’t plan any trips to museums on Mondays.
So what can I do on Mondays?
The museums might be closed, but there are still plenty of things open on Mondays. In Shanghai, we visited the Yuyuan Gardens, the Bund and Nianjing Road Shopping Mall. Yuyuan gardens was open despite it being a ticketed site. In Beijing, we visited the Lama Temple. Again, this was open despite being ticketed. The Lama Temple was such a peaceful and relaxing way to spend the day, especially after the craziness of that Sunday! So it worked out rather well in the end.
Free downloads: packing list and helpful Chinese phrases!
To finish off my guide to travel in China, I wanted to share a couple of free downloads with you! One is a packing list, which will give you a good idea of what you should bring when travelling to China. Aside from the things I have already mentioned, it’s a pretty standard packing list. I have also created a handout of helpful Chinese (mandarin) phrases which you can use on your travels!
Both of these downloads are available in my resource library and are accessible only to my subscribers. If you sign up below, you will get access not only to these two documents, but all of my free downloads in the library. You will also get a monthly email update from me, including a travel tip I share only with my subscribers and a wildlife feature relating to my current travel series.
Is there anything else you want to know about travel in China? Let me know in the comments!
I hope you have found this guide to travel in China helpful! Of course, don’t forget to check your government’s recommendations for whether you should travel before you visit. If you have any more questions about travelling in China, feel free to get in touch in the comments below or via social media (linked in the menus above). Travelling in China was such an interesting and incredible experience and I hope you all get to experience it someday! Don’t forget you can watch my YouTube video (below) for more inspiration and sign up to my newsletter to access my free downloads!
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