Is it possible to have a good time traveling around China while avoiding large cities? A month long backpacking/historical trip seems like a good time
Is it possible to have a good time traveling around China while avoiding large cities?
Is it possible to have a good time traveling around China while avoiding large cities? A month long backpacking/historical trip seems like a good time
no. Someone is going to harvest your organs in china. You're in for a bad time
ywnhagt
Chinas countryside is maximum comfy and totally worth what you're suggesting. Yes it's possible to travel outside large cities. The problem comes from hotels that can process foreigners. My suggestion, if you really wanted to do this style of traveling, is contact the hotel and tell them you'll be registering with the police directly. Then go to the police station in the area you'll be staying and register there if you can't find a hotel that can process a foreigner. Or you can go to the police station and they will find a hotel that can accept foreigners for you and they will take you there. They are really accommodating. No one speaks English so make sure you have a translation app ready and if you have an eSim thats not Chinese but functions in China you won't need a VPN as the IP you'll receive will be of the country you bought your eSim in.
Great tips
terrible tips. why spend an hour in a low level police station trying to convince a policeman to register you? book through ctrip or booking and the hotel will register you.
>Or you can go to the police station and they will find a hotel that can accept foreigners for you and they will take you there.
How to spend the maximum amount of money on the shittiest chain hotel rooms.
Using the police to find you accommodation is something exclusive to Xinjiang and Tibet.
>How to spend the maximum amount of money on the shittiest chain hotel rooms
If you're not in a tier 2+ city then the hotels are just never very expensive and they're all going to be second world quality regardless. I think OP isn't expecting room service or a breakfast buffet.
Would I be absolutely crazy to try stealth camping in China instead of staying at hotels? I’ve done it plenty in Taiwan and other places in Asia.
Precisely what this anon said the government is fricking moronic with regards to its international travel scene. If you go to the boonies you literally won't be able to lodge at any hotel. Don't trust Ctrip or Trip.com because 20% of the time they make mistakes and if you booked the only hotel in a region that allows foreigners only to find out "upps! Sorry. We can't accept you" you're royally fricked. I speak Chinese and it's a total fricking pain to book a hotel even in big cities. Can't imagine what it's like for a newbie monolingual tourist.
So what you're saying is bring a tent and sleeping bag? No problemo
You can try but it won't work. You can't just camp in random places.
Wdym?
>I speak Chinese and it's a total fricking pain to book a hotel even in big cities
Shijiazhuang is the only city I had really big problems finding a hotel in and I've been nearly everywhere. If you stop in random tier 3- cities then you'll need to look around but hostels are basically always fine.
Either they can book you because they're expecting backpackers or they don't care because it's all under the radar for them.
Go to Qingdao. Practically no where except the four most expensive places take you. Loved the city but after wasting four hours looking for an "affordable" I just gave up and never plan to return. The CCP are fricking moronic with this rule. It's like they don't want tourists to come spend money here.
>Qingdao
Wasn't a problem for me, I picked some random affordable hotel and had no trouble.
Occasionally hotels will cancel my booking after an hour or two because they can't take it but I always find another.
Shijiazhuang is the only place where this happened repeatedly and I had to stay in a Hilton or something.
this is crazy, wow. I remember as a teenager and traveling in china with my chinese buddies, we were turned away cus I was a foreigner.
Why do they have this weird policy?
>we were turned away cus I was a foreigner.
>Why do they have this weird policy?
It's about government tracking.
Every accommodation you stay in goes in your record in provincial immigration database which is copied to a national one. They literally know everywhere you've ever slept in China...well, they try to. Foreigners staying with friends without registering is illegal but people do it all the time, occasionally police will come knock on your door but it's pretty rare and it's not a big deal because you have 48 hours to report it so you only bother if police visited and even then if you just left they wouldn't follow it up.
But the reason for the hotels thing is that they need to have a permit to host foreigners (and they'll have a plaque that says so at reception), this permit requires that they have a passport scanner and staff have been trained in legal compliance and how to work the scanner and what to report to police (like visas, suspicious behaviour etc). In practice, it just means that they have the scanner and staff know how to use it.
>Chinas countryside is maximum comfy
what is there to do besides walk and look at the same nature and small buildings every day? Are you fricking village and farm women?
What are your other travel forums?
Most of them are plagued by commercial interests and terrible moderation, the only good ones I saw were for niche topics.
>A month long backpacking/historical trip seems like a good time
There's no point avoiding large cities if you're doing the big historical sites because those will have the hordes anyway.
That said, yes backpacking and hiking are things, get a IYHA card and trek between their more remote hostels.
Off the top of my head, here's four places to check out:
Dali/Lijiang (choose one)
Wuyi Shan - green hills, river boating, tea plantations
Huang Shan - climb a misty mountain, stay on the summit overnight
Song Shan - stay in a hostel in Dong Feng and find a local hiking group to hike up Song Shan with - do not attempt this solo because the paths are unmarked and there's no stores on the way up
Traveling to China is worth all the headaches it can cause. In my experience, there's nothing more rewarding.
Elaborate on the pros
there are none. Japan or Taiwan are 100% better in every way
Why Taiwan?
Nah Taiwan is very cramped and a bit run down. It's like they are stuck in 2005. The mountains in Taiwan are pretty but the ones in China are much more special because of those Avatar rock pillars