If you’re the type of person who enjoys traveling, don’t allow the foreignness and vast size of China to prevent you from visiting there. It’s a fascinating country. When you visit China, you can look forward to a public transportation system that’s efficient, locals who are friendly, and affordable taxis and hotels. Here’s a quick look at some of the things you might want to know before your trip.
Popular Culture
If you want to catch up on popular culture in China, you might want to check out something like Chinese drama romance, popular music, or even what’s going on with theater performances. This might make it a bit easier to understand what the locals are talking about and how it influences their behavior.
Primary Tourist Centers
While you’re visiting China, you’ll probably want to see all of the areas that are popular with most tourists. It’s helpful to find out some facts about China and these places before you go. Some of the more popular places include the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. You might also want to see some pandas at Chengdu. Then you have the gateway complex that includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong in the Delta of the Pearl River.
Airports
The gateway airports in China are massive but easily navigable. Signs are written in both English and Chinese. Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Beijing airports have metro stations in the terminals. They all boast all of the typical facilities that you can expect from an airport, including hotels in the event that you want to rest for a day or so after your incredibly long flight and before you begin touring.
Taxis
If you’re going to visit China, you’ll more than likely be using taxis to get around. The typical 40-minute ride from your airport to your hotel will generally cost about $10 and there’s no expectation of a tip. Here in the States, a ride like that would be upwards of $50. Don’t be discouraged by long lines at rail stations and taxi stands because they tend to move fairly quickly.
All of that aside, if you’re going to take a taxi while you’re in the country, it’s critical that you have your destination either visible on the screen of your mobile device or printed out in Chinese. There isn’t any sort of thing as a phonetic translation from English to Chinese. Also, be on your guard when you arrive at your destination airport. Expect to be aggravated to the point of exasperation by people who aren’t really taxi drivers who’ll attempt to drive you to wherever you’re going but charging twice the rate of the actual taxi drivers.
Accessible Key Tourist Sites
Something else you might need to know if you’re going to be visiting typical tourist sites is that not all of them are able to be reached by public transportation. Some of the bigger ticket sites, like the Great Wall, can be reached by regional rail or metro, but some of the others, like the river tours in the Guilin area, aren’t. If you find yourself heading to an area where public transportation isn’t looking overly promising, you might want to consider a day tour.
The People
Finally, you’ll come to find that the Chinese people as a whole are quite helpful to visitors. They tend to go out of their way to ensure that you’re comfortable and are able to find everything you could ever need or want. That being said, it can be quite helpful to learn at least a bit of the language before you go so that they know what you’re looking for or are in need of.
Traveling to China is a fun and exciting adventure, to be sure! Just be prepared to do some advance research and prep work to help your expedition go as smoothly as possible.
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