China built 45,000 kilometres of high-speed railway and most travellers never need anything else. Then you decide to visit a rice-terrace village in Yunnan, a Dong minority town in Guizhou,…
Here is the fact that catches out most visitors: your International Driving Permit is worthless in mainland China. To drive here legally you need a Chinese document, and the good…
A good China railway stations guide is worth more than a phrasebook, because the stations — not the trains — are where foreign travellers actually get into trouble. Chinese railway…
The first time you search a route on 12306 you get a wall of options — G1234, D311, K599, Z50 — and no explanation of why one takes five hours…
China is far more navigable for wheelchair users and travelers with limited mobility than its reputation suggests. The country’s vast high-speed rail network, rebuilt airport terminals, and a growing number…
Mainland China runs on two calendars at once — the international Gregorian one for work, and the lunar one for its oldest celebrations. For a visitor, that’s an opportunity: time…
The single biggest tech surprise for first-time visitors to mainland China is that Google, Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and many Western news sites simply don’t load. This isn’t a…
China consistently ranks among the safer destinations in Asia for women traveling alone — lower street-crime rates than most Western cities, a strong culture of public safety, and a transport…
A common myth among first-time visitors is that China is either dirt-cheap or surprisingly expensive, with nothing in between. The truth is that mainland China spans a huge price range,…
When you plan a multi-city trip across mainland China, the single biggest scheduling decision is not which city to visit next but how to get there: train or plane. The…