Beijing 9 days
 

I just found a really good RT airfare to Beijing in September.
Looking for any ideas anyone has for an itinerary.
Should we just stay in Beijing for the entire 10 days?

This is a Mother Daughter trip. Any suggestions on lodging are appreciated as well! -:)

This was an absolute spur of the moment flight purchase -- !

I appreciate your input!

Well, there is loads to do in Beijing, but you could take a side trip to Xi'an. I'd recommend taking the night train one way (see https://www.seat61.com/China.htm ) and a high speed train or flight back.

You certainly could spend the entire time in Beijing, but I'd be inclined to add either Xi'an, as thursdaysd has suggested, or another nearby location, depending on your interests.

My trip report is old, but you might find some useful information in it. It's searchable, and if it helps, I started and ended in Beijing with time in Xi'an in the middle.
https://www.fodors.com/community/asi...mazing-844129/

Here's a third vote for Xi'an. It's a fascinating city, due to the Muslim influence, and the fact that it was the ancient capital. Allow at least two full days to see the city and the important sites in the vicinity. The food alone makes it worth the trip.

When in September? Make sure that you are out of China before October 1st which is their national holidays.

Can't give any advice on lodging without knowing a great deal more about your expectations and price range.

Agree if this is your one China trip than a second destination makes sense, and Xi'an is both convenient to reach and offers spectacular sights, albeit with the ills that come from high tourist pressure. But Beijing has enough to fill considerably more than nine days if you decide to stay there. See this thread.

any of the holiday inns are good

Go to Tian An men square at dawn to watch the flag raising ceremony
forbidden city
chang'an street, cruise it!
quan jude restaurant, roast duck house that brews it's own beer!!

Get to the wall, t's a day trip but you'll never regret it
Street food, eat it all the time.
Get sanitized dinnerware at restaurant,
Bottled water, no ice

My expectations are hopefullly a safe and easy location for my daugher and myself. Our budget is flexible. We do not see a need to spend a lot of $$$ unless it is necessary to secure safety and good location - we won't be in the hotel room much - only to sleep. But we want to feel like we are in a good area. It would be fun to have a local vibe but if we need to stay in a chain - or like mentioned in another post - a Holiday-Inn in order to be comfortable and have someone at the front desk that speaks English we are fine with that as well. Any input you can give us is appreciated.

We will be leaving on October 1. So hopefully we will miss the holiday you are speaking of....any input you have is appreciaed. Thank You.

I see your profile says you are from a suburb of Chicago. We are from a suburb of Kansas City. Our son just recently took a job in Chicago. Any input you have is appreciated. We will definately add Xi'an. The train sounds good - do you recommend day train or overnight? And what was your experience with using credit cards and ATM for cash? Thanks so much.

Trip report is wonderful!

Wondeful trip report!

I wonder if I can find a "Leo" he sounded SO helpful!

Forgive me if I am using quck reply button wrong. I appreciate all your input. I am browsing lodging now. It is overwhelming. Do we need to hire an English speaking guide to pick us up from out hotel? Jacketwatch had a guide (LEO) and it sounded nice - we are okay with that or going it alone if everyhone thinks that is manageable also - any input is appreciated. Thanks!

Not difficult at all on your own. From the airport you should take taxi. Have the name and address of the hotel in writing in Chinese for the driver (you get it from the hotel website). Then you'll be taking subways. Nearly everything, including announcements, are also in English. Watch this video and see how easy it is: The subway takes you everywhere except the Great Wall which is out of town. You hire a driver for this (no need for a guide).

Public transportation in Beijing is easy and convenient. I understand that there are reasons that some people prefer to hire a car and driver, but if you do that, you will deprive yourselves of the opportunity to experience a part of Chinese culture that can yield many enjoyable moments and interesting insights. And if you decide to hire cars and drivers, you will pay way, way, WAY more than necessary.

Personally, I didn't feel the need for an English guide -- and I had only a few words in Mandarin, just a few civilities. I did use the audio guide at the Forbidden Palace; otherwise, I just used written material.

No worries about the replies, but for future reference, either select the "quote" option or enter the name of the person you are addressing, e.g., @ hendrenl, I hope this information is useful.

Regarding your question about hotels, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Beijing, and it was pretty nice. It's in a really good location, and if you upgrade to the concierge level, the food there is quite good. We used taxis to get around the city, and the concierge at the hotel wrote out little cards with our destination, so it was quite easy. We used a hotel driver for our day trip to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, but it was pretty pricey. I would not recommend using a guide in China, however, my older son said he wished we had a guide for the Forbidden City only, as it is quite large and confusing to navigate. I would only use a guide for a specific site, such as the Forbidden City, if I were convinced that the guide is actually an expert on history, and not part of the propaganda machine, but I'm not sure if such a person exists.

In Xi'An, we stayed at the Grand Hyatt, and the concierge there arranged for his favorite driver to take us on two consecutive day trips. The concierge helped plan the itinerary, and the price was quite reasonable. The driver also picked us up at the airport, and took us back. The concierge also sent us to some really good local restaurants where we were the only tourists.

The prices we got for private cars and drivers were very reasonable though they were thru the companies my TA has access to. If you like I can try to find out for you.
In any case ultimately its your choice, your comfort level and your budget. Do whats best for you.

thursdaysd's point about traffic is a good one, IMO.

As for traffic we had some issues but overall it was pretty good in both Beijing and Xi'an. I would have thought it would be horrid too but our guides knew good times and routes.

A car and driver to the Great Wall (Mutianyu) is 600 to 800RMB (about US$100 to 125).
For the Forbidden City, there are guides offering their services at the entrance. You can also rent an audio guide. Other places in Beijing also have audio guides for rent.

I don't recall exactly but that sounds about what we paid for a car, driver and guide.

I would highly recommend this show in Beijing too.

https://www.goldenmaskdynastyshow.com/

There are no safety issues in Beijing (other than air pollution, insane traffic, and rapacious overcharging by tour guides and tour companies). An easy location is simply one close to a metro station.

If you want to stay in four- or five-star comfort, then ignore all Chinese-run hotels and stay in a familiar brand, booking through the hotel's own website which usually will guarantee to offer the lowest prices. If you want something with more local flavour then stay in a siheyuan (courtyard) hotel. There are plenty of choices easily found on the Internet, ranging from those that work as hostels to those that certainly charge at five-star levels, although without necessarily offering the service to go with it. Booking from overseas in these cases will, however, see you paying more than you need to.

A tour guide is of no help to you (but often a great deal of help to him- or herself. If you want accurate historical and cultural background information you'll need to bring reading materials from home). For a more detailed discussion of the problem with tour guides, see here:

https://medium.com/a-better-guide-to...s-df5d9b0a6dca

There are Great Wall sites easily reached by public transport for a fraction of the prices mentioned above for a car and driver, and simply chartering a taxi yourself will bring prices down by at the very least a third, and as much as half, depending on destination.

For a discussion of some open Wall sections and a variety of ways to reach them, see:

https://medium.com/a-better-guide-to...l-a57b792050ce

jacketwatch -- yes, my daughter and I will be in Dubai in January. We are planning to stop there and also run over to Abu Dhabi as I understand it is just about 1.5 hours away..... on our way to the Maldives for a pre-organized excursion with a friend of hers. Air Travel there seemed to give us an easy choice of a stopover in Istanbul or Dubai. I think we have decided UAE for sure. We spur of the moment bought these Beijing airlline tickets ....have not started on the January trip planning much due to our spur of the moment China decision. Thanks!

@Peter - good to see you posting. I was wondering about the post above about credit cards. i was just talking to friends who visited family in Shanghai earlier this year, and they said that US credit cards were pretty much useless. All the locals were using apps, but cash would still work. Any comments on that?

That sounds like it will be a ton of fun. I hear great things about the Maldives too. BTW I looked at average temps in Dubai for January and its mild compared to summer temps with highs in the low to mid 80's vs. 100 give or take in the summer.
We will fly to Delhi first so my wife can see her relatives, then go to Dubai for 5 days before embarking on a 7 day cruise which actually ports in Abu Dhabi among other stops. Then its back to Delhi for a few more day before going home.
I think getting some sort of app to help with Chinese is a good idea.
All the best. Larry

My wife spent 3 months in China earlier this year and did not use cash or a card even once. Absolutely everywhere accept mobile payment, even beggars.
In my case, I only joined for one month and for tourists nothing changed. You need cash nearly everywhere as credit cards are only good for hotels and better restaurants. Same a before.

If you don't have a Chinese bank account, and you don't have a Chinese phone number, how does mobile payment work?

If you want local, we stayed here in 2008. A long time ago but we keep referring friends to it and they keep loving it.

https://www.booking.com/hotel/cn/kellyscourtyard.html

Then you can't use mobile payment. You pay cash.

Wow, that place looks great!

I agree! And my siheyuan wasn't as nice as that one sounds. :)

I also agree about Tiananmen Square. Surreal, and inexpressibly sad.

The situation with foreign credit cards has changed little. Frequent sightings of VISA and MASTERCARD logos doesn't mean that foreign versions of these cards are acceptable, and where foreign cards *are* acceptable it's a good sign that you'll certainly be paying a lot more than you need to for whatever you're buying (in souvenir shops typically many multiples more). Where ticket agencies actually accept cards there may be a surcharge of up to 4%. In the big hotels where credit cards are routinely accepted, there are now frequent problems with currency conversion. Either the choice of paying in local currency (and letting the card do the conversion) is ignored when you make it, or the choice is not offered, even though credit card companies require that it be so. Opting to pay in your home currency can cost you as much as 7% extra, stolen by way of a poor conversion rate. Services such as ticket acquisition (which you shouldn't be asking your hotel to do anyway) still require cash and cannot be charged to the room.

But WeChat wallet, part of the ubiquitous WeChat app found on the phone of every single Chinese, and a principle form of payment, can now be linked to a foreign credit card or debit card (this has been possible since 2018, in fact), opening mobile phone payments to foreigners. So the option to download that app and set it up to make sure it works before leaving home is also there. (Alerting your card company that you're doing that would probably be a good idea.) It is possible that the other main phone-based method of payment, Alipay, can now also be linked to foreign cards, but it is said that you have to have a Chinese bank card to link first, before adding a foreign one. So that will be of little use to most.

Lovers of privacy may like to note that WeChat reportedly (and entirely unsurprisingly) has a back door a mile wide which enables the Chinese government to see what else is on your phone and upload any kind of spyware it likes onto it. You may well take the view that you are of no significance to the Chinese government and so this is unlikely to happen. Others may prefer not to open themselves up to this possibility.

But credit cards, unless linked to one of the mobile payment systems, remain of as little use as they've ever been.

On Kelly's Courtyard, some caution:

My observation was that the volume of foreigners staying there had led to a number of bad habits, including a 15% 'service charge' which is just abuse really, and prices for other services needed watching, too. There are other courtyard hotels that are better priced (and more willing to bargain), and rather less cluttered, although Kelly's is charming and well-located for the Forbidden City and assorted sights on the western side of the city.