madi

Hello

A friend of mine is going on a 12 day tour organized tour (including flight and inner flights within China) to China in October 2014.

The tour includes visits of Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Bejing, and Xian. Spending 2 days in each place

She would like to extend the trip for few more days. Since the last place is Xian and then she will fly probably to Bejing or Shanghai and from there to NY.

Do you have any advice about extending the trip and flying to another place or doing some trips within Xian . since she and her husband only speak English, there maybe some communication problems

THANK YOU All in Advance for your replies

thursdaysd

Two days is fine for Shanghai but really short for Beijing. So I would probably head for Beijing. But if she can swing the extra time I'd take a look at Chengdu as well. I enjoyed the train ride from Xi'an (note spelling) to Chengdu, but if she's short on time she could fly. (It's clearly too late to point out the disadvantages of taking a tour...)

Note that the language barrier is only as high as you make it. She should take a good phrase book - with characters as well as pinyin - and a good guidebook with local names in characters.

kja

There is much more to be seen in/near Xi'an than can be seen in just 2 days. I spent about 4 days there and did not see everything I hoped to see; you can find out what I did by checking my trip report -- just click on my name to find it.

As thursdaysd said, 2 days is really short for Beijing. Assuming your friend has studied Beijing's pollution problems and consulted with her physician about the advisability of visiting there, a stay of 6 or 7 days would allow her to see some of that city's most important sites.

I also agree (as usual) with thursdaysd on the language issue. Learning how to say a few civilities would be a bonus, but not a necessity.

TravelGeekery

I also suggest checking out Chengdu. There's a lot to see, e.g. pandas A tour to Jiuzhaigou National Park can also be done.

jobin

My friend wanted to go to JiuZhaiGuo park and i looked into the logistics, etc. My impression is MASSIVE crowds, large overpayments, congested roads, slow travel, bogus sites, etc. all related to the national population with more money. IMO sight seeing in china is rapidly sliding into sh*t.