China 31 days Itinerary - Need your advice :)
 

Hello,

In October I will go to my second visit in china, Please Tell me your advice on this Itinerary. Feel free to totally change it if u think I made mistakes :)
I’m missing 3 days in the end, I think I would probably want a day hiking to see on the way villages less touristy / Bicycle around villages.

Day 1 - Day 5 - Chengdu City sights, markets, Qingchengshan , Leshan‏, Mount Emei
Day 6 - Day 20 - 18 days In Tibet, All arranged by the tour company.
Day 21 - train Lhasa to Xining
Day 22 - Day23 - Fly to Xian, City sights.
Day 24 - day 26 - Fly to SongPan, Huanglong , Jiuzhaigou
Day 27 - ?
Day 28 - ?
Day 29 - ?
Day 30 - Chengdu - Day trip to Langzhong Ancient Town
Day 31 - Chengdu - Last day, Fly in the night back home.

Thank You!

Will this be your first visit to Xi'an? I was glad to give it 4 days. You might want to take a look at my trip report to see what I did with my time there -- you can find it by clicking on my screen name and then scrolling down to the section on trip reports. It's a long report, but you can search for the section on Xi'an by using the search function (upper right corner of your screen, be sure to include the apostrophe between i and a in the city name) or just look at the headers.

I haven't been to your other intended destinations yet, and so can't comment, except to ask whether you've considered open jaw flights (into one city, out of another)? Once you consider the time and money to get back to your destination city, that's often a better option. And if you do need to fly into and out of the same city, consider putting all of your time there at the end of your trip to limit the number of hotel changes you need to make.

Hope that helps!

Agree that Xi'an needs more time.

If you wish to stay close to these places, you can add day trip from Xi'An to Luoyang and an overnight trip to Pingyao.
Not sure why you bother with the train to Xining and not just fly to Xi'An.
I am assuming that this trip will not take place during the week of October 1 to 7.

Yes, avoid the first week of October in China at all costs, Golden Week, etc with everyone off work and traveling to touristic sites.

I agree that Luoyang and Pingyao are worth considering.

Thank you for your help!

My trip starts at 28 sep, during the golden week I will be around Chengdu and the beginning of my Organized trip to Tibet.

I will take more time in Xian. I will also consider to give up the train to Xining.

going to both Xian and Jiuzhaigou sound reasonable? Maybe is it too much running from one place to another?
Do you recommend me to book those flights and hostels in advanced?
(The first Oct week I already booked offcourse).

Starts on September 28? Sorry to hear that.
I hope that you already booked all your transportation.

Hi there!

I definitely agree with what others said about increasing your time in Xi'an. If you are interested in hiking, Mt. Huashan is really beautiful and it isn't that far from Xi'an. Some people do a day trip but I'd recommend spending the night in the area if you can.

Also, I know you said that you've already been to China before.... but maybe this article here will help you anyways (or someone else on the thread. It's about 25 Things to Know Before Going to China.

My husband and I visited China for 6 weeks earlier this year and, though we had a really good time, we also found China to be quite a challenge to travel in. So, we put together this article to help other travelers out so they can be prepared before their trip :-)

Here's the link if you're interested:

http://outofyourcomfortzone.net/25-t...isiting-china/

Feel free to let me know if you have anything to add to the list.... and have a great trip!

PS: What company are you using to visit Tibet/what's the cost look like? We weren't able to make it to Tibet during our last trip because it was pretty pricey, so we're on the lookout for recommendations of good companies for next time.

Thanks for all the replies!

I booked Tibet tour with Tibet vista agency, the cost depend on the tour. You can check out here:
http://www.tibettravel.org/