bettyjane

We will be traveling in China ( Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, etc.)for four weeks and are very concerned about the luggage restrictions. From experience I have found that having laundry done by the hotel is very expensive. Is this the case in China? Are their private laudry services near the hotels? What other suggestions do you have for the luggage weight restrictions? Thanks.

Neil_Oz

bettyjane, I'm not normally qualified to give clothing advice to women, my wife included, but here's my 2c worth anyway.

We're not super-light packers, but we've never reached our 20 kg per person limit - and that included a 7-week jaunt through the USA, 3 weeks in China and 3 weeks in Vietnam.

I'm sorry that I can't be much help with regard to China. We did a major wash half-way along when we stayed at our daughters' apartment, and the rest of the time we washed underwear, socks, drip-dry shirts etc. in hotel bathrooms and hung them to dry overnight on a line bought at a travel shop. I didn't notice any private laundries, but we weren't looking for them. How much a hotel would charge would no doubt depend on the standard of the establishment - I'm guessing that upmarket places would milk you for what they think you're worth (as in all other respects).

So, my advice is to pack light, and where possible take lightweight easily-washed (as per above) clothes. Jeans of course take forever to dry and are relatively heavy, so skip denim if possible. If the weather's likely to be cool and your budget permits, get lightweight jackets with zip-out liners from a camping store, plus light washable pants. Take a pair of good walking shoes and a pair of something dressier for evenings.

In addition I always take toiletries in small containers/quantities. You won't have a problem buying that stuff in major cities if you need to restock anyway - just head for a convenience store (eg the 'Quik' chain in Beijing); mutual intelligibility isn't required in serve-yourself shops after all.

In case this all sounds too casual: unless you'll be attending a formal business or social meeting you will NOT need dressy clothing in China. The Chinese themselves tend to dress quite casually. I would just take one "smart casual" outfit for eating out, theatre performances and the like. You'll only need one not-very-big wheeled bag plus a carry-on, and I think you'll be surprised how little it all weighs. If you have more than 20 kg it's too much to lug around anyway.

chinaguilinadvisor

there are laundry around the hotels but sometimes it is hard to find out it.

Neil_Oz

I forgot to say that even if you find a laundry it's unlikely that the staff will speak any English at all. Normally when shopping for odds and sods this doesn't matter much, but I'm not sure how you'd communicate when you wanted your clothes back, special instructions etc.

Now I think about it, we used a laundry in our daughter's middle-class apartment complex in Dalian, but as we were able to reply on their interpreting services we didn't have the language problem. You probably won't be near any such apartment blocks anyway. Best keep your laundry requirements to a minimum and use the hotels, I think.

quimbymoy

hi, i normally do the hand wash & hang dry method while traveling too but my friends & i did use the hotel laundry services a few times while we were in china. if it is simple laundering, it shouldn't be difficult at all. we would leave laundry in the bag with the slip and it would be returned that same evening. pricewise, our 3 star hotel in shanghai charged US$10.50 for 2 pairs of pants & 3 shirts.

we never had issues with luggage restrictions, tho we thought we might, esp with two of our travelers bringing huge suitcases. on our internal flights, we checked in as a group and whatever their excess was (if any, really)was offset by those who packed lighter. i wouldn't worry too much. just make sure you pack good walking shoes.

LynnieD

I, too, used hotel laundry services and found them to be cheap, reliable and do beautiful laundry. I don't remember exact prices, but recall thinking it extraordinarily low priced.

momto3

As a family with 5 ticketed passengers, we never had a problem with luggage weight restrictions even on the domestic flights. But, I wasn't able to find a laundry service other than the hotel--which in our 3 and 4 star Beijing and Shanghai hotels was pricier than I had hoped. I did have my daughter's dress washed--it was charged as a lady's blouse-- for $8 us.

Elainee

When we took a Yangtze river cruise (Victoria line) getting laundry done on the boat was encourage by very low prices and good service. We had everything done then (it was midway on our 3 werk trip).