Links
Accommodations
Sinohotel.com is a reservation service for lodgings throughout China. I’ve used it a couple of times, and found them to be very reliable. You may be able to find cheaper accommodations on other sites, though the service may not be as good.
Transportation
If you’re planning to travel by train, the website, The Man in Seat 61 provides good information to get you started planning this portion of your trip. You can also find schedules in English at China Highlights. Do note if you buy tickets online from an agency, you will be paying a hefty surcharge for the convenience. China’s railway system recently put their schedules online so you can buy tickets that way, but the site is only in Chinese.
If you’re thinking about traveling by bus, The Bus Station has information about bus travel in the Middle Kingdom.
If you’re thinking about traveling by bus, The Bus Station has information about bus travel in the Middle Kingdom.
Miscellaneous1
The Beijing Page has lots of good information about the city.
China Daily has a web site in English to learn about what’s happening before you go. Global Times is another English language newspaper; it’s published by People’s Daily, the official government newsppaer in Chinese, just as China Daily is the official English language newspaper.
Translate your name into Chinese.
Visas are required for most visitors to China. Unless you live near a consulate or the embassy and can do it yourself, you’ll have to use a visa service to get one. I’ve found China Service Center to be very efficient and have used them several times. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use them any more. The Chinese Embassy now requires you to submit visa applications to your nearest consulate, which for us is San Francisco. If you live in the Washington, D.C., area, I highly recommend Chinese Service Center if you can't drop off the application yourself. The Chinese government recently added new requirements for people applying for tourist (L) visas. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains a list in English of Chinese embassies around the world.
Calling China. I've found two inexpensive calling plans that make calling China easy. Walgreen's has an international calling card, that starts at $10, which allows you to call anywhere in the world - China is eight cents a minute. The second is DianhuaChina.com (dianhua is telephone in Mandarin) that costs two to four cents a minute. You can buy as little as $2 in minutes; DianhuaChina is only good for calls to China. Both plans work the same: you call an 800 number, then input your pin and finally the phone number you're calling. Both allow you to make calls to cell phones as well as landlines. There are a lot of cheap calling plans out there, but these are the only two I've tried so far.
If you're interested in the business and social climate in China, you'll want to read China Law Blog on a regular basis. It's written by Seattle attorney Dan Harris.
Keep up with news about China. Follow me on Twitter, where I tweet about interesting places to visit in China, the country's customs, or arts and crafts. Or, share this website with your followers.
China Daily has a web site in English to learn about what’s happening before you go. Global Times is another English language newspaper; it’s published by People’s Daily, the official government newsppaer in Chinese, just as China Daily is the official English language newspaper.
Translate your name into Chinese.
Visas are required for most visitors to China. Unless you live near a consulate or the embassy and can do it yourself, you’ll have to use a visa service to get one. I’ve found China Service Center to be very efficient and have used them several times. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use them any more. The Chinese Embassy now requires you to submit visa applications to your nearest consulate, which for us is San Francisco. If you live in the Washington, D.C., area, I highly recommend Chinese Service Center if you can't drop off the application yourself. The Chinese government recently added new requirements for people applying for tourist (L) visas. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains a list in English of Chinese embassies around the world.
Calling China. I've found two inexpensive calling plans that make calling China easy. Walgreen's has an international calling card, that starts at $10, which allows you to call anywhere in the world - China is eight cents a minute. The second is DianhuaChina.com (dianhua is telephone in Mandarin) that costs two to four cents a minute. You can buy as little as $2 in minutes; DianhuaChina is only good for calls to China. Both plans work the same: you call an 800 number, then input your pin and finally the phone number you're calling. Both allow you to make calls to cell phones as well as landlines. There are a lot of cheap calling plans out there, but these are the only two I've tried so far.
If you're interested in the business and social climate in China, you'll want to read China Law Blog on a regular basis. It's written by Seattle attorney Dan Harris.
Keep up with news about China. Follow me on Twitter, where I tweet about interesting places to visit in China, the country's customs, or arts and crafts. Or, share this website with your followers.
About Cheryl
Cheryl at Beijing's Houhai Lake
Cheryl Probst is an award-winning photojournalist who worked for weekly and daily newspapers as a reporter, editor and publisher in a previous life. She first went to China in 1984, and returned 10 years later where she spent two years working as a copy editor for China Daily, an English language newspaper, with a year in the United States inbetween. She’s now semi-retired, but continues to write about China for travel websites as well as her own guidebooks.
She and her husband, Jon, return to China every year or so to visit friends and favorite places.
She and her husband, Jon, return to China every year or so to visit friends and favorite places.