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Blablurn · Sep 22, 2017

China has been emerging as an economic powerhouse in the last 20 years. But China also offers over 5000 years of culture, including many sites and historical places in the country.

But while Chinese onbound tourism is growing rapidly, with no signs of stopping, inbound tourism has been pretty lackluster for China.

Now, with a stronger and easier accessible China having arrived on the global stage... would you ever like to visit it? Or do you have 0 interest in a trip to China?

Jonnax · Sep 22, 2017

Looked up a visa seems like it's an invoked process? And kinda expensive.
US/UK dual national here.

Also always hear about pollution, my lungs don't do well with dust though I'm not asthmatic donno if that would be an issue.

Also as a country not geared towards tourism, I imagine most people you meet don't speak English.

I'd possibly be up for it, would certainly be interesting to see.
Also would be interested to see Hong Kong as well.

vern · Sep 22, 2017

Blablurn said:
China has been emerging as an economic powerhouse in the last 20 years. But China also offers over 5000 years of culture, including many sites and historical places in the country.

But while Chinese onbound tourism is growing rapidly, with no signs of stopping, inbound tourism has been pretty lackluster for China.

Now, with a stronger and easier accessible China having arrived on the global stage... would you ever like to visit it? Or do you have 0 interest in a trip to China?

What up 5k Blablurn...

Before I came to China for work 5 years ago I never had a desire to visit. Now that I've been here for this long I probably still can't recommend it as a tourist destination for the vast majority of travelers that I know. That being said, there are tons of amazing spots and if you are adventurous with food and culture and not afraid of getting lost and confused then China is a good place to visit for a couple of weeks I think.

Jonnax said:
Also as a country not geared towards tourism, I imagine most people you meet don't speak English.

China is very much a country geared towards tourism. They have some of the most insane tourist traps here, they've copied the tourist trap and added to it a thousand times over. It's just that much of the tourism is aimed at domestic tourism (mainly due to language and stupid rules and regulations).

dickroach · Sep 22, 2017

it's not at the top of my most-wanted-destinations list, but fuck yeah, I'd love to go to China

99Luffy · Sep 22, 2017

Id love to but the countries around china seem more interesting to me. Probably number 5 on places to visit in asia for me.

Fantastapotamus · Sep 22, 2017

Absolutely

Saya · Sep 22, 2017

Would love to visit China, but I don't speak or read the language. How hard is it to travel outside the major cities with just English? I guess if I went I have to make use of a tourgroup and that doesn't seem so appealing to me.

ldcommando · Sep 22, 2017

Of course

Kitsunebaby · Sep 22, 2017

I would, but I'm a bit more interested in Hong Kong than the mainland.

vern · Sep 22, 2017

Saya said:
Would love to visit China, but I don't speak or read the language. How hard is it to travel outside the major cities with just English? I guess if I went I have to make use of a tourgroup and that doesn't seem so appealing to me.

It's not hard, most signs everywhere are in English or Pinyin, even in small towns. You just need to be very well prepared because if you lost your ticket or guidebook or whatever, google isn't gonna help you. Most Chinese people are friendly enough to foreigners that if you are lost or need help they'll make sure you get to where you need to go.

Doomshroom · Sep 22, 2017

My sister is there right now and she is having a great time. Yes i would like to go but since i can go to Japan or Thailand for about the same price i most likely never will.

Rad- · Sep 22, 2017

Yeah definitely. It's a place I plan to visit sometimes in the future.

openrob · Sep 22, 2017

Had great times in China.
I mean I don't trust their lifts or escalators, but really enjoyed my time there.

PixelatedBookake · Sep 22, 2017

I've heard some negative stories about how China sees/treats black people so probably not...but then again I live in the American South...🤔🤔🤔

DJIzana · Sep 22, 2017

Kitsunebaby said:
I would, but I'm a bit more interested in Hong Kong than the mainland.

Hong Kong for me as well but also would like to see Guilin too.

openrob · Sep 22, 2017

Doomshroom said:
My sister is there right now and she is having a great time. Yes i would like to go but since i can go to Japan or Thailand for about the same price i most likely never will.

I took a £60 flight from HK to Tokyo.
Inbound to China/HK > fly to Tokyo > outbound from Tokyo back home.

DJIzana said:
Hong Kong for me as well but also would like to see Guilin too.

I did all three in the same trip - Guilin to HK by coach, HK to JP by plane

always crazy bacon · Sep 22, 2017

Blablurn said:
China has been emerging as an economic powerhouse in the last 20 years. But China also offers over 5000 years of culture, including many sites and historical places in the country.

But while Chinese onbound tourism is growing rapidly, with no signs of stopping, inbound tourism has been pretty lackluster for China.

Now, with a stronger and easier accessible China having arrived on the global stage... would you ever like to visit it? Or do you have 0 interest in a trip to China?

I've been living in China for ten years. Yes, it's definitely a good place to be a tourist. Once you get over the culture shock that is. Not everywhere is polluted, in fact most of the country is Ok. I'm looking at blue skies and white clouds right now.

Violet_0 · Sep 22, 2017

vern said:
Now that I've been here for this long I probably still can't recommend it as a tourist destination for the vast majority of travelers that I know.

why not?

Aruarian Reflection · Sep 22, 2017

Going for the first time next month. I am really interested to see many of the sites like the Forbidden City plus the great wall. Going to Japan is too easy and I have done that too many times so this will feel more like an adventure

Chaos2Frozen · Sep 22, 2017

I went with my family when I was a kid 15+ years ago.

Saw the great wall, the forbidden city and.... Some other things. Didn't notice until my dad pointed it out but we didn't see a single temple anywhere.

Also saw being scammed by a restaurant for the first time, and that's really about the most dangerous thing to look out for there.

vern · Sep 22, 2017

Violet_0 said:
why not?

Most people that go on vacations don't look for "adventure" or uncomfortable situations. They want to relax.

Qvoth · Sep 22, 2017

of course i would, in fact i've done so many times

LeroyPantwether · Sep 22, 2017

Super high on my places to go list . Specifically yan'nan for its communist history .

SuperBanana · Sep 22, 2017

I visited for 3 weeks. The scenery is amazing and so is the food. The pollution and people(excluding HK) are pretty awful though. It's very difficult to organize compared to some other countries. It took us many hours just to find information on certain routes but tripadvisor forums help a LOT.

disappeared · Sep 22, 2017

Absolutely.

LeroyPantwether · Sep 22, 2017

SuperBanana said:
I visited for 3 weeks. The scenery is amazing and so is the food. The pollution and people(excluding HK) are pretty awful though. It's very difficult to organize compared to some other countries. It took us many hours just to find information on certain routes but tripadvisor forums help a LOT.

Why we're the people awful ?

vern · Sep 22, 2017

LeroyPantwether said:
Super high on my places to go list . Specifically yan'nan for it s communist history .

Yan'an is great and almost every historical place you go in that town is free which is super strange for China. Though you can only see so many old communist meeting halls and homes before you start to feel bored. There isn't much else to do in that part of China either.

SuperBanana said:
I visited for 3 weeks. The scenery is amazing and so is the food. The pollution and people(excluding HK) are pretty awful though. It's very difficult to organize compared to some other countries. It took us many hours just to find information on certain routes but tripadvisor forums help a LOT.

The people in China are overwhelmingly nice and accomodating of foreigners. I've been here 5 years and only had a couple of negative experiences with people. Pollution, as Crazy Bacon said... a lot of the country is actually quite clean. Most of the South and the West in particular. Avoid the Northeast in the winter and you proabaly won't experience much pollution worse than LA or Paris.

Mr_Appleby · Sep 22, 2017

I went and had a great time. Started the trip in Hong Kong, then Macau, then crossed to mainland China, spebt a couple of days in Guangzhou, went to a bunch of weird places like off-season national parks and tourist towns geared towards Korean and Japanese tourists.. met the two people in town that spoke English! Then spent a week in ChengDu eating and drinking and doing day-trips to see giant buddhas and the panda centre and so on.

Got confused, got lost (only a little bit), ate AMAZING FOOD, skipped Beijing/Shanghai without meaning to which is a bit of a shame. I'd do it again. Language barrier was the hardest but always overcame it. This was before you could google translate everything too.

bitbydeath · Sep 22, 2017

I would but I have so many other places to go first and so little time.

crimsonheadGCN · Sep 22, 2017

I would love to go to China one day.

Tevious · Sep 22, 2017

I've been to Beijing back in '13. Going again this January. You can avoid the visa if your flight has a layover at one of their airports, so you can stay up to 3 or 4 days, but you can't really leave the city, iirc.

Hierophant · Sep 22, 2017

I have to visit the motherland at least once in my life, Shanghai or Beijing?

SuperBanana · Sep 22, 2017

LeroyPantwether said:
Why we're the people awful ?

I found the general population very loud and inconsiderate. I was constantly creep shooted in extremely obvious ways or gawked at for simply being white. Sometimes having people shove a phone in my face as I was standing there like I was an amusement attraction. My friend, who is a very attractive young woman, was harassed and followed many times as well. In the national parks they smoke, litter, and yell and scream while they walk around and ignore things such as queues or casually hold up entire areas while they relax in front of a set of stairs or a door way. Even on 'quite' trains people are yelling, talking on phones, letting their kids run around screaming. Then as soon as you enter HK it's like a completely different culture and much more respectful of the people around you.

I enjoyed visiting but the culture and people would make it unbearable to live there for me.

Decado · Sep 22, 2017

Yes, spent time in Beijing and the area last year. Going back next year. My fiancee is from there and we visit her parents. Not sure if I'd have been ok traveling on my own there, and I'm used to traveling alone.

A lot of interesting sites and the food is amazing. People seem friendly enough to tourists. More so than other locals.

RuGalz · Sep 22, 2017

I would but it's not the top of my list, worried about pollution. My in-laws go every year and always come back with coughs for a long time.

Condom · Sep 22, 2017

I'm afraid of not being to be able to handle China. Like how to talk to people and so on. Will try Taiwan first, which also is beautiful but very different from mainland.

PintSizedSlasher · Sep 22, 2017

As someone with a severe case of misophonia, no I wouldn't.

ZackieChan · Sep 22, 2017

vern said:
What up 5k Blablurn...

China is very much a country geared towards tourism. They have some of the most insane tourist traps here, they've copied the tourist trap and added to it a thousand times over. It's just that much of the tourism is aimed at domestic tourism (mainly due to language and stupid rules and regulations).

I did a "tour" with my clients that started at the Great Wall, which was fun. Then we were shuttled to 5 different places for terrible food and shopping. It was awful. Only 15% of the Great Wall trip involves the actual Great Wall.

mAcOdIn · Sep 22, 2017

There's not a country on Earth I wouldn't visit if immediate personal safety weren't a concern so of course I'd visit China.

Now, with the caveat of which will I see in the near future, no, unfortunately it's not up there due to financial restraints but given infinite money I'd love to go.

What I really want to do first is see one of those giant caves in Vietnam with forests and rain cycles and shit, assuming people are even allowed to go onto that land.

aznpxdd · Sep 22, 2017

Just don't come during the holidays, couldn't even get a high speed rail ticket in this bitch for the upcoming national holidays.

LeroyPantwether · Sep 22, 2017

vern said:
Yan'an is great and almost every historical place you go in that town is free which is super strange for China. Though you can only see so many old communist meeting halls and homes before you start to feel bored. There isn't much else to do in that part of China either.

sounds perfect . Dumb question but is it pretty easy to get there. Ideally I'd like to take some really shitty train or bus line there .

kiguel182 · Sep 22, 2017

I would love to visit China someday. Seems like a lovely place with such a different culture to mine that makes it fascinating.

jiggle · Sep 22, 2017

ZackieChan said:
I did a "tour" with my clients that started at the Great Wall, which was fun. Then we were shuttled to 5 different places for terrible food and shopping. It was awful. Only 15% of the Great Wall trip involves the actual Great Wall.

We fell for that scam too lol

Tevious · Sep 22, 2017

Condom said:
I'm afraid of not being to be able to handle China. Like how to talk to people and so on. Will try Taiwan first, which also is beautiful but very different from mainland.

Just have a detailed plan of what you're doing and where you're going and you should be okay. I don't know any Chinese and got around just fine through their subways, buses, and trains. They will know some English in the touristy spots.

PdotMichael · Sep 22, 2017

I was in HK already I guess that counts.

AdventureRacing · Sep 22, 2017

So long as the country is relatively safe I want to travel everywhere if I get the chance.

vern · Sep 22, 2017

LeroyPantwether said:
sounds perfect . Dumb question but is it pretty easy to get there. Ideally I'd like to take some really shitty train or bus line there .

Not sure why you'd subject yourself to a shitty train when you could take high speed rail... but yes you can take the slow train

Cow Mengde · Sep 22, 2017

SuperBanana said:
I visited for 3 weeks. The scenery is amazing and so is the food. The pollution and people(excluding HK) are pretty awful though. It's very difficult to organize compared to some other countries. It took us many hours just to find information on certain routes but tripadvisor forums help a LOT.

WTF? HK is the arrogant dickbag capital of the world.

Not · Sep 22, 2017

Not yet. I'm terrified of the government, and censored Internet sucks.

Tapioca · Sep 22, 2017

Are there actually a lot of people trying to scam you there? Youtube made it seem that way.

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