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As a Chinese, I recommend that tourists who come to travel avoid public holidays in China as much as possible. You definitely don’t want to compete with half of the Chinese people for scenic spots, transportation and hotel resources, and bear prices that are three times more than usual. There are three public holidays of more than 3 days in China, namely 1. The first week of May (Labor Day) 2. The first week of October (National Creation Day) 3. (Chinese New Year) Between January and February each year, a different calendar is used. The specific time varies every year. During this time, many shops will be closed (including restaurants and shopping stores, but public transportation, scenic spots and hotels will be open as normal). , need to focus on Of course, many people will take leave before and after holidays to pursue longer rest time for traveling, so when planning a trip, try to avoid the four days before and after these times.😜

As a Chinese, I have to say that this is really the most practical and detailed explanation I have ever seen. I will save it and send it to my foreign friends who are about to travel to China.

Never before have I seen content from China that is as culturally uplifting and diverse as yours. And the fact you created it within a relatively short duration of your stay makes it truly remarkable. Bravo 👏

A tip for vegetarians or vegans, you can eat near a Buddhist temple. There are Buddhist temples in every Chinese city, and there are vegetarian meals available around them. Vegetarians in China are essentially the same as in other countries, but because it has more to relationship with traditional religion, they don’t call themselves “vegan” or “vegetarians.”

An open mind and a compassionate heart is all you need. China has it all, and so glad that you have fully enjoyed it.

China is more difficult to travel to than most other countries in Asia, and I think if you are not a patient person, you will not have a good experience; but for those who are more easy-going, and willing to give it more time, it is one of the best places to visit in the world right now. and yes: extremely safe, people are awesome, amazing cities and rural areas. it just takes time to learn how to make the experience more enjoyable.

Would like to add more: 1. Although tap water in China is soft and of better quality than in most areas of the US & UK, it is still not recommended for direct consumption. Bottled water is super cheap, costing less than 0.2€/$0.2 per 500ml bottle + good quality. 2. The number of vegetarian restaurants in China is beyond imagination. However, unlike vegetarian restaurants in other countries, they often have various custom names and may not clearly indicate "we are a vegetarian restaurant" in their names. Additionally, many dishes in Chinese vegetarian restaurants are made from soy products (such as tofu), and while they may look and taste like meat dishes, they are 100% vegetarian. 3. Regarding "Dress Modestly" , it's possible that you may not be visiting China during the hottest season. Additionally, women in China, Japan, and Korea often favor white skin for its association with beauty. Health and UV protection are common purposes of them. 4. Food allergies are a significant concern. Peanut allergies are relatively uncommon in China, so it is advisable for tourists to prepare in advance with a translation of "Does this contain peanuts? I am allergic to peanuts" on translation apps to show when dining in restaurants.

I'd say if you are not a tech savy person, you can still use your Chinese cash. If you're staying in a major international chained brand hotel, you should also be able to use your own Visa or Master card, but it's best to have cash to fall back to. If you have enough time, I'd say you should stop by Hong Kong because you can get a sim card for your phone easily and the sim card you get from Hong Kong does not confined by the "internet great-wall of China". A Hong Kong phone number is helpful in China. You may even be able to get a China mobile phone number in Hong Kong which is even more helpful. You don't have to worry about VPN, you can still use Google and Facebook. You can also set up your Alipay in Hong Kong before you go into China Mainland. Hong Kong Alipay has an English version.

WOW, this was simple, and to the point, with no frills, no unnecessary hype and just information that travellers need. EXCELLENT. 🤓

Fellow Canadian here. Glad to see that you had a great time and appreciate the guide, as always :)

Appreciate your guidance about China tour trip. Really helpful video.

We in Serbia dont need visa so i already watched lot off travel blogs in my language ,and is always young people ,i think older from my country would be lost with no cash and everything on apps,young people don't have that problem,they actually like it

I am Chinese, and I want to provide you with some tips. First of all, thank you for respecting our local culture. In terms of dressing, there are not many restrictions in China. It may be a habit, or it may be because we feel that the weather is a bit cold. In the hot summer, more people will wear shorts and short sleeves. So this is not a offense. As long as you respect local laws, don't expose the privacy parts. Finding vegetarian food is a difficult problem, mainly because it will not be marked with whether it is a vegetarian on the menu. But in fact, many restaurants have meat and vegetarian food. You can ask them "我不能吃肉，请问你有素食吗？ (I can't eat meat, do you have vegetarian food?) " If you are worried about eating wrong, you can eat at a nearby halal restaurant(清真饭店) or a restaurant near the temple.

So happy you enjoyed China Alina. It was a special experience to see it & you got to do it. A lifetime of memories for sure 😊.

You're from Canada! You don't need to visit Jade Dragon Mountain! You should traverse the whole Tiger Leaping Gorge instead (by hiking or by car, it's at the back side of Jade Dragon Mountain), it got one of the most stunning scenery in China. It had the honor of National Geographic's Top Ten Hiking Trails. In Shangri-La, not far from Lijiang, there is the Meili Snow Mountain, which ranks third among the most beautiful mountains in China. This snow mountain is the prototype of the Karakal peak of Shangri-La in Lost horizon. The sunrise over the Meili Snow Mountain, known as the 'Golden Mountain' in the sun, is very famous, and it's exactly as described in 'Lost Horizon' (because it's the inspiration!). You can also find the prototype of the lamasery in Lost Horizon - Ganden Sumtseling Monastery there! You can also visit the former residence of Joseph Rock in the Stone Village of Lijiang, which is the inspiration for 'Lost Horizon' as the author referred to his travelogue, and he lived in Lijiang for 16 years! In the Lost Horizon book, traces of both Lijiang and Shangri-La can be found!

You will definitely be back as China is so big that you can spend years travelling there

Your shares is very useful for foreigners. thx.

My first trip in China without a translator was just hell. Fortunately someone introduced Immersive Translate that could translate all webpages even Baidu could be translated without me screenshoting so I didn't have to struggle the entire trip. But I'm definitely learning Chinese now😅

Nearly half of those troubles are because of BIG population. Since there are more than enough domestic tourists for all the big attractions, the whole tourism industry had developed wildly. They don't need to improve their service for more incomes. Either don't they need to internationalize their service. The English friendly thing almost only happens in major cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, so make sure these cities are your first stop in China, which will help you blend in for awhile. These things not only are problem for foreigners but also for us local Chinese. So don‘t go to China in major holidays like labour's Day（5.1-5.4）, National Day（10.1-10.5），Spring Festival(Lunar 1st to 7th of Jan.). There is also too many people everywhere during summer vocation(July and August) and winter vocation(Jan and Feb.). So as a Chinese I highly recommend foreign friends travel to China during late Oct. to Jan, which has the least public holidays. Most problems triggered by too many people will not exists during this time.

Alina, thank you for sharing. The mountains and clouds behind you are beautiful

Chinese government just announced 12 Europe countries can visit China 15 days without a visa until end of 2025❤

Thank you for the tips, Alina. Welcome back anytime ! : ) In 2019, China had almost 100 million inbound tourists - no small number !

Looking forward to your next travel in china!Useful suggestions for people first coming to China ,also for chinese tourism administration to improve their service.

The way you ve captured the touristic sites of China is absolutely mindblowing... superb vlogging ❤❤❤

Regarding visa free countries, if you are from those 5 eyes countries yes you will need to apply for Chinese visas. For those living in traditional Western European countries China provides temporary visa exemption for 15 days till end of 2025. (Only UK and Portugal are not on that visa free list but Hungary is on).

This is by far the most comprehensive and practical for those are interesting to visit China. I will book mark that and to whomever want that. Thank you for the exceptional work to put this together. Also if possible, get help from the local tour guide. It can cost some but avoid to blindly tumbling around and waste time.

Hi. Alina good to see you and have great day. Thanks for video and information for travel. You are very courageous woman. Bless your trip

Our first experiences parallels yours. Your guide to China is so well done. We made a few mistakes but learned and prepared better for the next trips we took. Our biggest issue was translation Thank you so much for the info. It makes your trip much more pleasurable and less stressful. This series was outstanding from start to finish . Sending you much love❤️❤️❤️ from Harriet, Jim and Yuki

At 8:23 in the video, it needs to be corrected that it is not that Google’s applications are blocked in China, but that Google automatically withdraws from the Chinese market because it is unwilling to comply with China’s relevant Internet laws.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and tips for more people to know. China is incredible.

This is excellent. I sent this to my friend who is visiting China and they found it very helpful.

Thanks Alina. Will be really useful when I go and trace my roots next year.

一些大的景点必须网上提前订票，是为了控制访问的数量。有的地方不控制的话，有的时候人多的难以想象，这样比较危险，为了大家的安全，大的景点必须网上提前订票

Thank you Alina for the lovely videos

Thanks so much for this video, very informative

You got one thing wrong in your statement about dressing appropriately in China. The reason everyone was wearing long sleeves and pants during your visit was simply because the weather was cold at the time. China hadn't yet entered summer. Once summer arrives, come back and take a look. You'll see old men walking around without shirts, and the younger generation doesn't particularly care about dressing appropriately in public. They wear whatever they want-short sleeves, tank tops, tube tops, miniskirts-and it's all perfectly fine. No one pays attention to what you're wearing.

Nihao.booked with chinese travel agency a tour to 5 main cities. Bought the airplane tickets, got the visa, got the sim internet card and vpn, got the alipay, got the navigator offline nav app, got a list of best food. Even got tickets to a peking opera.Just need chopstick training and jetlag tolerance. Xie xie

The wechat réservation system is for locals. When we ( from Canada too)needed to book for the forbidden place and great wall etc, we just googled a tour for foreigners. It turned out that every Chinese popular destination reserved spots for these foreign guided tour groups(a little more expensive, but guides are fluent in English or French, you learn so much about the history and culture) I hope this will help your future travel.

Well done !! You did so well in preparing these very useful information !! Thumbs up Alina !!

Alina thank you for your information 🙏 Love from Toronto Canada ❤

You should know the regulations and various knowledge of China, entry and exit very well. There will be no problems. and stay and travel happily

Great video, well structured and great practical advices!

Thank you very much Alina for these important suggestions which can help us a lot in case we would like to visit China. Your videos are so nice. Take care🌷⚘️🪻

As a Chinese, I think the reason why booking tickets for most popular attractions is complicated, is because of high volume of tourists in China, particularly during public holidays. It helps to regulate the flow of people, just like booking train tickets. As far as I know, some attractions have already adopted a convenient method of booking through a simple QR code scanning process.

Hi Alina, so glad to see you again ❤

There are also vegetarian restaurants in China. China can be considered a paradise for vegetarians, because Chinese people are very good at cooking vegetables, mushrooms and various soy products.

Great stuff

That's very kind of you, Alina. As always your videos are informative, beautiful in many ways just as you are. Looking forward next videos of your journey. May God Bless You

Alina, hello from Australia! You have the best videos about China! Thanks for all this helpful info. Just subscribed.

This is a great summary and will be very useful for many who plan to visit China. Thank you so much!!

I traveled almost all around the Europe, North America, southeast Asia and East Asia, China is no doubt the safest nation

I get accepted from Chinese university, after 2 weeks I will move to China, moreover I start feeling confident after watching ur video. Thank you!!!

It takes a couple of days to figure these things out. But once you setup those apps and learnt how to use them, the travel became very easy and enjoyable. I would say much easier and enjoyable than anywhere else on the earth since everything is on your fingertip, and you don't need to worry about your safety.

China is actually a very secular society and has no special requirements for clothing. Chinese girls also dress very avant-garde in summer, so just dress casually.

There are absolutely a lot of vegan restaurants in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen. But it will be difficult to find vegetarian restaurants in small cities and towns.

i think this year is the real start of China's international tourism. the gov had alr given reports addressing the issues u mentioned and i hope you can have a better experience next time! I'm hoping to go to tibet next month, seeing the amazing plateau landscape and Mount Everest. Hope one day you can also vlog the beauty of tibet!

Great episode with lots of information !

Thank you for really good tips. Much appreciated.

I think there's a recent change. To encourage foreign visitors to China, for visa application, they waived the requirements for air ticket booking and hotel reservation. Also, foreigners are no longer required to stay in selected hotels. They can choose to stay at any hotels that are available for regular Chinese.

Welcome you back home, Alina. You deserve a beak before your next solo travel. Thank you for sharing spectacularity you've experienced.

Hi Alina. Indeed I feel safe when visiting Kun Ming Dali Li Jiang last month. However to pee I prefer to be selective & try to find out suitable clean toilet 😊😅

Thank you very much for your tips! You look great! And looking forward to your next adventure!❤

Great vlog! I have been trying to get these kind of informations for a while! Thank you so so much and well done! Kind regards and I look forward to seeing you travel China 🇨🇳 in the near future! Sabrina 🇫🇷🇬🇧

I think before mobile payment became omnipresent in China, it was very ok to just turn up at places like Forbidden City (those so called 5A destinations), Panda Research centre etc on the day itself or on the day before at the booth to purchase an entrance ticket. Same for high speed train though I usually do so on the first day I arrive for my next onward destination. The last time I was in China that was like 2015.

Important correction to your first point: the visa-free program has now included many European countries. I think there are 11 countries on the list and the program is valid through end of 25 (and could be further extended)

Very helpful guide - Thank you.

nicely thought out set of tips to lessen the travel shock of china lol. although it would have been interesting if you filmed some of the struggles 😅. as a foodie, I would have liked to see more food style clips, maybe next time 😉

Some popular attractions require booking tickets, mainly for safety reasons. These popular attractions often attract a large number of people, which can exceed the reception capacity of the attractions and lead to many problems, such as traffic congestion. Therefore, this method can only be used to moderately control the number of visitors per day.

I know it’s a pain having to book ahead for the major attractions, it’s for the purpose of controlling the numbers for that day, in previous years before going digital you would have hundreds of people lining up at the ticket office. Yes I agree the Apps should be more language friendly for overseas tourist. Welcome back again

China is really beautiful and has a lot of beautiful scenery.👍

When I visited China last month, my phone did not work in China so I could not use Ali Pay or WeChat, at Bell tower in Xian, one of the customer service used her cell phone to get the ticket and I paid in cash to her, same as the boat tour on Tianjin river cruise, very helpful customer service.

Glad to see you to travel to China and love it so much! And also thanks for provided so many useful ideas. Looking forward to having you here again!

Since you speak Russian you can go to some parts of China which also speaks Russian. Many of the regions in the border of Russia the locals also speaks Russian.

Thank you very much for the useful advice tips ,,, hope you have a nice trip to wherever you go .. thanks

We stayed in a place like that in Lijiang in 2017 with a view of the town from the rooftop. Beautiful destination, will definitely return.

Very nice and comprehensive video. About the dress code, unless you are in a temple or something, people don't care what you are dressing. Most people wear long sleeves because most Chinese don't like to be exposed to the sun. Feel free to wear tank tops and shorts. In China people consider pale skin colors as a sign of beauty regardless of genders, with a few exceptions like sporty person.

I went with a group - my Visa application was very smooth - from San Francisco - I just made the app with a local agent, gave my US passport and paid the fee - I got a 10 year multiple entry visa Did not use any app (2016) Since it was a organized tour group, we had no problems with food - as vegetarians - they always have the option, Worst case, go to 7-11 like shop and pick up a box of noodles and get Soy sauce - a friend of mine had a portable stove to cook veggies and pick up rice from a nearby restaurant. One important tip for guys , especially in big cities (Shanghai) - be careful with soliciting women for pleasure - they will drug you take your passport and blackmail you if you are left alive - I was approached by someone like this and just walked away and cautioned the hotel personnel (in Shanghai) thanks to advance tip by our guide

Listening to the squat toilet tip while eating a chocolate cake... priceless! 😂

Thank you very much for sharing your travel videos in China to the world and showing the most authentic China. If you will visit China in the future, I will welcome you very much to Qingdao, Shandong Province. This is a coastal city, very beautiful. Finally, I wish you a happy trip!🎉🎉

yep. foreign SIMs on roaming works like a VPN and can generally bypass the Great Firewall. i use a physical SIM from CSL (a Hong Kong telecom company) and FB/IG/Twitter/Reddit works fine in China when i'm using my free daily roaming passes, no VPN necessary. i also turn on hotspot from my phone so my laptop can have all the access as well.

Knowledge is power! Thank u Alina.😃💙💛🗼⛩

Thank you so much for those essential tips. I'm from Canada so your experience is highly helpful in my preparation for future China trip.

总结的真好，真的是用心旅行，用心体会。

Thank you, these are very helpful tips. I want one day to visit China. Be safe traveling.

what is your next destination Alina? Hope to see more of your videos soon! Thanks for showing us China and other places so far Chinese tourists to Europe and USA also complain that nothing is in Chinese and hence can only travel as a group

Thank you for your tips! Very practical, helpful, and instructive. Your explanation is great!👍

Very practical and useful tips for tourists. One more tip: Considering China is one of the most populated country, you'd better not visit China at peak time, especially during Chinese public holidays, such as Chinese New Year, the first week of May and October. It will save a lot of time and money for you. As for squat toilet, I don't think it's a big problem for male tourists. You'd better buy an interpreter machine or hire a local tourist guide for better understanding of local language and culture.

Hi Alina! 😁🙏👋✨🌟 I hope your having a wonderful day! This is a great video! 😄👍❤️👏📹🇨🇳🥇💯💫✨🌟 China really is a marvelous country! I would definitely like to visit China one day. Thank you very much Alina to share with us advices and recommendations when visiting China. It is really helpful! You are the best and greatest world traveler adventurer! 🙂👍👏✈️🌏📹🧳🥇💯🏆💫🌟 I wish you Alina a marvelous fantastic amazing blessed day. 😊🙏❤️👋👍✨🌟

just got back from China! It’s been since Covid that I visited. Had an amazing trip. Alternative, You can get a SIM card at the airport if you are visiting. But u need vpn if wanna use google

Thank you so much this video is really helpful. I want to go China again soon ❤

you are bright and considered universal english teacher take good care from the philippines

Chinese invented tofu and there are various kinds of tofu in China. There are more kinds of vegetable than other parts of the world too. As a vegan you are likely to have a lot more choices than in other parts of the world. And there are special vegan restanrants too.

Hello Alina, appreciate very much your feedback for international visitors. May be you can also forward some of the suggestions to China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), I guess they are willing to improve the situation for international visitors, thank you!

Regarding visa, it is important to note that since November 2023 citizens of France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia, since March 2024 citizens of Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Hungary, since June 2024 Australia and New Zealand and since July 2024 Poland can go to China for up to 15 days without a visa. So it makes quite a number of countries whose citizens can come to China without a visa.

Citizens from these European countries are allowed to travel to China without a visa for up to 30 days are Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. European countries with 15-day visa-free travel to China are France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain ,Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Poland.

Thank you for sharing your beautiful journey. Lots of love from Montreal

Quite a hassle, its better than I thought. You did great work explaining this, thanks!

This is a great video for a DIY traveler who wants to visit China without joining a tour group. Most of the problems are related to language. I think the name of places and addresses must be in Chinese, as English does not translate. Nobody understands Holiday Inn if you say or write it in English. Taking a picture of the Chinese writing would help a lot.

Very comprehensive and detailed.about dressing,there is no limitation actually. Short pants and skirts are popular in hot summer.just many Chinese prefer white skin and they think sunlight uv is harmful to skin.but personally I love sunlight❤. So you can wear as casually as you can.