Bitten by the (Chinese) Travel Bug

It has come to my realization that I have not done any traveling since arriving in Beijing this semester. I might have been in Beijing for only a month so far, but in study abroad speak, that’s a long time. Hell, I didn’t even manage to go to Pingyao during Chinese New Year (or anywhere else, for that matter). Unlike my friends studying abroad in Europe, who seem to be planning glamorous vacations to places like Italy, Portugal, and Austria, I have been spending my days in Beijing, doing the same old thing day in, day out.

Well, no more. I have spent the majority of today browsing good places to travel to in China that are affordable and can be done in a weekend, as my class schedule doesn’t allow me to travel on week days. It’s surprisingly hard to find places that are interesting and that I haven’t been to already, but I did manage to come up with a small list of cities I absolutely must visit before my time in China is up.

• Tianjin
• Fuzhou
• Qingdao
• Yantai
• Dalian
• Dali
• Kunming
• Lijiang
• Lhasa
• Urumqi
• Nanjing
• Harbin
• Hohhot
• Chongqing

Now that I have a list of places I want to go, it’s time to figure out when is the best time to travel. Then comes buying cheap plane/train tickets, booking hostels… oh, and finding friends to travel with! Any takers?

Tags: china