What did a month of Chinamaxxing look like? It was:

• 9 cities across 7 provinces
• 260 Alipay transactions
• 5,000km covered via train
• 500km+ on foot
• At least 40 noodle dishes‍
• 28 Didi rides‍
• 11 hotels‍
• 9 new acquaintances on WeChat
• 4 politely declined cigarettes
• ‍3 blind foot massages ‍
• 2 national parks‍
• 0 VPN disasters

If you've ever read one of my articles, you'll know they follow a familiar structure. I typically spend a month working remotely in any given city, find an apartment on Airbnb, sign up for a coworking space, and immerse myself in one place for the duration.

Something different was needed for this trip.

Three nights in a city felt like roughly the right cadence. Enough to get a proper feel for a place and warrant unpacking, without it feeling onerous or tiring. You could squeeze more into a one-month schedule, but this plan was built around the demands and realities of a full-time job.

When in Asia, I work from 2PM onwards, which leaves a significant chunk of free time in the mornings if you've got the appetite and energy to make something of it. Throw in weekends and a couple of public holidays, and you've got ample time to see something beyond your hotel's walls.

If you're looking for a conventional guide to China, this article will fall short. There will be no Great Wall. This trip aimed to get a feel for what day-to-day life actually looks like, and to challenge the preconceptions I'd absorbed over 36 years of being fed information about the place.

There is a LOT of text here. Too much. And no, it is not spat out by an LLM. I hadn't found a glut of material on the realities of working from the country, so this is an effort to plug some of those holes with what's actually happening on the ground in 2026.

I'll start by reflecting on the gaps between my expectations and what I saw, before running through the itinerary and some tips if you fancy making the journey East yourself.

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Expectations

To encounter mind-bending technical advancements

This was massively underwhelming. I was expecting to step into something resembling a set from a science fiction film, with technology that one could not begin to comprehend in the West. On the ground, I witnessed very little of note.

I can't recall seeing a single delivery drone in operation, a significant departure from my expectations of a sky swarming with parcels being dropped from building to building.

I was in Wuhan during the recent robotaxi malfunction, but did not catch a glimpse of a single one in action across the entire month anywhere in the country.

Whilst a humanoid robot won the recent Beijing half-marathon, I saw only one pathetically comical example in Guangzhou, moving in a thoroughly uninspiring manner.

Most hotels feature the R2-D2-inspired robobutlers to ferry food deliveries to rooms, but these are often clunky lumps of machinery that are more of a nuisance and are remarkable only in their ability to clog up the lift system.

And this was not a case of being locked in a hotel room for a month. Every conceivable minute I was not working, I was roaming the streets. Remarkable advancements are no doubt coming out of the country. But they are not yet a prevalent part of daily life in the way I anticipated.

Something of note, is that this is a population with an alarming collective fixation with screens. Nowhere is immune from this today, but the depth of absorption felt on a different level. Stepping into a restaurant, I would often encounter the chef so utterly immersed in something on their phone that I hesitated to order, fearing the interruption would be on a par with disturbing someone mid-film.

Meituan drivers appeared so engrossed in content on their screens whilst riding that it was remarkable I only witnessed one crash over the course of the month. Groups sitting together in bars facing one another would be unanimously staring into their screens playing games with not even a hint of this being a social faux pas. The depth and normalisation of what felt like a screen-first society, across all ages, felt unparalleled to anywhere else I have witnessed.

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There would be some evidence of a highly-controlled society

Discussion surrounding a punitive social credit system in China routinely does the rounds on social media, hinting at a society whose every move is being judged and assessed by some central figure at the CCP. Much of this rhetoric feels as if it came out of the Covid era, when lockdowns were particularly severe, but it has lingered.

On the ground, the notion felt misjudged. Except for Shenzhen, I saw a scant police presence in any city, nor did I see people acting in a way that suggested any intensive overarching security at large. Most people seemed far more concerned with perfectly orchestrating their dance moves for their next Douyin video than bearing the weight of any government surveillance.

The reliance on digital payments is something that often gets mooted. As a tourist, this system actually serves to works in your favour. It removes any ambiguity over how you will perform payments, and the integration of Alipay into the public transport system makes everything work considerably more effectively than registering with each state-run system. A government mandate that came into force in February 2026 now requires businesses to accept cash, which runs contrary to this argument that electronic payments are being maliciously enforced.

The mandated use of government ID for services is another contentious point. The train system is entirely ticketless: you present your ID at the gate, and that gives you entry to the station and then the train. The same applies to many public attractions and national parks. Having observed it firsthand, the benefits of a ticketless system for a network doing over four billion journeys annually feel like the more obvious operational need. As a tourist, it again works in your favour. You will have your passport with you for inter-city journeys, and most attractions happily accept a photo of your ID.

It would be naive to dismiss the potential. It sets up the perfect infrastructure for a mass-surveillance state. But having witnessed it in operation, it is difficult to argue that this currently amounts to more than operational efficiency.

And there are real benefits that stem from this. Travelling cross-country is a far superior experience than doing so in the UK. The notion of jumping the barriers is laughable. It is impossible to board the wrong train. No inspector is waking you up to check your ticket once you are on board. You can leave luggage unattended in stations instead of dragging it to the toilet without a second thought of whether it will be there when you return. And I would be confident that the central government is making effective use of the data collected to determine where the next wave of infrastructure investment is most needed.

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The rail system would be top-class

The quality of the domestic rail network exceeded all my expectations. Unlike the futuristic skylines you see across the country, it isn't flashy or glitzy. Instead, it's a highly functional means of moving an enormous population across an impossibly large landscape. Every journey was on time. Zero cancellations. The most significant alteration to any service was a train departing from platform 5B rather than 5A. The stations are gigantic, resembling international airport terminals, and generally sit on the fringes of cities. Travelling through mountainous provinces like Hunan, which look impenetrable from the carriage window, the sheer quantity of tunnelling is staggering.

The wood-panelled interiors and reclining seats of the carriages make them particularly comfortable for longer journeys. Having travelled on other HSR networks in the region, I would have a preference for the Chinese carraiges, better equipped for longer cross-country travel than the functional but somewhat sterile-feeling Japanese and Taiwanese units. Every journey saw the twelve-carriage trains operating well below peak capacity, with surplus built into the system to handle significant seasonal demand.

A common criticism levelled at the network is that it continues to haemorrhage money, with only a small handful of lines turning a profit. Such criticisms feel like they miss the point. Isn't this the very purpose of state-run infrastructure? To operate otherwise unviable services for the greater good?

It shines a particularly poor light on the inefficiencies of the privatised joy that is the UK rail network. The millions wasted every year updating the branding on operators' rolling stock, the core beneficiary of which is the commissioned creative agency, not the end passenger. The numerous social media teams each operator employs, whose sole purpose appears to be informing you that your train is late or no longer running. The convoluted attempts at affordability buried within the malaise of advance tickets, railcards, and off-peak-day-saver-any-time-return-conditions.

The scale of the physical expanse and the size of the population make the economics of HSR stack up in China in a way that is difficult to rationalise elsewhere, but the excellence in how it's widely executed at scale is nothing but impressive.

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Cities would be mainly grey, drab and functional

I am not entirely sure where this assumption stemmed from, but it held no weight. Every city struck a balance between its natural features and intentional landscaping, creating green, liveable urban environments.

Chengdu felt at times as if it were a settlement nature was trying to reclaim, with enormous green canopies draping its sprawling network of overpasses.

Shenzhen and Guangzhou, two of the most industrious cities in the country, have heavily forested mountains quite literally within their perimeters.

Even Wuhan, which I can recall being cast as a grey, misty nightmare of a city in February 2020, vastly exceeded expectations, full of rivers, lakes and late spring cherry blossom. These aren't utopias, but they were radically different from what I'd anticipated.

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Prominent state propaganda

I was expecting to see more overt state-orchestrated propaganda across the country. Given my inability to read a single sentence in Chinese, there's an obvious blind spot here. But very few Chinese flags were visible, and Xi Jinping, whom I'd expected to be a visually prominent figure, was almost conspicuous by his near-total absence throughout the trip.

I watched Chinese TV in the hotels to get some sense of what messaging was being pumped into the population, anticipating a bombardment of nationalist content. There was nothing tangible of note, aside from what felt like particularly rose-tinted soap operas romanticising life in the 1970s, and an English-language documentary on Xinjiang that felt like an unsubtle attempt by the CCP to reframe the narrative around the Uyghur population.

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Where to stay

Airbnb doesn't operate in China, which leaves you reliant on hotels. More so than anywhere else I've travelled, if you're planning a prolonged period of remote working, they couldn't be better set up for the purpose.

Most of the benefits listed below stem from an enormous oversupply across the country. Tier-one cities will always see high demand, and most places feel the strain during national holiday seasons, when you might find yourself competing with 1.4 billion others for a room. But plan adequately and you'll encounter more choice than anywhere else on the planet.

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Highly competitive pricing

At around the £50 a night rate, you are not going to find five-star hotels. What you will find is recently built hotels with comfortably sized rooms and quality communal areas in the city centre that would easily command nightly rates five times that in a major European city.

I was loosely targeting a nightly budget pro-rated to what an Airbnb would cost monthly, which is easily achievable. At the higher end of the market you have almost universal representation of the major Western hotel brands you would expect. At the other end, you could spend as little as £20 a night if you are not concerned about a central location or in-hotel amenities. It truly is a buyer's market, whatever your budget.

Dedicated working areas

Most of the modern, business-oriented chains feature dedicated working areas off the hotel lobby. I worked exclusively in these spaces over the course of the month. WiFi speeds were reliable, the interiors were stylish, and aside from some heightened ambience during check-in hours, they were sufficiently peaceful. This is a significant time-saver, removing the daily need to head out and laboriously hunt through Mandarin-language map apps for a suitable coffee shop or coworking space. It is not something I would take for granted, however, and isn't necessarily guaranteed with a higher nightly rate. I cumulatively spent hours scrolling through photos trying to ascertain which place would be best in each city. If having a solid working area is a priority for you, I would feel confident recommending the places I picked out, listed further below for each city.

Gym

Most of the modern brand hotels feature a small but useful gym, generally with a couple of treadmills, a static bike and a sparse selection of dumbbells. They are often open late into the evening, if not 24/7, and are useful additions if you don't want the fuss of downloading a pass on Meituan.

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Laundry

Each hotel I stayed in featured a dedicated room with at least three washers and three dryers, detergent included. Ironing boards and steamers were also available and free to use. I would put a wash on during the evenings whilst working, and it was infinitely easier than dragging your clothes to a nearby laundromat and wrestling with an Alipay mini-program in half-translated Mandarin. For longer stays, it is hard to overstate the convenience, particularly if you are packing lightly and need to do a wash several times a week. There even seemed to be a member of staff who would transfer your clothes into the dryer and fold them into a bag afterwards.

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Flexible bookings

Practically every listing I encountered included free cancellation up to the day of check-in. On Trip.com you can often modify your length of stay after booking if your plans change. Double-check the specifics of your booking, but in general they are far more flexible than you would typically expect. I checked out of my hotel in Xiamen a day early, assuming it was a sunk cost, only for the reception team to proactively refund me. Grateful as I was, from a commercial perspective it was difficult to comprehend.

Friendly staff

Without exception, every member of staff I encountered was particularly warm and welcoming. English was spoken sparingly, but there was a genuine willingness on their part to accommodate via translation apps. You will often receive a small snack as a checkout gift, and throughout the day I would be brought tea and water.

Early check-ins

Due to the vast inventory, theres a good chance your room will already be waiting for you well before the allocated check in time. Except for one particularly busy hotel in Chengdu, I was able to check in early to every hotel after arriving on a morning train.

Modern, minimal interiors

All of the Ji Hotel and Atour properties I stayed in had contemporary, well designed interiors that would carry a hefty price tag in the West. They are genuinely enjoyable places to spend time in, not just somewhere to sleep and leave your bags, which is useful if you plan to base yourself there for the entire working week.

Reliable food offerings

You won't find a full English waiting in the mornings, but the breakfasts are well worth including in your nightly rate, usually for a small fee. Expect fried rice and noodles, steamed dim sum, wilted greens, eggs, fruit and often a dedicated noodle counter. It is not uncommon to find a complimentary light evening buffet served in the hotel restaurant as well. Again, something I have not encountered anywhere else.

Recommendation: Atour & Ji

If you are looking for a reliable hotel brand, look no further than Atour. I stayed at six of their properties and they offered the best mix of everything I was looking for, with dedicated working areas in each. The gyms are small but functional and the laundry rooms work flawlessly.

Try to find the newest property they have in a city, usually identifiable by the lower number of reviews. The two older properties I stayed in, in Chongqing and Chaozhou, were still passable but felt significantly more tired than the rest. The brand is consistent enough that a low review count should be read as a sign of a newer, fresher property rather than anything untrustworthy.

Everything above applies equally to Ji Hotel, which loses a couple of marks solely for the absence of dumbbells in the gym, but offers well-designed interiors and a less business-oriented atmosphere than Atour.

CitiGo operates on a similar concept to Atour but proved notably less dependable across my two visits. Dedicated working areas are provided but the general design quality and finish is a step down, and the brand has less of a footprint outside the coastal cities. I refunded my stay at the Guangzhou property after checking in, as it was a notable step down from what I had come to expect.

I'd avoid the high-rise apartment listings you may come across on Trip.com if you're planning to make use of any listed amenities.

I initially opted for one in Chongqing and, while the apartment itself looked exactly like the photos, none of the communal facilities materialised. The coworking space in the lobby was either "coming soon" or "out of order," depending on which member of management you asked. Many of these companies appear to rent individual units or entire floors within multi-tenanted buildings rather than operating as the dedicated standalone hotels they pose as in listings. If working space is a priority, stick with the brands mentioned above.

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Route

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Shanghai

I was already in the region, having spent the last month in Taiwan, so it was a short flight into Hongqiao airport. Minus the car brands on the taxis pulling into the arrivals area, everything felt surprisingly familiar.

Everywhere you go there is strong representation of nearly every Western brand. Starbucks. Costa Coffee. Tim Hortons on a scale that grossly exceeds the reality of its presence anywhere else on the globe. There is even Aldi, should you realise you forgot to pack your tinned bratwursts. And this wasn't confined to a few pockets. Even venturing deeper into residential areas, I encountered clusters of foreigners that vastly exceeded my expectations.

There is likely no better starting point if you want a soft landing to acclimatise to the country. You could easily spend an entire month in Shanghai, and I may well do that in the future. But you likely don't want your entire impression of China to be based around this particularly cosmopolitan city.

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Places to explore

Shanghai Old Street, the Bund and Nanjing Road — Over a three-hour walk you can tick off most of the major landmarks. The ornate Ming-era architecture of the Old Town warrants a visit, even with its army of salesmen attempting to sell you Rolexes at every turn. Walking along the Bund on a Sunday morning, you could be forgiven for momentarily thinking you were on the South Bank in London. With a surprising number of Caucasian tourists, the grand concession-era facades lining the waterfront and the gentle curvature of the river reminiscent of the Thames, it felt more like an extension of home than something completely alien.

Suzhou Creek — Once a heavily polluted eyesore, it has been redeveloped into kilometres of well-landscaped riverside greenway, passing through the more suburban western districts with a healthy stretch of cherry blossom in late March. An ideal evening run.

Century Park — The city's largest park, blending British, Japanese and Chinese garden styles. Worth a full lap, and connects easily with the Zhangjia River path back towards the Bund. Even though on the Pudong side of the river, easy to reach with the metro.

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Where to stay

CitiGO Hotel Jing'an Shanghai — Smallish rooms but the ground floor lobby is intentionally set up for coworking, with long desks, plenty of power sockets and a soft-furnished seating area reminiscent of a WeWork. Solid internet, decent breakfast, terrible gym. West Nanjing Road metro station is around 15 minutes on foot. Suzhou Creek is under two minutes away. A reliable and good valur option if you need somewhere to work from. If you are visiting on a conventional holiday, better alternatives likely exist.

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Wuhan

The drab, grey, pandemic-stricken images coming out of Wuhan in early 2020 make it understandably unlikely to feature on many bucket list itineraries. You're probably not in a rush to stock up on goods from the wet markets. On the ground in April 2026, there isn't a scrap of evidence that the city was ground zero for Covid at the start of the decade.

Stepping out of the train station, it felt like some of the refinement and sophistication of Shanghai had been lost in transit. Entering the ride-hailing section of Hankou station, you're bombarded with aggressive, nonsensical honking, persistent shouting and wafts of cigarette smoke.It's an amalgamation of three formerly distinct cities, Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang, so its footprint is spread over a huge geographical area.

Visiting mainly made sense as a way to break up the cross-country journey from Shanghai to Chengdu, but I also wanted to see somewhere that wasn't a conventional tourist draw. On reflection, there's little reason to go out of your way to visit Wuhan. But there's absolutely no harm in stopping by for a few nights.

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Places to explore

Wuhan Riverside — Hankou Jiangtan is the largest riverside cultural park in Asia and one of the best places to take in the evening light shows, where the city's skyline gets lit up across the water. During the day it's an ideal route for running; following the park south takes you to the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers, and from there across to 龟山 (Guī Shān), Tortoise Hill, which gives you views over Wuchang. The whole route is well landscaped, and in late March still had a healthy amount of cherry blossom on the trees.

Dong Lake — Well worth the ten-minute Didi ride if you're based the other side of the river in Hankou. Wuhan is known as the 'City of a Hundred Lakes', and this is one of the more accessible, a peaceful tree-lined expanse that makes a perfect route for a pre-work run. A channel connects it to Donghu, the largest urban lake in China, if you have more juice in the legs.

Jianghan Road — One of China's five most famous commercial streets, Jianghan Road was best visited after dark, when street food vendors trade well into the early hours. The streets surrounding Lanling Road, around ten minutes away on foot, are lined with dimly lit cocktail bars and craft beer spots open late into the night.

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Where to stay

Atour Hotel Wuhan Tiandi Hankou Riverside — Among the best Atour properties I stayed at. Occupying the upper floors of a newly constructed commercial building, all rooms have panoramic river views and spacious, high-spec interiors. The ground floor lobby is well set up for working, and there are enough food options in the surrounding area. The riverside park is immediately outside and Jianghan Road is around a 45-minute walk. If visiting purely for leisure, you may want to be closer to the pedestrian street.

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Chengdu

If you're coming from the east of the country, even with high-speed rail it's a significant journey to reach the capital of Sichuan province, but it's worth the effort.

One of China's designated Park Cities, you're aware of the distinction from the moment you leave the train station. On the journey into the centre there's a sense of entering an urban canopy. Kilometres of flyovers are adorned with creeping fig, a vertical greening that gives the intentional illusion of somewhere the natural surroundings are reclaiming. It's remarkably well executed. The Fu river features unbroken stretches of waterside parks and cycle paths, with older men deeply engaged in evening mahjong and young families in tea houses.

The tingling, novel sensation of the Sichuan pepper is one of the defining characteristics of the region's cuisine and reason enough to visit on its own.

Chengdu is somewhere I'd give serious consideration to spending a longer stint working from. It has a youthful, energetic feel and is one of the country's largest tech hubs. There are enough specialty coffee shops and bars to work your way through over several weekends, and there's plenty to explore outdoors in the easily accessible wider Sichuan region.

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Places to explore

Panda Research Base — Home to around 200 giant pandas on the outskirts of the city, it's an incredibly well run facility, thoughtfully landscaped with clear wayfinding and signage. Whatever you do, avoid a Saturday morning, when it feels as if you're competing with the full weight of the Chinese population to catch a glimpse of them. The intensity of the jostling, pushing and queuing reminded me most closely of the rush at Glastonbury, but with more pushchairs and children crying. There's something of a dichotomy between the sedate manner of a panda gnawing on a bamboo shoot and the thousand onlookers craning to watch.

Shahe River — Worth factoring in a run along the Shahe River however long you're in the city. Along its banks you'll find tea shops and mahjong tables under leafy canopies, and it connects to a much larger urban greenway network.

People's Park and Kuanzhai Alley — Consider putting aside a couple of hours to explore the city's largest park, which on a Friday morning was remarkably busy with local residents singing, performing tai chi and sipping tea. Can also factor in a visit to the neighbouring Huanhuaxi Park before heading over to Kuanzhai Alley, firmly on the tourist trail but worth walking through for the Qing Dynasty architecture, local street food and ear wax extraction.

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Where to stay

Park Inn by Radisson Chengdu Chunxi Road Taikoo Li — Recently refurbished, with large, modern rooms. A convenient base, five minutes from the hectic evening crowds on Chunxi Road and well placed for the city's major draws, with the Panda Base around a 25-minute drive away. Being in the very centre of the city, traffic was heavy at peak times. The ground-floor working area is passable for short stints. One of the most comfortable rooms I stayed in, and I'd happily return, though I'd skip the breakfast.

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Chongqing

Even writing this three weeks after visiting, I'm still struggling to process my thoughts on Chongqing. This was unlike anything else I'd seen in China, or in the world for that matter.

In most cities I can cover enough ground in 72 hours to form an accurate judgement, but Chongqing was the one place I felt defeated in this regard. It was also the only city I'd suggest visiting purely as a conventional tourist. I gained no satisfaction from working there. I felt almost dwarfed by the enormity of its urban landscape. The endless skyscrapers set against dark, brooding, murky skies gave it a close to dystopian feel at times.

I stayed in Jiefangbei, which puts you right in the heart of the Yuzhong peninsula. What's fascinating about this area, and the city more widely, is that the glitzy towers aren't a marker of a gentrified CBD like Canary Wharf. Mixed in among them is an extraordinary density of regular apartment buildings. Imagine if Canary Wharf had somewhere like Deptford embedded in it.

There's a lot to marvel at. Deep, renovated air raid shelters lined with hot pot restaurants. The Liziba metro line that passes straight through an apartment building. The disorienting Kuixinglou. The pedestrian streets at Jiefangbei and Guanyinqiao. The reconstructed old quarter at Shibati. The lights of Hongyadong at night. My suggestion would be to do 48 hours there as a pure holiday, soak it up and get out. I'd planned for five days but scaled it back significantly once I arrived on the ground.

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Places to explore

Jialing River - You can cover several of the iconic attractions you've likely seen referenced on social media in a single Chongqing run of under five miles. From Jiefangbei, head to Kuixinglou square, which gives the illusion of being at ground level when you are in fact 22 floors up. Grab an elevator down and run along the recently renovated Jialing River waterfront until you hit Liziba Station, famous for the metro line that passes directly through the middle of a residential tower. Both are worth glancing at for a few minutes before heading off rather than dedicating entire mornings to.

Yangtze River path - If you want an alternative to the Yangtze River Cableway, you can cover the same ground on foot and take in much of the same skyline. It's a reliably flat route, which is no small thing in a city where flat ground is genuinely hard to come by. Finish up at the metro station near Jianyuan Road for a straightforward ride back into Yuzhong.

Longtousi Park - If you're staying in Guanyinqiao, I'd recommend the run up to Longtousi Park, looping back via the air-raid shelter near the park's entrance that's been turned into Chongqing's largest cave hot pot venue. A surreal cavity in the rock, home to over 200 tables across a 500-metre tunnel network dating back to the city's wartime years as China's provisional capital.

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Where to stay

Atour Hotel, Bayi Square, Jiefangbei, Chongqing - The oldest and most worn of the Atours I stayed in. Passable for a couple of nights, but I'd look for other options, especially if planning to work from there as a base. The location is convenient for getting around, but you're in the very heart of the commercial and tourist centre, which may or may not appeal.

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Zhangjiajie

A welcome change of aesthetic after several nights in Chongqing. Even if you don't recognise the name, there's a good chance you've seen its national parks across social media over the last couple of years. Some of the most beautiful scenery in the country is surprisingly convenient to visit, with high-speed rail making it easy to factor into your itinerary.

This is by no means somewhere to set up a base for an extended period. The city centre feels entirely geared towards the constant stream of visitors passing through, like an alpine ski town. It felt like somewhere to get in, marvel at the sights and make a swift departure.

If you're working European hours, you can comfortably fit these attractions around your standard working day. There are two main sites: Tianmen Mountain and the national forest park. They each offer enough to warrant seeing both. I split them over two days, leaving the hotel at 8AM and back at my desk by 2PM, with neither feeling rushed. You could theoretically combine them into one day but you'd likely have to cut something. Ideally you want to do both in the early mornings before the inevitable crowds build up.

Having the extra day also gives you some much-needed flexibility around the weather. Due to a diabolical-looking forecast, I was close to cancelling the visit entirely, expecting wall-to-wall rain for 72 hours. Take those forecasts with a generous pinch of salt. The surrounding mountains make conditions unpredictable, and what you see at ground level often isn't reflective of what's happening higher up.

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Places to explore

Stairway to heaven & Top of Tianmen mountain - Visible from the city centre on a clear day, you'll likely recognise the iconic vast cavity in its cliff face and the path leading up to it, known as the 'Stairway to Heaven'. The views are as spectacular as any photo you've seen, and they have earned the hype. There are several routes up the mountain, with networks of escalators, cable cars and buses ferrying you up and down on your package ticket. I opted for Route B, which takes you up by bus and down by cable car. There's no meaningful difference in the experience whichever route you take. Once you reach the cave entrance, it's a steep 999 steps to the top, and from there, a surreal series of escalators carries you through the interior of the mountain to the summit. You then have a couple of hours of wandering at the well-developed top, with clearly marked paths looping around the perimeter and, surprisingly, a Burger King. If you have a phobia of heights, you may want to swerve the glass-bottomed walkways which hug the sharp drops.

If you are on a tight schedule and only have one day in Zhangjiajie, this is arguably the most convenient option, though there is less ground to cover on foot if you want a full day out. Tickets can be bought on Trip.com and cost around £25, which includes the entrance and transport. Go as early in the day as you possibly can. By the time I was descending at midday, the tranquil morning serenity had been eroded by impenetrable crowds of tour groups making liberal use of loudspeakers. No need to pack food or drink either, with plenty of options on site, including what may well be the world's highest Burger King.

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Avatar mountains - Around a 45-minute taxi from the centre of Zhangjiajie and actually closer to the town of Wulingyuan. If you're looking to clock up more miles on foot and get onto hiking trails with some elevation, this is a superior option to Tianmen Mountain. Get a Didi to the South Gate Entrance, where you can either take a cable car up to Yuanjiajie or follow steep but well-paved paths to the top. The views across the quartz-sandstone peak forest are impressive, although not radically different from what you'll have seen at Tianmen Mountain. The highlight was the 7km Golden Whip Stream hike along the base of the pillars, which gives you an entirely different perspective on the scale of the formations. Once you reach the Geopark Museum, there's a regularly departing shuttle bus to the East Gate, from where you can easily call a Didi back to Zhangjiajie. The ticket gives you access to the park for four days, so if you're considering multiple visits, staying in Wulingyuan, which sits immediately outside the park, makes considerably more sense than commuting in daily from Zhangjiajie.

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Where to stay

Zhangjiajie Tianmen Mountain Ropeway Tianmenju Atour Hotel - Would issue a strong recommendation for this hotel, particularly if you're considering working from here. Around a 10-minute walk from the cableway station, this was one of the newest Atours I stayed in, feeling as if it opened within the last couple of years. Rooms are spacious and bright, and there's a perfect coworking lobby space on the ground floor. One of the nicest working environments I found on the trip.

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Changsha

After feeling somewhat on a heavily trodden tourist trail over the past week between Chengdu and Zhangjiajie, I booked Changsha with the explicit intent of going somewhere I'd never heard of, entirely off that path.

The three days spent there were unfortunately marred by a depressing mix of persistent rain and gloomy cloud, which I'm told is entirely typical of the Hunan capital, a city renowned for uninspiring weather throughout most of the year.

It's an enormous place. A population of over 10 million would make it one of the five largest cities in Europe. It has a glittering LED-infused skyline, a heaving pedestrian street and a distinct regional cuisine.

I enjoyed it. It satisfied the need to see somewhere I had absolutely no prior gauge on. If you're on a tight schedule, there's little reason to prioritise it, but if you catch a stretch of good weather while in the vicinity, a few nights won't disappoint.

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Places to explore

Orange Island - A green, well-landscaped park sitting in the middle of the Xiang River, famous for the giant sculpture of Chairman Mao depicting him during his student days at the Hunan First Normal University. A perfect running route where you can easily clock up 10km. A free ticket is required, available through a WeChat mini app at the entrance, and a photo of my passport was sufficient without needing to carry the physical document.

Yuelu Mountain - Sitting on the western bank of the Xiang River opposite Orange Island, the attribution of 'mountain' is a little generous for what is essentially a wooded hillside overlooking the city, but it's a popular spot for locals and worth a couple of hours pottering around. Entrance is again via a WeChat mini app, though no ID was required on this one.

Hunan Martyr's Park - Large park with several artificial lakes. Good for a morning loop.

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Where to stay

Atour Hotel Changsha Gukaifu Temple Furong Middle Road - Atour occupy the top three floors of a 60-floor skyscraper, around a kilometre north of the main pedestrian street. What makes it worth considering is the working lounge, a well-designed space with panoramic views north and south, soft furnishings and complimentary coffee throughout the day. Worth booking specifically for this alone.

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Xiamen

After a six-hour train journey from Changsha, stepping off in Xiamen felt like arriving in an entirely different country. The dense overcast that had plagued Hunan was replaced with a lighter, tropical feel. The largest city in Fujian province, built around a small island off the coast, it became one of China's original special economic zones in 1980 but didn't transform as radically as its equivalents in Guangdong.

Xiamen offered something completely different from anywhere else I'd seen on the trip. Staying close to Zhongshan Road, the surrounding area felt as if little had changed in twenty years. Low-rise buildings. Weathered facades. A calmer pace. The late spring weather placed it firmly in shorts and t-shirt territory, or you could confidently dispense with the t-shirt altogether if you were a Chinese man over the age of 50.

There's plenty on offer to warrant passing by. Alongside the attractions below, it had one of the highest densities of specialty coffee shops I'd encountered in the country, a distinct Fujianese cuisine, and a pace of life that made it one of the more liveable cities on the trip, if not the most exciting.

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Places to explore

Gulangyu Island - A perfect route for a morning run. The ferry takes around five minutes from the mainland and runs several times an hour. Bring a photo of your passport on your phone to buy a ticket, the physical document isn't needed. The entire island is car-free, with beaches on the western shore offering views across the harbour towards the Xiamen skyline. Food and drink options are plentiful across the island, with the commercial centre concentrated around Longtou Road.

Wanshi Botanical Garden - Comfortably one of the best botanical gardens I can recall visiting. Vast and thoughtfully landscaped, with themed gardens and sculptures spread across its grounds. A secluded hiking trail leads up towards Nanputuo Temple before dropping out of the park at Baizhui Gate. Compact enough to cover in a single morning, but substantial enough to warrant a full day if you combine it with the adjacent Dongpingshan.

Yuandang Lake - A tidal lagoon with a running track around its perimeter. Worth a roughly 5km loop at sunset where the skyline starts starting up.

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Where to stay

Xiamen Yidu Homestay - Would recommend mainly to make the most of the working area in the main lobby, which is bright, well air-conditioned and has a good ambience throughout the day. It offers a decent breakfast, which is included in the price, and is well located, around a 5-minute walk from Zhongshan Road. The neighbourhood immediately to the East, around Guyong Road, had plenty of great options for food and drink that stayed open late into the evening.

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Chaozhou

I spent approximately 22 hours in Chaozhou, so could hardly claim to know it well, but it served a purpose of seeing one last prefecture-level city before heading into the anticipated intensity of the tier-1 megacities of Guangdong. This is the sort of place that, when scanning a map with an untrained eye, looks entirely inconsequential.

I was anticipating the Chinese equivalent of a small, unremarkable urban settlement like Luton in the UK. In reality, it's a significant place, home to around 2.6 million people. It's a surprisingly good spot to spend a day if you want to break up your journey. Paifang Street, which wraps around the fortified walls, is alive with commotion, and the Guangji Bridge is worth passing by, one of the oldest surviving bridges in China and somewhere I vaguely recognised from having seen it referenced before.

It's served by Chaoshan High-Speed Railway station, around a 20-minute taxi from the centre, with services running roughly two hours south to Guangzhou and 90 minutes north to Xiamen. Not really a destination in itself, but no harm in passing by.

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Places to explore

Hanjiang river - If you have limited time in the city, this route covers most of the key attractions, passing Guangji Bridge and the well-preserved historic centre just to the west. Well landscaped throughout, with scope for a longer run taking in the river island to the south.

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Where to stay

Chaozhou People's Square, Chengxin West Road, Atour X Hotel - A solid but unremarkable option. I opted for it mainly for the working space on the ground floor which was a fine base for a day. Would return.

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Guangzhou

I really enjoyed Guangzhou.

It had an urgency to it that I hadn't felt anywhere else to date. Your experience of it is likely to be defined by where you choose to stay.

To the west, on the banks of the Pearl River, sits the more traditional, unsanitised wholesale and packing hub of Liwan. Its commercial streets were relentlessly hectic, an aggressive mix of motorbikes and articulated lorries shipping textiles.

Six kilometres east is the more modern, polished CBD of Tianhe, likely your better option for a longer stay. I stayed just outside the main commercial area, near Wuyangcun metro station, which had more of a liveable feel with local food options rather than malls. Worth considering if you want some local character while staying within easy walking distance of the centre.

It wasn't on a par with Shanghai in terms of how international it felt, but it was noticeably more so than anywhere else I'd seen since. This was likely compounded by the Canton Fair running simultaneously, which felt as if it had drawn traders in from every conceivable corner of the globe, but there's a notable expat community in the city on a level I hadn't encountered elsewhere. I spent four nights and could have comfortably stayed a week or longer. You've got Baiyun Mountain on your doorstep, countless riverside running routes, several beautiful parks and an entire world of Cantonese cuisine to explore. Somewhere I'll return to on a future visit.

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Places to explore

Liwan - You can cover most of the key sites in Liwan over an afternoon's walk. Worth passing through the wholesale textile district, possibly the most frenetic neighbourhood I encountered in the country, with hundreds of independent traders and parcels strewn across every pavement. The much calmer Shamian Island sits just to the south, and from there you can follow the Pearl River east before heading north onto Beijing Road Pedestrian Street, one of the busiest commercial strips in Guangzhou.

Liuhua Lake Park - One of the city's best running spaces, although perhaps not on a Sunday morning, when it felt as though a good chunk of Guangzhou's 18 million population were already there. You can cut through the adjacent Yuexiu Park if you want seeking some more elevation.

Baiyun Mountain - Would confidently place this at the top of your outdoor sights in the city. A hike along Moxing Ridge on well-maintained paths, looking down over hazy views across Guangzhou. There's a cable car to the summit but the route isn't particularly taxing, so the walk is likely your best option. Walking the full length is easily manageable on foot, with a metro line back into the centre from whichever end you finish at. If passing via the North Gate, I'd very strongly recommend stopping off at Monkey Pai Coffee. Their single-origin Geisha would rank as one of the best cups I had in the country, set in a tropical outdoor backdrop.

Opposite canrtion tower - If you're staying around Tianhe, this is a solid morning route for exploring Ersha Island, with the Guangzhou Opera House and Canton Tower visible en route.

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Where to stay

JI Hotel (Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town Wuyangcun Subway Station) - I loved the location, sitting just outside the core of Tianhe with more of a neighbourhood feel and a good assortment of specialty coffee shops on your doorstep. I'd struggle to solidly recommend the hotel itself, given it has a single lift serving thirteen floors and communal areas with no air conditioning. You can quite comfortably find yourself sweating on the eighth floor for an excessive amount of time, waiting for it to work its way up. Slightly inconvenient if staying for more than one night.

Liangyou Qicheng Hotel (Guangzhou Beijing Road Ximenkou Subway Station) - I spent one night here to see more of the Liwan area before checking into the next hotel. Clean, large rooms and good value for one night considering all of the rates appeared higher due to the trade show.

CitiGO Hotel Guangzhou Tianhe Taikoo Hui - Comfortably the worst hotel experience I had in the country. I had originally booked on the basis of enjoying their branch in Shanghai, but this property felt significantly more dated than the photos suggested, and on arriving the smell of damp was so overwhelming I checked out immediately and got a full refund. Much better options elsewhere.

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Shenzhen

The last stop, and somewhere with an entirely different feel to its Cantonese neighbour Guangzhou and to anywhere else I'd seen in the country. Sitting adjacent to Hong Kong, just 15 minutes away by rail, Shenzhen has emerged as arguably the country's most technologically advanced city, its development driven by its status as a special economic zone and its rise as a global centre for tech manufacturing and exports.

From everything I'd read, it felt like somewhere that would be overly sanitised, lacking the character and charm of Guangzhou, and without the cosmopolitan complexity of Shanghai. Like Shanghai, it seemed as though it might not offer the truest feel of the country.

On the ground, it certainly felt different. All of the infrastructure felt newer. There was a perceptible security presence around the Futian CBD, with armed guards visibly on patrol. It felt serious, more business-oriented.

While you may not be getting the most culturally immersive Chinese experience, it's still well worth factoring into your itinerary. There are some great spots for hiking and running within the city, and its proximity to Hong Kong makes it a strong starting or finishing point for a trip.

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Places to explore

Meilin Mountain Country Park - Perfect for a morning hike before work. Get a Didi to Meilin Reservoir and take one of several paths that follow its perimeter. Routes are well paved, but expect some strenuous climbs as the trail rises and drops between numerous peaks.

Lianhuashan Park - A large park at the edge of the CBD with some challenging elevation towards the eastern perimeter. Drop down into the Civic Center square below around sunset for some great shots of the skyline.

Shenzhen Bay Park - Around a 7-mile run from the Nanyou district, tracing the bay back into the Futian CBD. Beautifully landscaped parks line the route, with dedicated cycle lanes and running paths, and the Shenzhen Bay Bridge sits just visible in the distance, connecting across to Hong Kong. Aim for a clear day if the weather allows.

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Where to stay

JI Hotel (Shenzhen Jingtian Metro Station) - You could quite comfortably stay right in the commercial centre of Futian, but if you are there for a few nights and want something with more of a neighbourhood feel, staying just outside it near Jingtian metro stop is worth considering. This Ji Hotel has all the features you'd expect, with a particularly well-designed open-plan coworking space in the lobby and some of the largest rooms encountered on the trip. Around a ten-minute walk to the leafy Lianhuashan Park, and to Cuiye Street, home to a stretch of around ten back-to-back specialty coffee shops. Undoubtedly the best street for coffee in the entire country.

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Before arriving

Getting set up before you arrive in China is crucial. None of these are particularly time-consuming, but it's worth ticking them off before you land so you can focus on the important things, like which variety of noodles to eat, rather than working out why your Alipay account isn't working.

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Set up Alipay

Alipay essentially acts as a wrapper for your home debit card, allowing you to pay via QR code scanners at merchants of all sizes. It's painless to set up. In a store, the merchant scans a barcode you show from the app and your card is debited directly. In restaurants, you scan a code with the Alipay app and order from within the restaurant's mini-app. It works seamlessly. Forget carrying cash or cards.

Within Alipay, you'll find a gateway to all manner of services you may need in day-to-day life. Ordering taxis via Didi, unlocking city bikes, even leaving luggage at train stations, can all be done via mini-apps housed within its ecosystem. It does require some perseverance. The UI degrades heavily when translated into English, the apps-within-apps concept is a UX nightmare, and the performance sapped my iPhone to the extent that it felt like using a BlackBerry browser in 2010.

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Set up WeChat

The WhatsApp equivalent for China, which will inevitably prove useful for communicating with your hotel and anyone you bump into. It has a similar payments infrastructure to Alipay, with mini-apps worth exploring. A helpful backup on the rare occasions Alipay wasn't accepted.

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Download AMAP

While Google Maps technically works in China, you'll find the maps are heavily distorted, with roads appearing to run across water and attractions placed nonsensically in the middle of rivers. The issue stems from China's mandatory use of its own coordinate system, which offsets all map data and renders foreign mapping apps unreliable. Amap is your best replacement, though I found it a painful experience to use day to day. Apple Maps functions and draws on Amap as its data source, but listings are often incomplete and lack depth. As someone who opens Google Maps around twenty times a day and tries to validate any restaurant before visiting, this took some adjustment, but eventually became somewhat liberating.

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Get an eSIM

With a foreign eSIM on your phone routed via either Hong Kong or Singapore, you'll forget entirely that internet access in the country sits behind the Great Firewall. All your day-to-day services will work as expected, the eSIM functioning as a de facto VPN with data routed outside the country. This only applies to foreign eSIMs, so get it set up with your provider of choice before arriving. Worth noting that some AI services, including Anthropic and OpenAI, may not function reliably when routed via Hong Kong, so Singapore routing is preferable if you rely on these tools heavily.

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Check your VPN

Unless you plan on tethering from your phone for the duration of the trip, which is certainly feasible, you'll need a solid VPN. Test it before you leave, though performance in your home country is no reliable indicator of what you'll find on the ground, as the experience inside China can differ significantly.

I opted for LetsVPN, which has a reputation for being more effective within China than many of the more popular Western alternatives. The Chinese government has made continuous efforts to restrict VPN usage, and a wave of crackdowns in early 2026 caused widespread outages across some of the most-used providers, including LetsVPN. Expect this situation to worsen, and keep an eye on Reddit or other forums for the latest recommendations before you travel.

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Download Trip.com

This was my first time using Trip.com and I wouldn't consider using anything else within the country. It's a rock-solid option for booking hotels, trains and activity tickets, with a much wider availability of brands than you'll find on other OTAs. They act as an official booking operator with the Chinese government, which makes the ticketing process surprisingly seamless.

There are relatively chunky fees for booking train tickets via the platform, which can add up if travelling frequently (around £5 per £50 ticket), but given it means avoiding the headache of the official 12306 app, it's a fee well worth paying.

It accepts credit card payments in your local currency, which is a bonus if paying for multiple bookings and making use of free cancellation policies to keep flexibility on the ground.

Having all your bookings for both accommodation and trains in one place helps map out your day-to-day logistics, with alerts on any potential overlapping bookings. The in-app support is surprisingly efficient should you need assistance, and it's relatively easy to accumulate rewards over the course of a month and climb the tiers to where some genuinely valuable benefits are on offer.

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Get some form of passport holder

Your passport has the potential to take a daily beating, being used as your ticket for trains, hotels and attractions throughout. It's worth investing in something to keep it protected whilst on the move, as you'll be making heavier use of it than almost anywhere else.

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Bring your running shoes

I can't think of many better places to explore on foot than China. Every day I looked forward to covering some expanse of a river, lake or city park on a run, with well-marked routes in every city I visited. In somewhere like Wuhan, it's hard to make a dent in a city of that scale simply by walking for two hours. On a restricted time schedule, a light jog allows you to take in infinitely more than you might anticipate.

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Make a rough route plan

I had made an outline which I adjusted as the trip progressed, cutting some cities short and extending others. Having a clear plan helps when scheduling longer train journeys, but this isn't somewhere you need to stick to your itinerary religiously. The exception would be travelling during national holiday seasons, when bookings surge dramatically across both trains and hotels. Having the freedom to change plans on the fly was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip. Lock in your Tier 1 city dates and enjoy flexibility on the surrounding legs.

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Book a return flight

You may not be asked at the Chinese border itself, but your airline will likely ask prior to boarding whether you have a return flight booked. I used a temporary PNR service as I was planning to exit the country by train to Hong Kong, and train tickets were not yet available at the time of booking.

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Leave your power bank at home

China's domestic flight rules now require power banks to carry the 3C certification mark, with no exceptions for foreign brands. Any Western-certified banks will be confiscated at security regardless of capacity. Mine made it in to the country fine, and I stuck to the train network from there, so it never came up. If you're flying domestically at any point, pick a new one up on the ground for a negligible cost.

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Conclusion

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Positives

The costs

You can comfortably eat three times a day for under £10. Cross-city taxi rides rarely seem to exceed £3. Nightly rates on quality hotels can quite feasibly match a nightly rate for your rent. Rides on the metro never exceeded 30p. A traditional, back-crackingly thorough chinese massage can cost around £15 a hour. Whatever your budget China will work in your favour.

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The food

I was under the impression that the typically Cantonese-inspired cooking you find in every provincial UK town was some vaguely mangled construction of the nation's cuisine, bearing no resemblance to what you'd find on the ground. In reality it was a lot closer to what I felt used to. Each province has a distinct character in its food, but you'll inevitably find plenty of dishes you're familiar with. Kung Pao chicken, fried rice and noodles, dumplings. Exploring each city's food was one of the highlights of the trip. You'll find international food in all the cities mentioned, but you're likely to enjoy the trip infinitely more if you're happy to wade into whatever the local dishes are, rather than seeking out a pasta restaurant in Changsha.

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The people

Even with such a significant language barrier, every day I had numerous positive interactions with whoever I encountered. I found the Chinese people far more jovial and lighthearted than I expected, your presence often met with a warm curiosity. Children would be keen to use their developing English skills, and an enthusiastic nihao on arrival or xiexie on departure was routinely met with warmth, whether with hotel staff, restaurant workers or Didi drivers.

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Accomodation

I'll say no more than what was mentioned before, but this is a highly attractive part of the experience if you value clean, modern and affordable accommodation.

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Convenience

Once you've acclimatised after the steep learning curve to get everything set up, day-to-day life is a breeze. Payments via Alipay are seamless. Getting around with trains and metro services works predictably and cheaply. Booking entrance to activities with Trip.com is straightforward and reliable. Hotels and travel tickets are generally flexible, permitting you a degree of freedom with your plans at zero cost, which is rare. Breakfast is usually included in your room rate, laundry is half-handled by hotel staff, and if you're revisiting another property in the same chain you're likely already connected to their wifi. Your coworking space is waiting for you in the hotel lobby. There's a load of small, individual details that compound to make such an aggressive-looking itinerary remarkably painless. Attempt a similar schedule in the UK and you'll be lumped with extortionate on-the-day rail prices and hotel rates. In somewhere like Thailand, the idea of riding their trains daily and trying to book rail tickets would kill any joy of a flexible trip. Within China, this flexibility the convenience provides is quite unique and makes for an intoxicating element of the experience.

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Culturally different

The list of truly different places to visit in 2026 is steadily diminishing, and visiting China today is likely a radically different and more familiar proposition than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. But it's still somewhere with an entirely different cultural landscape worth witnessing.

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Visa free travel

Recent years have seen huge numbers of countries gain visa-free access to the country, with the UK being one of the most recent additions as of February 2026. Traditionally you had to include a full itinerary with records of accommodation as part of your application. Arriving at Chinese immigration in 2026 couldn't be easier, with just an arrival card to fill out and routine biometrics recorded.

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Negatives

Set up takes effort

There will always be some friction involved in visiting China. The apps, the language barrier, the firewall. In the grand scheme of things, the effort really is minimal and take no longer than 30 minutes of your time, but it exists and is unavoidable. If you're looking for somewhere you can go and switch off, this is not the place.

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Crowds

This was nowhere near as bad as I had heard before the trip. But it has the potential to significantly lessen your enjoyment of any attraction. If a venue suggests arriving early, heed the advice. The Chengdu Panda Base was perhaps the best example I witnessed of how close crowds can come to tainting an experience. Thousands of families simultaneously competing to get the perfect photo with little regard for anyone around them. Arrive early, avoid weekends and holiday seasons, and you'll likely be fine. But if you plan days of back-to-back excursions without mitigating against the potential for the worst, you'll likely leave frustrated and disappointed.

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Communication can be difficult

For all day-to-day transactions, it's barely an issue, given the combination of Alipay and translation apps. But you're unlikely to engage in small talk or make connections in passing like you might in other countries. For me this wasn't an issue over the course of a month, but if you're planning an extended visit, you could well feel somewhat isolated without picking up Mandarin to a meaningful level of competency.

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VPN has the potential to be problematic

There was never an occasion where bypassing the Great Firewall was truly problematic. But it can be frustrating. Continuously circling around various VPN destinations (often having to avoid the best automatically allocated option in Hong Kong if trying to connect to AI services) becomes grating, especially when working later into the evening. For someone who needs 100% reliability and uptime with zero chance for error, it's a setup that just won't work. If you can deal with a 15-second interruption every two hours to momentarily adjust your routing from Brazil to India North, it's nothing more than a mild periodic nuisance rather than anything debilitating. The VPN issue is what kept me deprioritising the trip for years. Unless your professional livelihood hinges on 100% robust uptime, you'll be fine.

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Public noise

There is an entirely different social etiquette surrounding noise in the public realm. It wouldn't be considered rude to blast reels from your smartphone while on a train or sitting at a communal table in an otherwise sedate space. Similar scenarios in Europe would likely provoke a meeting of dissatisfied eyes frowning in collective disdain at the lack of common decency. This simply doesn't occur. Hotel lobbies are ideal environments to witness it first-hand. I saw several large groups of mature families checking in, acting with a degree of camaraderie and brashness that would generally be reserved for an English stag do eight pints in, shouting, jostling and remonstrating with hotel staff. I've concluded that these heightened noise levels among groups are more the visible effects of jovial friends enjoying their time together than any intentional rudeness, but it takes some getting used to.

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Smoking

This wasn't as bad as I was anticipating, but it's certainly an aspect where China currently lags behind the Western world. Practically every public toilet I visited felt like it had just been hotboxed with a series of Marlboro Reds, and had been for the past 50 years. Ensure you pick smoke-free hotel rooms (which most modern hotels are) and you'll mitigate against the worst of it. Trains are entirely smoke-free, as the continuous announcements on the carriages make clear, but the platforms are often the perfect time to light up. It can be a mild nuisance, but unless you have a respiratory condition it shouldn't deter you from visiting.

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What would I do differently?

Honestly, I wouldn't change a lot in the itinerary.

There was a good mix of cities, both Tier 1 powerhouses and those lesser known. While the experience doesn't differ fundamentally between them, it's worth seeing both. An additional trip to another national park would've been welcomed.

I may have pushed too hard on some of the train distances. Even though the time was spent reclining on a chair listening to podcasts, a six-hour train ride from Changsha to Xiamen isn't the optimal way to start your working day. Ideally, three hours is the most you'd want to cover in a morning to be comfortable.

If I'd known how miserable the weather would be in Hunan, I'd have likely altered the dates, but it wasn't catastrophic enough to ruin the week.

I'd definitely consider a return trip to explore the country's extremities. In the south, Kunming and Haikou both feel like they'd offer something different to anything I'd seen on this journey. Xinjiang appears to bear no meaningful resemblance to anything. Harbin again looks like somewhere with an entirely different aesthetic. Trying to attach any of those cities into this particular schedule would've been too ambitious,

If you were to plot cost against convenience on a graph of visiting China over time, it feels like the two lines cross right about now. A decade or longer ago it was cheaper, but the friction involved would've made it better suited to a proper adventure holiday than somewhere you could reliably work from.

With development compounding at a staggering annual pace, affordability is only ever likely to go in one direction. Circumnavigating the Great Firewall will probably only get harder as VPN clampdowns tighten, leaving essential connectivity dependent on eSIMs.

If you're curious about the country and currently hold a passport with visa-free entry, there probably won't be a better time in history to get in there and find out for yourself.

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For transparency, any Trip.com links contain affiliate links. I would very rarely suggest making exclusive use of a particular service, but it is overwhelmingly the best service at your disposal in the country.