China Travelers Recommend

After spending a night in a city of 11 million people you’re probably going to want to find some peace and quiet. At the same time, you just arrived in Chengdu so you won’t want to travel too far to get away. At 35 miles outside of the city center, the forested wilderness of Mt. Qingcheng is just the right distance for planning your escape. The preferred trekking destination of choice for local Chengdu residents, the summit of the most sacred mountain in Taosim is reachable via a 4 hour climb past ancient temples and lonely caves. You’ll want to be up early in order to reach the Giant Panda Breeding Center, easily Chengdu’s most famous attraction, for the 9am feeding time—the best chance you’re going to have of seeing active giant pandas. After learning about the curious mating techniques of captive giant pandas, take a taxi back into town for a gander at the famously strange sculpture at Qingyang Palace.

The Great Wall, a Wonder of the World and one of China’s most recognizable landmarks, deserves a place on any itinerary to Beijing. With several sections located just outside of the city, you’ll have your pick of experiences depending on what you want out of the visit. A majority of tourists to the Great Wall see the section known as Badaling Pass. Located about an hour from Beijing, this portion of the wall features a cable car to ferry guests to the top of a flat stretch of the wall spanning out in either direction. While it’s the most crowded portion of the wall, it’s also one of the most convenient and accessible. If you don’t mind doing a little climbing, Juyongguan is actually the closest portion of the wall to Beijing -- only 37 miles (60 kilometers) -- but it doesn’t have a single flat stretch in sight, and the steps are very steep and uneven.

Beijing's hutongs are a glimpse - fast disappearing - of what the city used to look like before the skyscrapers started munching the skyline. A hutong is a narrow alleyway formed by joining together courtyard residences. When you hear people speak of 'the hutongs', they will often be referring to the neighborhoods formed by these alleys. Development has destroyed many of these traditional neighborhoods, but some have been preserved, most notably those around the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. These hutongs, close to the Forbidden City, are the spacious and orderly kind that would have belonged to aristocrats and top-ranking officials. Beijing's poorer hutongs are far more haphazard and cramped, but are still an important part of the city's history. Each hutong has its own name - sometimes many layers of names - and its own set of stories.

No visit to Xian’s ancient wonders would be complete without seeing the city’s symbol, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (AD 652) and the old City Walls. Built in 1370 during the Ming dynasty, the walls are part of only a handful of ancient city walls still standing in China. A fascinating blend of Chinese and Islamic architecture, the Great Mosque is one of the largest in China. The mosque is still an active place of worship, so you’ll have to admire it from the courtyard. Next stop, Little Goose Pagoda. First constructed in the Tang Dynasty, the pagoda is a square brick construction with dense eaves and a missing top, which was shaken off by an earthquake! A visit to the 14th century Bell Tower and the Drum Tower will enlighten you as to how the ancient Chinese kept order and marked the beginning and the end of each day. You can visit all these sites, plus the Shaanxi History Museum on a full-day sightseeing tour.