China - Help with Planning ex- PEK

We are total of 5 people getting to Beijing in Sept. 24 Monday

2 of us have to get back to Chicago Before OCT 1st. So this 2 have Six days and they could depart from any location in Asia / Australia / Oceania

3 of us leave the following Wed. OCT 3rd. Have to Depart from PEK (already booked)


here is what i was thinking maybe flying to HKG on Thursday Sept 27 giving us 3 days in beijing and 3 days in HKG for the first 2 people and

3 of us take 24 hour train back to PEK


we are open for suggestion as i will be using points to fly inside china and want to get the most out of those points.

other than the above i have no idea what else to plan.

the weather will be great that week. But keep in mind the 2 chinese holidays,

Sunday the 30th, & Monday the 1st- the 1st is national day & the start of golden week, thus that weekend can be abet busy with in-country travel, your ok with Int. travel if tickets are obtained early. ( < 80 days ).
Actually, some western business hotels have great rates that week as most business travelers are gone, & chinese do not have conference meetings during the week. But, do not expect deals at the chinese tourist hotels during golden week. With 5 people, you might try a BJ serviced apt. with 2 or 3 bedrooms, like Somerset, etc. C-trip is good for this type of research.

HK might be only a couple days , with a ferry trip over to Macau for a day. Also , make sure your visa is multiple entry if visiting HK and then returning to BJ/china. There are non-stops from Macau back to BJ, and the ferry can also take you direct to the HK airport.

With ORD as the return, there are many places in China & Asia with non-stops, or a 1 stop return to ORD. Also from HK , you will have several flight options to main land china, or cities like SIN, BKK, etc to get you out of the china holiday chaos.

The UA ORD return flights from BJ are at noon, or 4 pm at T-3, so an early main-land connecting flight back to BJ is very doable on your return day to ORD.

What do you want to see in China ?. there are some great BJ and china posts on this forum....

We are total of 5 people getting to Beijing in Sept. 24 Monday


Why don't you just stay in Beijing for the entire 6 days?

Why don't you just stay in Beijing for the entire 6 days?

if we did that then 3 of us would be there a total of 9 days or so.

Wanted to get the most out of China in 1 trip as much as possible.


Thanks for the help on above post

You won't go wrong with the popular tourist attractions.

Beijing/Shanghai/Hangzhou/Suzhou/Xian/Chengdu

It depends on what you want to see

if we did that then 3 of us would be there a total of 9 days or so.

Wanted to get the most out of China in 1 trip as much as possible.


Thanks for the help on above post

If you can't change your tickets to return to Chicago from some place other than Beijing, then IMO, you should just stick it out in Beijing... though I must admit that I'm no fan of National Day in the Capital.

-Beijing warrants 9 days
-traveling around China requires a lot more effort than you might expect
-overnights at the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Chengde, and/or Qinhuangdao are worthy of consideration
-a little bit further away, you have Qingdao, Dalian, and perhaps even Shenyang (not many tourist sites in Shenyang, but I kind of like it, and the botanical gardens in Qipanshan are nice)

If you can't change your tickets to return to Chicago from some place other than Beijing, then IMO, you should just stick it out in Beijing... though I must admit that I'm no fan of National Day in the Capital.

-Beijing warrants 9 days
-traveling around China requires a lot more effort than you might expect
-overnights at the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Chengde, and/or Qinhuangdao are worthy of consideration
-a little bit further away, you have Qingdao, Dalian, and perhaps even Shenyang (not many tourist sites in Shenyang, but I kind of like it, and the botanical gardens in Qipanshan are nice)

like to know how would one spend 9 days in china coming and leaving from PEK?

I would like best of everything china has to offer.

thanks

Clearly you + party don't want to stick around Beijing for the entire time, even with daytrips. You won't get the "best that China has to offer" in just 9 days. Maybe 9 weeks, or 9 months of travel would be more realistic. So you need to scale your expectations to a manageable small nibbler. More info needed to craft as many efficiencies as possible:

1) On 9/24, what is your arrival flight (Airline, from where, time of arrival).
2) On 10/3, same info as above for departure flight.
3) You mentioned "points" to do the internal China flights. What Alliance--Star or Skyteam? (OneWorld is essentially useless).

Clearly you + party don't want to stick around Beijing for the entire time, even with daytrips. You won't get the "best that China has to offer" in just 9 days. Maybe 9 weeks, or 9 months of travel would be more realistic. So you need to scale your expectations to a manageable small nibbler. More info needed to craft as many efficiencies as possible:

1) On 9/24, what is your arrival flight (Airline, from where, time of arrival).
2) On 10/3, same info as above for departure flight.
3) You mentioned "points" to do the internal China flights. What Alliance--Star or Skyteam? (OneWorld is essentially useless).

we arrive 9/24 at 3 p.m

currently planning on whole day 25th and 26th in bejing.

Do you suggest a good itinerary ??

we arrive 9/24 at 3 p.m

currently planning on whole day 25th and 26th in bejing.

Do you suggest a good itinerary ??

Please start us out with some ideas of your own that we can critique.

we arrive 9/24 at 3 p.m

currently planning on whole day 25th and 26th in bejing.

Do you suggest a good itinerary ??

If you search this forum, there are Beijing itineraries for just about every number of days, at least up to 4 or 5.

9 days for some and 6 for others suggests to me that you should go to one other city for ~3 days. That gives people 3 days in Beijing to see the main sights, 2 days in another city (figure one day wasted for travel) and then 3 more days in Beijing to see some additional sights.