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Regarding those countries travelled, in many cases it involved nothing but one large city and its perepheral, so the number of countries visited is really meaningless,
No, not meaningless at all. If I decide to count countries visited, I'll count them any way I choose. I don't need your approval.
Now, I am going to China with my boyfriend sometime in September. He wants to wing it while I'm worried about it being a disaster. I am open to traveling without a tour guide and am curious to see how it compares to using a tour company.
Do you speak Chinese? If not, I highly recommend using a tour guide. We had a private guide in each city when we visited China and it made the trip much better than if we had been trying to find things on our own.
A lot of people hit the Beijing/Shanghai/Suzhou/Xian path where it isn't too difficult to travel independently without a tour guide or speaking Chinese.
well, I travel solo and many people take the liberty to freely comment on how that is not the best way to travel - why are you going alone, you can't share your memories, it's no fun, it's lonely and miserable blah blah. I wish they would just shut up. But if I dare scoff their way of travel then it's hugely upsetting to them.
I agree with the other posts, travel as you wish. Travel is a personal experience.. whatever philosophy you deem fit that works for you is the right way to travel.
What I don't get is people who only go on vacation to the same place every year, follow the same schedule, eat at exactly the same places and order the same thing, and never try anything different or go anywhere else. To each his own, but c'mon....
I went to the same place four years running and loved it. After a three-year hiatus (due to circumstances) I just went again and it was so good to be back. No two trips were exactly the same. I've gone other places and may still go to more, but I'll get back to this place whenever I can.
I agree the "if you don't travel the way I do" mindset is silly. Just go and have a blast!
I just figure that the preferred travel style will likely change for a person over the years, as it has for me. When I was young and a student, travelling on a shoe string with friends and piling a half a dozen people into a hotel room miles outside of town seemed like a blast... would I do that now? Egad no. Different things may please people at different stages of life, with different options, and different experiences behind them... so each to his own.
In the tourist areas (Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Suzhou, etc.) there are plenty of English signs. Subways, bus stops, streets, menus, etc.
yeah, only at tourist areas.
Some might have ventured out of those areas, where expecting English signs anywhere or anyone speaking English is unrealistic, even in central Shanghai or Beijing. A Chinese person who only speaks Cantonese might even have difficulty, not to mention a foreigner.
It is already a lot better than say 20 years ago, when without speaking Shanghainese dialect one would have problem shopping because many shop employees were not even educated enough to speak proper Mandarin.
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After a three-year hiatus (due to circumstances) I just went again and it was so good to be back. No two trips were exactly the same. I've gone other places and may still go to more, but I'll get back to this place whenever I can.
