Travel plans to China
Travel plans to China
So, I haven't done much travelling in my life because been poor, but am now in a position to maybe plan a trip for myself and my partner. To China is where we would love to go.
I love train travel and dislike flying, did not enjoy the one trip over the Atlantic I have been on, so I was thinking about taking the trans-Siberia train to Peking, but it looks like I can't actually get to it now from Finland. I also don't really want to fly for climate reasons. There used to be a train straight to Moscow from Helsinki, but the warmongering started and now there is nothing. Also I keep getting 404s when searching for flights to Russia, the flight to Moscow to get to the train wouldn't be so bad.
Is it really not possible to go do this train trip from Europe atm? Anybody know? Been searching the internet and there is very little info on this or other train access to China from Europe. I found freight trains.
I am one of those who is both adventurous and seeks planned things at the same time, so would have to have a good premade plan and bookings for the trip. I was thinking we could do the highspeed rail in China to sort of travel across the country from Peking to Shanghai. Would be a month long thing at least, after I finish my masters and current work contract.
But looks like it isn't easily doable.
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For the getting in to Russia thing I did a quick Google (so don't take this as a full answer) and it seems like there's no way from Europe to get in without flights which includes a detour to Dubai or similar. Seems fucking stupid
For the China leg - The high speed rail from Peking/Beijing to Shanghai is 4-6 hours, so that part is much easier to sort out. The high speed rail goes all the way inland to Chengdu at the moment, and all the way down the coast to Guangzhou, so you can really take on most of the country just by train if you have time. I am hoping to do a high speed rail trip around China myself in the coming years. The biggest issue with visiting China, outside of language barrier, is making sure you get Visa approved early, they're quite strict with it
Another option is going in to DPRK from Beijing
The high speed rail goes all the way inland to Chengdu at the moment, and all the way down the coast to Guangzhou
Further than that. Pretty much every city is connected unless by HSR you only mean the 300kph ones. You can take the 200kph to almost everywhere, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi. Beyond that you can also take the old fashioned 绿皮 to every tiny city, it's romantic but slow and often annoying (and hot in the summer).
travel across the country from Peking to Shanghai.
If you start in Beijing you can go to so many interesting places though. Go BJ-> Xi'an-> Chengdu -> Chongqing maybe. All of those are huge cities but much more interesting, cultural and lets you see some real china than going to Shanghai. Don't go to Shanghai, it's more like an international city, and anything you can see there you can also see in more interesting cities.
True. I was also thinking about this after I found some backpacking tips on the different routes. Definitely would want to see as much as we can. Ending up in Shanghai was the plan, but the route to get there is open.
Was looking at this: https://onthewayaround.com/china-itinerary/#A_4-Week_China_Itinerary. No idea if this is good advice, because it sure has brainworms in it. Also not interested in Hong Kong.
Oh the DPRK would be goals.