3 weeks July adventure with 11 y old kid: Beijing Datong Inner Mongolia Shanghai :) :) Thanks so much
Hi! Hope you’re all doing well 😊
I’ve been exploring this subreddit for a while and found so many amazing tips and itineraries. After getting completely lost in all the possibilities, I think we’ve finally settled on a plan!
I’ll be travelling with my girlfriend and her 11-year-old son. We decided to focus mostly on Eastern China because we don’t want to spend too much time (or money) on transportation, and we’d really like to avoid domestic flights.
We are into nature/cities / meeting people / enjoying food / slow travel. We enjoy being tourists among chinese tourists. Not among european tourists haha
Here’s the itinerary we’re considering:
We land in Beijing and plan to stay 3 or 4 nights there.
Then head to Datong for 1 or 2 nights. Do you think Datong is really worth the stop?
After that: Inner Mongolia! A friend of a friend owns a guesthouse in Ulanqab, so we’ll probably stay around 5/6 nights on the grasslands. We don’t have a precise plan yet, so I’d love absolutely any recommendations 😄 We would love to see Naadam festivities.
We’re thinking about hiring a driver and exploring around the area (within roughly 4 hours from Ulanqab).
Any recommendations in Inner Mongolia?
Is Hohhot worth visiting, or should we focus more on the countryside/grasslands?
Then train to Shanghai. My stepson dreams about Shanghai, and honestly we’re very excited too. We’ll probably stay 4 nights there.
Any hotel recommendations?
The kid would LOVE staying in a high tower/skyscraper hotel 😄
I know the train ride from Ulanqab to Shanghai is pretty long, but we actually like train travel and will probably book first class. If anyone knows a nice stop along the route, I’d love to hear about it!
Finally: back to Beijing, then back home to Paris.
If you have any recommendations for other places worth checking out around those stops I’d love to hear them
Do you know if we can hope for freshness / escape from the heat somewhere ?