As with all my travels, I was recently sharing all our exciting adventures in China — the awesome sights, the amazing food, and everything in between. But for some reason, some people were not happy about it. As apparently, my post about my super cheap hotel in Kunming, or my train journey from Bangkok to China, meant I was a CCP bot.
So people weren’t pleased, which inspired me to hopefully annoy them more by sharing how awesome travel is in China. 10 Reasons Why China is the Next Big Travel Destination in Asia. Hopefully this may help sway their narrow minds.
Otherwise, like normal people, our travel destinations are not dictated by geopolitics or xenophobia (you big weirdos). Instead, our travels are inspired by sightseeing and tasty food — and China is the perfect destination for both.
We have therefore been taking advantage of new visa-free travel in China by hopping back and forth over the past few months to see what the country has to offer. Without once joining the Communist Party (you big weirdos).
Why Travel in China?
Unlike the chaos of south and Southeast Asia, China is more organised and rigid, it’s calmer, there’s no in your face interactions and you can walk around pretty much unannoyed and unnoticed. It’s similar to travel in Japan I guess and the rest of East Asia, better suited to the introverted. A bit like “Japan Light” or “Budget Japan”. From someone who loves travel in Japan this definitely a compliment although Beijing and Shanghai will never quite compare to Tokyo and Osaka. Otherwise my travels in China are mostly away from the well known cities and attractions connected by a convenient network of high speed trains.
At the same time we have had 3 relatively recent travels through Japan so it’s exciting to experience somewhere “new”. Well, while I say new we have actually been to China before (Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Changsha, Zhangjiajie, Fenghuang Ancient Town…) but this was 10 years ago and 10 years is a crazy long time when it comes to the rapid development and expansion of China. To share a quick example below with our return to Hongya Cave in Chongqing which looks almost unrecognizable in comparison.
1. Visa Free Travel (30 Days)
China recently introduced visa-free travel to 43 countries (June 25), allowing visitors to stay for up to 30 days to explore. I was fortunate to be on the list (Irish passport), so I made the most of the opportunity with three visits in as many months earlier this year.
While the visa-free travel is great for many, China has also loosened other visa policies. For example, with my British passport, I was able to take advantage of visa-free transit through China for up to 10 days, provided there is an onward flight to a third country. I tested this by flying between Bangkok and Hong Kong, with a 3-day transit stay in Shanghai.
The process is simple, with minimal planning or preparation required before arriving—just a quick arrival card handed out during the flight for completion. After that, it’s simply a matter of getting stamped through at immigration. That’s about it.
I’ve also tested border crossings at both airports and land borders, with the most recent being a crossing from Laos on the high-speed Laos-China railway, while traveling from Bangkok to China by train.
2. Diverse Landscapes (and trains!)
One day it’s t-shirt weather the next day you’re in Shangri-la surrounded by snow. My land crossing from Laos to neighbouring Yunnan is a good example of the many contrasts and landscapes in China. The journey takes 10 or so hours on high speed trains yet feels worlds apart. Just one example within one of China’s 23 provinces.
China is rather huge, spanning 5 time zones, bordering 14 countries, it’s around 5 times the size of Southeast Asia, and is the equivalent to the continent of Europe. While it doesn’t quite have the same beach appeal of Southeast Asia (Hainan maybe) this is what we aim to escape when living in Thailand. So I’m looking more at Tibet, the Himalayas, the Harbin Snow Festival, and there’s a crazy amount of China to explore.
The trains (because everyone loves trains)! Similar to Japan and the JR system, China has a slick and efficient high speed rail network connecting pretty much any tourist destination in the country. A bit like the high speed rail they built into Laos and current project right down to Bangkok. Slowly connecting all of Asia. It’s really quite exciting.
3. Seamless Travel Apps
Our previous visits to China were some of the most challenging travels. We didn’t really have phones, Google and social media were blocked by firewalls, and we relied mostly on printed paper. In a way it felt more rewarding, at the same time travel is just so simple and seamless thanks to a few handy phone apps.
Now we drop into any destination, Metro Man finds us the best route to our hotel area, Amaps (like Google Maps) gets us to the hotel, or, if feeling lazy, we just use Didi rideshare. All paid with AliPay with no need for cash whatsoever. On our last visit we only took along Yuan for emergencies and ended up spending them all on snacks at the airport when leaving.
At the hotel we connect to front desk via WeChat with built-in translation. eSims normally come with built-in VPN as well so you can still access Google (for Google Translate etc.) and they’re silly cheap, so we go with a 100GB daily allowance so we can backup all our media on Google Photos, etc.
4. Silly Cheap (Amazing Value) Travel
I started this post on an 8 hour high speed train journey from Kunming to Chengdu. It cost £35 for the 661 km journey. The previous night my hotel cost £17.95. It had an AI butler and buttons for all sorts of gadgets like TV projector, curtains and blinds, aircon, a Japanese robotoilet! The bedding is soft and fluffy, there’s compressed marble interiors, and complimentary toothbrushes, combs, slippers etc. For less than £18.
Travel is cheap in China, although I prefer “amazing value” given “cheap” is often associated with low quality. We even gave up on public transport as Didi rideshares are so cheap. I took an average of 5 of our trips in Chengdu and it came to 1.65 Yuan (£0.17) per km. Comparing to the Grab App in Bangkok, it was 41% cheaper. The 20km drive to Chongqing airport was just 30 Yuan (£3.11). Only in China there’s much less congestion and you’re likely travelling in a silky smooth electric vehicle.
5. Massive Megalopolises
Ever heard of Chongqing? With a population of 32 million, it is the largest city in the world (at administrative level). That would be 6 times the population of Bangkok, although this is a bit misleading when it comes to urban density, where Bangkok is nearly 4 times as densely populated.
But Chongqing is just one example of China’s vast sprawling megacities—cities with a population of over 10 million—that individually would take weeks to explore.
Currently, there are 18 megacities in China: Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Tianjin, Xi’an, Suzhou, Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Shijiazhuang, Linyi, Dongguan, Qingdao, Changsha, and Hefei. All are located in mainland China, as Hong Kong (7.5 million) and Macau (0.7 million) are relatively tiny in comparison.
6. Cyberpunk Cityscapes
A dystopian futuristic setting with “high tech and low life.” With China, it is lesser on the latter, but I find the cyberpunk aesthetic fits well with these modern Chinese megacities—corporate skyscrapers towering over high-rise tenements, over ancient Chinese temples. Streets buzzing with electric vehicles; taxis, rideshares, app delivery bikes. But the real cyberpunk vibes come at night when the skylines and cityscapes are lit up with flashing neon lights.
Chongqing, again as an example (pictured below), where we stayed in a 64th floor hotel suite overlooking the Yangtze River for £47 a night. (Now the highest hotel we’ve stayed in since the Marriott Miyako, Osaka—the highest hotel in Japan on the 53rd floor).
We look out over a constant haze from the humidity of passing rivers, and mountains surrounding the metropolis. Skywalks connect apartment blocks, monorails cut through residential buildings, the Jialing River, and the brick red Qiansimen Bridge. On the streets, we feast on fiery barbecues and hotpots, and it’s like sensory overload.
7. Reimagined Old Towns
Back to our Yunnan adventures, where we stayed in another silly cheap hotel overlooking the Old City of Lijiang, beneath a backdrop of the majestic Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (UNESCO). Opposite is the cobblestone streets and traditional Naxi architecture of Lijiang Old Town.
Tourists dressing in traditional Naxi and Tibetan garb for photo shoots by the ancient bridges and ornate wooden houses, and eating local mushroom and yak meat hotpots by the canals.
The same goes for old town and heritage areas of major cities. Yuyuan Old Street, Shanghai is a good example—a bustling market area during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, now a lively fusion of past and present. Century-old teahouses next to modern bubble tea joints, ancient alleys and courtyards lit up with lanterns and light shows, traditional shophouses showcasing the cultures and trades of surrounding regions.
They are admittedly themed more for tourism and new gens, but they’re no doubt fascinating when new to China.
8. Soft Power!
Global dynamics have fairly shifted this year (2025) with the US joining Russia as global villains, to the point where the world was rooting for China against the US in a trade war. Instead of aggression, China leaned into soft power, and has almost become the cute, cuddly nation that offers bargain buy products and is much easier to deal with. A positive, friendly and somewhat cute coating also applies to tourism, global branding, and modern China itself.
Admittedly, Chinese tourists were the bane of tourism in Thailand (and beyond) due to a sudden emergence of China’s middle class, travelling on package holidays, moving in hordes. These days, partly thanks to the government’s essential “Guide to Civilized Tourism and Travel”, their boorishness in Thailand dropped from the radar—behind new villains like Indians in Pattaya, Russians in Phuket, and the Israelis in Pai…
Panda, panda, panda! Do you know what is cuter than a cuddly panda? A cuddly panda dressed in a red panda outfit? Their branding is definitely on point for the new generations. Be sure to check out MINISO. Or grab yourself a Labubu from Pop Mart! I’m slightly embarrassed to know these things.
9. Near No-one Speaks English
In 5 visits to China our vocabulary goes no further than nihao and xiexie. Rude? Not really, as we arrive with all the means (and apps) necessary to do what we need to do. We do not relying on others Our only interactions are transactional; airports, hotels, rideshares, snacks, and restaurants, all sorted by apps. Nihao! Xiexie! It would otherwise be rude turning up expecting locals to speak English.
Kudos for actually learn the language, but through the 4 days before my last arrival to China (Mandarin), I was in Brunei (Malay), Thailand (Thai), and Laos (Lao). That’s a language per day.
I also prefer not knowing the language. It’s part of the culture shock, immersing in the unfamiliar, getting lost in unnecessary translation. It’s what has always inspired me in travel, the realization of how little I know about the world around me. It’s when things become too familiar that I kind of lose interest in a destination and travel. But each to their own.
10. It’s all About the Food
It’s rare when we revisit a destination to find the food to be better than before. In fact, it’s almost always the opposite. But with our recent return to Chongqing and Sichuan province, we found some of the best eating we have ever had, ever (especially Chengdu). Everyday eating local and relying on top rated picks on TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet as places to avoid. The same goes for big restaurant chains like Haidilao etc. as there’s just so much food yet to be discovered and documented on Google or in English food guides.
While I’m a huge fan of pretty much all Chinese food (our street food guide from our first visits here), our main obsession is in Sichuan cuisine and the fiery mala flavours of Chongqing and Sichuan province. In the West it would often be known as Szechuan food, but its western representation is nothing like the origins. It’s a cuisine I’ve tried (and mostly failed) to replicate since my first ever hot pot in Chongqing. These days it would be the most common regional cuisine throughout all China and probably much of Southeast Asia. It’s definitely up there with Thai food as the best food in the world.
