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Travel to China

Flying to China

Flights to China are served by Air China (CA) (www.airchina.com.cn or www.air-china.co.uk). Autumn, when tourist numbers are down but the weather in many regions remains pleasant, is a good time to find flights. Fares can be higher in and around peak holiday seasons such as Chinese New Year.

Flight times:

From London to Beijing is approximately 10 hours and from Los Angeles is 12 hours 30 minutes.

Note: Flights are often overbooked, so travellers are strongly advised to re-confirm their return flight reservations.

Departure tax:

¥105, usually included in the airfare. Children under 12 and transit passengers (proceeding within 24 hours) are exempt. A smaller charge (¥50) is payable for domestic flights.

Travel by rail

International services run from Beijing to Moscow on both the Trans-Mongolian Railway (via Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia) and the Trans-Manchurian Railway (via northeastern China). The Trans-Siberian Express operates two weekly services (one on each route), both of which take around a week to complete.

A daily overnight train service between Nanning, in Guangxi province, and Hanoi, Vietnam began in 2009. A second cross-border service, between Kunming and Hanoi, is suspended, and likely to remain so for several years. There are also four weekly services from Beijing to Pyongyang (Korea, Dem Rep). Owing to demand, it may be necessary to book up to two months in advance. A regular train service runs from Hong Kong to Guangzhou (Canton). There are several trains daily.

Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (tel: +852 2688 1333, in Hong Kong; www.kcrc.com) has express trains servicing Kowloon to Guangzhou. There are also services between Shanghai-Kowloon/Hong Kong (journey time - 25 hours) and Beijing-Kowloon/Hong Kong (journey time - 24 hours). Further information on rail services is available from the Chinese Ministry of Railways (www.china-mor.gov.cn, in Chinese only).

Note: Travellers on the Trans-Mongolian or Trans-Manchurian Railways are strongly advised to search their compartments and lock the doors before departure, owing to an increase in smuggling via this route.

Getting to China by boat

China has a huge number of ports. More than 120 of them are open to foreign ships, but these are almost exclusively used for the import and export of goods and containers. International cruise ships do make use of the most prominent ports, though, with Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin among the most popular stop-off points.

Ferry operators:

Several major cruise lines offer cruises to China. There are regular ferry services linking Chinese ports with Kobe in Japan and the west coast of Korea (Dem Rep). There are regular ferries between Shanghai and Osaka in Japan. Regular ferry services operate between Weihai, Qingdao, Tianjin and Shanghai in China to Incheon in Korea (Dem Rep).

There are regular fast ferry services between Hong Kong and Macau and a number of towns and cities in Guangdong province, including Shenzhen and Zhuhai, operated by Chu Kong Passenger Transport Co (tel: +852 2858 3876, in Hong Kong; www.cksp.com.hk) and TurboJET (tel: +852 2859 3333, in Hong Kong; www.turbojet.com.hk).

Two ferry companies run regular services from Shanghai to Japan: the Shanghai Ferry Company (www.shanghai-ferry.co.jp) and the China-Japan International Ferry Company (www.chinajapanferry.com). There are also several weekly ferry services between the Chinese coast and South Korea.

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