How to get there

How to Get There

By plane

The main international gateways into mainland China are Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Almost every sizeable city will have an international airport, but these are usually restricted to flights from Hong Kong and neigbouring countries such as South Korea and Japan.

While several major airlines fly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, budget seats can prove hard to come by. For good offers, book as early as you can.

Particularly busy periods are usually when Chinese students are flying home for summer, flying back to universities around the world after summer or around Chinese New Year (early February). Tickets at these times are often hard to get and/or more expensive.

If you live somewhere like Toronto or San Francisco with a large overseas Chinese community, check for cheap flights with someone in that community. Sometimes flights advertised only in the Chinese newspapers cost significantly less.

Tiger Airways [3], Bangkok Airways [4]. Air Asia [5] and Cebu Pacific [6] offer low-priced flights from Southeast Asia (Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Manila) to various destinations in southern China, including Xiamen, Jinghong, Guangzhou, Haikou and Macau.

Many fliers prefer Asian airlines, which generally have more cabin staff and better service. Hong Kong based Cathay Pacific [7] is an obvious possibility for flights to China. Others include Singapore Airlines [8], Japan Airlines [9], and Indonesia's Garuda [10].

Korean Air [11] often have good prices on flights from various places in Asia, such as Bangkok via Seoul to North America. One person on a mailing list reported that taking a train to Southern China, cheap Macau-Bangkok flight, then Korean Air Bangkok-Seoul-LA was US$200 cheaper than flying direct Shanghai-LA. Korean Air also fly to a dozen or so Chinese cities, including Shanghai, but we do not know if the big discounts are available there.

China's own airlines are growing rapidly (500 planes in 2000, 863 as of May 2006; they say 1580 by 2010 and 3200 by 2024) and working hard at becoming highly competitive in both service and pricing. They include China Southern [12], China Eastern [13], and Air China.

North American airlines: Northwest serves Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou through its hub at Narita. United has the most nonstops to North America, serving Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai from Chicago, San Francisco and Washington. Continental Airlines flies to Hong Kong and Beijing from Newark, and American flies to Shanghai from Chicago. Delta Airlines offers non-stop service from Atlanta to Shanghai. Air Canada serves Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong from Toronto and Vancouver.

Flying from Australia, Qantas [14] offers direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to Hong Kong. [Qantas] also flies to Beijing and Shanghai from Sydney and only offers a code-share service to Shanghai from Melbourne.

Flying from New Zealand, Air New Zealand [15] is the only direct option to Mainland China. They offer direct flights to Beijing and Shanghai in the Mainland and Hong Kong.

From Southeast Asia, Singapore has arguably the best connections due to its large ethnic Chinese population, with flights to all the major cities as well as some regional hubs such as Xiamen and Shenzhen. Besides Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok also offer good connections.

European airlines: Most of the major European airlines — from Air France and British Airways to Finnair — have direct flights from their bases to Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, and several fly to Guangzhou as well. A few have links to other Chinese cities, for example KLM fly direct Amsterdam-Chengdu and Lufthansa fly Frankfurt-Nanjing.

If you are coming into Hong Kong or Macau and then flying on to somewhere in mainland China, consider crossing the border to Shenzhen or Zhuhai and picking up a flight there. These are usually significantly cheaper, as flights between the mainland and Hong Kong or Macau are treated as international flights.

Regular direct flights between Taiwan and mainland China, which have not taken place since 1949, have finally commenced on 4 July 2008. Starting from 15 Dec 2008, the frequency of these flights have been expanded to daily, and flights no longer have to be routed through Hong Kong airpsace, which has cut flight times significantly on some more popular routes.

By train

China can be reached by train from many of its neighboring countries and even all the way from Europe.

* Russia & Europe - two lines of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Trans-Mongolian and Trans-Manchurian) run between Moscow and Beijing, stopping in various other Russian cities, and for the Trans-Mongolian, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

* Kazakhstan & Central Asia - from Almaty, Kazakhstan, one can travel by rail to Urumqi in the northwestern province of Xinjiang. There are long waits at the border crossing for customs, as well as for changing the wheelbase for the next country's track.

* Hong Kong - regular services link mainland China with Hong Kong.

* Vietnam - from Nanning in Guangxi province into Vietnam via the Friendship Pass. Services from Kunming have been suspended since 2002.

* North Korea - four weekly connections between the North Korean capital Pyongyang and Beijing.

Source: http://wikitravel.org/en/China