This is a guest post written by Travel Blogger Roxanne Bridger. She works for cheapflights.co.uk, a flights deal website that will help you find the best deals for your airline tickets. You can also find lots of useful travel information to help you with your research before you go. So whether you are looking for…
The Chinese use the word “翻新” (fanxin). Individually, the character “翻 ” means “to turn upside down” and “新” means new. The two characters together mean “to revamp”, “to make over”. Many ancient towns and villages have had a major make over in China. Usually, the make-over or fanxin process consists in tearing down the…
Earlier this summer, I decided to leave China’s southwest and travelled north beyond the Yangze (长江) and the Yellow River (黄河) to Shanxi (山西) province. Do make a distinction between Shanxi (山西) and Shaanxi (陕西). Shaanxi (transliterated with two ‘a’) is home to Xi’an and the famous terracotta army, while Shanxi (with only one ‘a’)…
In this blog, I have tried to introduce slightly off-the-beaten path travel destinations and a few alternatives to famous ancient towns like Lijiang 丽江 or Fenghuang (凤凰) which have become overcrowded with tourists, mainly historical villages. A short article about the Miao village Dehang (德夯) was the first one about a place I did not…
This is a relatively old piece of news by now, but it will definitely leave a scare in Weishan 巍山, an ancient town on the old Tea and Horse Road (茶马古道) in Yunnan for a while. The 600-year old Gongchen Tower (拱辰楼), an impressive tower gate topped with a Chinese style pavilion that was home…
This is the fourth post of my Shanxi civilian castles (山西民间古堡) series. So far, I already took you to the deserted stone fortress of Xiangyu (相峪堡), within the lost walls of Douzhuang (窦庄) castle and more recently into the imperial manor of Kangxi in Huangcheng Xiangfu (皇城相府). When travelling through China, I take the train…
I recently had a close friend who returned from a Sydney cruise and could not stop raving about the food on-board. The conversation would go back and forth between the exotic South Pacific Islands he visited and the various ship experiences, but always made its way back to the culinary delights that he enjoyed on…
If you are visiting the United States from Canada, there are some ‘must-haves’ you should include as part of your travel checklist. Whether you are traveling for business or leisure, follow a few important guidelines to help make the trip go that much smoother. Every US travel checklist should include: Passport – a valid copy…
Obviously, there are some parts of the world where a professional guide is pretty much mandatory for reasons of the preservation of life and limb. You don’t want to take yourself on a safari unsupervised, go wandering on your lonesome through a mine-strewn war zone, or up and then precipitously downwards across the slopes of…
Now that the summer is over and autumn is fast approaching, it’s a great time to begin planning your next holiday. Seriously, you know how busy it can get when the summer months are almost upon us, what with so many people doing their last minute holiday preparations and so accommodations are getting scarce. Why…