Is August the right time to visit China

Is August the right time to visit China?

They say the best time to visit China is autumn or spring. Instead, they say that the week of the first of October, which coincides with the most important Chinese national holiday, the Republic Day, should be avoided; is the same for the Chinese New Year, a real baker.

What we can report from direct experience is that August is certainly not an optimal time to visit China: this month, in fact, corresponds to the closure of schools and the holiday period of most of the Chinese.

Translated into simple words, the sites of main interest are literally besieged by citizens on holiday: it is not a bit ‘of crowd, but a real wave of people. When the Chinese move, they make themselves heard!

Before organizing a trip to China, we recommend consulting the calendar of Chinese holidays. Try to take a peek at this link (https://www.in-cina.com/articoli/calendario-festivita-cinesi-2018): are reported all national holidays, updated from year to year.

If instead you have constraints on when to travel and you have only August available, as it happened to us, do not give up planning the trip to China but put your soul in peace: you wait for mileage queues, crowd of people piled on each other ; all seasoned with high temperatures.

This atmosphere could risk to vanish the magic of some wonderful places, but it is the price to pay if you want to visit one of the countries with the highest population density.

Here are 4 tricks to escape from the crowds of Chinese tourists

1. Plan visits to the most famous sites during the week, trying to avoid the weekend.

In this way, you can avoid the crowds of people visiting the weekend

2. The ideal time to find peace and tranquility is late afternoon.

The Chinese are very early! Our alarms before dawn and the hours of sleep we lost were completely useless: we missed two hours or five minutes at the opening of the sites of interest, we have always found queues of people waiting. Strangely, towards the afternoon the crowd disappears and leaves room to enjoy the beauties that the country offers.

3. If you are planning a visit to one of the country’s beautiful national parks, choose the most difficult and longest route, bypassing the comfortable (and quite questionable) gondola lifts that stand out among the mountain peaks and fast elevators.

In short, walk, climb a thousand steps, sweat! It is absolutely worth it: we have admired wonderful places in complete silence, with the only noise of nature to be master.

4. The Chinese are crazy about the viewpoints. Take any tourist map: if the location of a belvedere is indicated, be sure that once you arrive at your destination you will receive a screaming and noisy crowd. If you combine this with the well-known laziness of the Chinese, the result is nothing short of unreal!

The crowd of people arrives at the lookout point with the convenient means available (gondolas, escalators, lifts or trains) and focuses only in that area. It is possible to see the crowd piled up in a single point, while the surrounding areas are completely deserted.

Take advantage of it: explore the site, find YOUR vantage point that, most of the time, far exceeds the one shown on the tourist maps.

In short, the advice that most we feel to give you is to get out of the box.

Try to create your own itinerary, try not to follow the steps indicated on the tourist boards: get away from the crowd and throw yourself!