For our
vacation to Hainan last week, our local travel agent booked us on a tour group package. Following a tour group has some advantages and disadvantages. The good: cheap transportation and lodging with no need to make decisions on where to go. The bad: trips are not exactly relaxing as you are on a break-neck schedule to see all the sights. The ugly: the food stinks beyond belief.
For transportation and lodging, our tour package was a pretty good deal. We paid 5000rmb total for 2 adults, 1 kid and 1 baby. Before signing up for the tour, I looked at booking the details ourselves:
- Roundtrip plane tickets from Guangzhou to Hainan: 1000rmb adult, 800rmb child, 200rmb baby = 3000rmb
- Roundtrip bus fare from Taishan to Guangzhou: 150rmb/seat = 450rmb
- Lodgings: 3 nights at 500rmb/night = 1500rmb
- Transportation on Hainan: 300rmb/day for taxis & buses to go from site to site = 900rmb
To reproduce this same travel path, it's roughly 1000rmb cheaper to follow a tour group than doing-it-yourself.
Our package did not include admission fees into any of the sights on
the schedule. While on the bus headed to our first destination, our
tour guide said costs not covered by our package was 380rmb per adult
(children free) for all three days -- and he was upfront about saying
the bit extra we paid here was how he earned his salary. This brought our unofficial package costs up to 5760rmb.
While on vacation, we probably spent another 250rmb per day on food, drinks and souvenirs. Obviously, the costs are much higher in tourist traps. Everywhere you walk, somebody is offering to take a picture of you for 10rmb. Hold a sea turtle for 10rmb. Hold a tiger cub for 30rmb. Wear native costume jewelry for 10rmb. Food & drink for 3X the price. We tried our best to avoid the majority of tourist spending but sometimes you have no choice when you've walked all day and are thirsty. Or you want to try the native foods and drinks that you know you can't get back home.
As a side note, Hainan is a very prosperous island. City streets are wide and clean, many buildings are either new or freshly painted, new houses are everywhere in the countryside with gleaming stainless steel doors, 4-star and 5-star resort/spa hotels, high speed rail construction to span the entire island. All from tourist money since the only other industry in Hainan is agricultural (peppers, coconuts, mangos, durian and other tropical fruits). If you want to retire in China but you still want all the creature comforts of the developed world, Hainan is a good bet. Housing is more expensive than Taishan at 6000rmb/sq meter but that means you would accept smaller living quarters in exchange for a Hawaii-like lifestyle.
In total, our Hainan vacation was about 6500rmb or just a bit less than $1000 USD. Next time though, we will rent a minivan and drive there. Even though it's a 6 hour drive (plus 1 hour ferry ride), it's not that much longer than a plane trip when you factor in the 2.5 hour drive to Guangzhou Bayou Airport and the typical airport wait. That will greatly reduce the travel costs but inversely increase the lodging costs as we'll want to stay in a nice place with pool, hottub, spa within walking distance to a local town for dining and shopping.
The biggest advantage though for driving is we'll actually be able to relax on vacation. Our tour group visited 8 different places -- and at each site, we had to drag 2 kids along. Luckily, we brought our stroller with us (we can push both kids along if the 2-year old sits on the 4-year old's lap) so that helped a little. But there was still a lot of walking at each location trying to see and photograph everything. By the last day, we spent a lot time sitting around waiting for the tour bus to leave for the next stop. And after returning home, we spent 2 days recuperating from the vacation.
To close this entry, I will leave you with a few photos of Hainan: WuZhiZhou Island, Nanshan, Tianya Rainforest Museum, BingLangGu
(Filed in spending)
Tour group vacations
Posted by Mossy
March 9, 2010 8:37 AM
For transportation and lodging, our tour package was a pretty good deal. We paid 5000rmb total for 2 adults, 1 kid and 1 baby. Before signing up for the tour, I looked at booking the details ourselves:
- Roundtrip plane tickets from Guangzhou to Hainan: 1000rmb adult, 800rmb child, 200rmb baby = 3000rmb
- Roundtrip bus fare from Taishan to Guangzhou: 150rmb/seat = 450rmb
- Lodgings: 3 nights at 500rmb/night = 1500rmb
- Transportation on Hainan: 300rmb/day for taxis & buses to go from site to site = 900rmb
To reproduce this same travel path, it's roughly 1000rmb cheaper to follow a tour group than doing-it-yourself.Our package did not include admission fees into any of the sights on the schedule. While on the bus headed to our first destination, our tour guide said costs not covered by our package was 380rmb per adult (children free) for all three days -- and he was upfront about saying the bit extra we paid here was how he earned his salary. This brought our unofficial package costs up to 5760rmb.
While on vacation, we probably spent another 250rmb per day on food, drinks and souvenirs. Obviously, the costs are much higher in tourist traps. Everywhere you walk, somebody is offering to take a picture of you for 10rmb. Hold a sea turtle for 10rmb. Hold a tiger cub for 30rmb. Wear native costume jewelry for 10rmb. Food & drink for 3X the price. We tried our best to avoid the majority of tourist spending but sometimes you have no choice when you've walked all day and are thirsty. Or you want to try the native foods and drinks that you know you can't get back home.
In total, our Hainan vacation was about 6500rmb or just a bit less than $1000 USD. Next time though, we will rent a minivan and drive there. Even though it's a 6 hour drive (plus 1 hour ferry ride), it's not that much longer than a plane trip when you factor in the 2.5 hour drive to Guangzhou Bayou Airport and the typical airport wait. That will greatly reduce the travel costs but inversely increase the lodging costs as we'll want to stay in a nice place with pool, hottub, spa within walking distance to a local town for dining and shopping.
The biggest advantage though for driving is we'll actually be able to relax on vacation. Our tour group visited 8 different places -- and at each site, we had to drag 2 kids along. Luckily, we brought our stroller with us (we can push both kids along if the 2-year old sits on the 4-year old's lap) so that helped a little. But there was still a lot of walking at each location trying to see and photograph everything. By the last day, we spent a lot time sitting around waiting for the tour bus to leave for the next stop. And after returning home, we spent 2 days recuperating from the vacation.
To close this entry, I will leave you with a few photos of Hainan: WuZhiZhou Island, Nanshan, Tianya Rainforest Museum, BingLangGu
(Filed in spending)
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