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St Francis |
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Flying Trip China
July 9 to 20, 2026
About the Trip
Our plans for 2026 were to head up to the Red Sea in January, arriving in the Med about May, and enjoying the Med for a few months before heading home for a break.
Between our own boat issues, which delayed our departure into April, and the wind had started to turn, and Trump's ill-fated 5-day war on Iran and the ensuing fuel shortages, we didn't make it. (though, the boats that DID go, made it fine to the Med and to South Africa).
We ended up doing a 2-month cruise up into Thailand, where we explored the muddy but interesting Phang Na Bay, and later, a bit more of Langkawi. It was definitely not "the season" to be cruising Thailand, but we made the best of it.
In late May, we made the decision to head back to Pangkor Marina, do some more work on the boat, and do some traveling in nearby countries. China was first on our list.
The Visa Issue
The biggest barrier to going to China is, as an American, you have to get a visa in your passport. Dave has always been worried that, with his military background, that would be difficult. And, it's a 5 hour bus ride to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysa, to apply for a Chinese visa, then another round trip to KL to pick up our passports once the visa is granted.
Then, some American friends of ours were posting on Facebook with pictures of their trip to Beijing! We asked them about the visa process, and they told us about the Transit Without Visa option (TWOV).
The TWOV encourages tourism by allowing citizens of certain countries to stop over in China for 10 days without a visa. But they must be "in transit". For us, that only meant we had to fly out of China to a different country than we flew in from, and, we could only stay 10 days.
Next hurdle, was... where to go and what to do. Of course when you start googling, all of a sudden interesting information starts being shown to you by Google and Facebook.
Though we normally do all our travel arrangements on our own, China was a bit daunting. Friends in the marina highly recommended a guy in the UK who had done a bunch of travel arrangements for them (Chris at TravelNation). We also contacted an online "tours available" company, and used their day-by-day itinerary to base our initial plans on.
Our contact at Travel Nation was
Chris West:
+44 01273 320570
chris@travelnation.co.uk
We made our coming and going airplane reservations ourselves, and Chris handled all the rest of the arrangements from when we were actually in China… hotels, transportation, guides. We flew into Shanghai and then visited Zhangjiajie, Xi’an, and Beijing, flying out within the 240 "visa free transit" window.
There was another place we wanted to visit, and was initially in the plan, but the schedule was just too tight for our 10-day visit, so we skipped it. (Guilin, for panda bears).
Americans CAN get Chinese visas for a longer stay, but in the short time we had to plan this trip, it just wasn’t feasible.
We THOROUGHLY enjoyed our China Trip. Where we stayed and what we did (and a bunch of notes we made when planning, and then after the fact for your benefit) are in the two attached documents. Also a cost estimate. We went with another couple, so were able to spread the "private guide" cost across 4 people.
I'll try to get post a map of where we went and some pictures later.
Our China Itinerary July 9-20, 2026
We were VERY impressed with China. Similar to our visit to Vietnam, not at all what we expected.
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