Traveling China in Hostels, Hotels, or Apartments
Over the years, I have lived in every imaginable way in China.
When I began to travel to China in 2012, I lived in relative’s houses. Then as a student in Jinan university in Guangzhou, I had my own apartment for two years. In the holidays, I traveled to all the major provinces in China living in hotels or as a guest in friend’s apartments.
Recently I changed habits to hop between hostels as well as move into apartments that friends vacate when they go on business trips.
Living Overseas In Apartments
I am appreciative that I can live in other people’s houses. It feels much more comfortable when I have my own house, and come out holding my own keys.
Living Overseas In Hotels
I favor hotels on short trips to other provinces, or to holiday destinations.
When I climb Emei mountain (峨眉山), I would rather rent the creature comforts of a private hotel to wind down.
When I holidayed in Dalian (大连) for a few weeks however, it sometimes became taboo to mention, “I live in a hotel,” to new friends whose stereotypical reactions to connect “hotel” with “deviancy (色)” displayed their conservative (保守) values.
Living Overseas In Hostels
On the contrary, living in Dengba hostel (登巴客栈) makes me feel like I am an explorer. Every day I get out of the hostel, and every day is going to be a different experience.
Dengba hostel (登巴客栈) has like-minded travelers from overseas as well as mainland China that you can meet on your adventures. There is a sense of travel, and I never felt like I was at home.
You lose that sense of adventure once you become more grounded by living in a home.
Advice To Travelers Living Overseas
That is the advice I would like to give travelers who come to China for travel, study, or teaching purposes.
If you ever want to travel around China, then live in hostels. If you want to party up, then live in a hotel. If you want to feel grounded, to settle down, and not travel too much, then invest in your own rental property, or live short-term in someone else’s house.
In either case, never spend too much time indoors, as all the fun happens once you step outside to experience all that China has to offer.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
