I wanted a spectacular destination for our 30th anniversary, so the Great Wall it was.

We decided to get to the Wall by taking advantage of a discount tour which included 8 days in 4 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, all flights, transportation, 4-star hotels, and quite a few meals. Seemed to good to be true for $499 (since gone down to $399). We’ve never tried a group tour, but with those prices we had to give it a go.

While no one can argue with the value of the experience, be aware there is a price you’ll pay in other ways.

  1. Freedom. Kiss this good-bye. There was only one day we were able to squeak out some independence to hit the subway to explore Beijing on our own. Other days, try as we might, the schedules were always such that we were leaving to a new location at the end of the day or it was hugely impractical to get out of the tour schedule.
  2. Lots of factory tours. Truth is you don’t see any of the actual factories, but showrooms and stores that may have a tiny display on how these things are made somewhere in real factories somewhere else. I’d read about these online and dreaded them. Turns out that even though we bought nothing, the sales pitches were usually entertaining and informative. Learned a lot about fresh water pearls, silk, green tea, jade, and how $350 of herbal medicine can fix any man, including his attitude.
  3. A tolerance for your fellow traveler and all their opinions, life stories, and grandchildren’s life stories. There’s no escaping your travel buddy’s big personalities.
  4. Patience. You’re always working on someone else’s timeline. There’s a lot of waiting around for tardy people, lots of time on buses, for others to use the restroom, lots of waiting. It’s like being on a class trip, but for a week.
  5. Being part of a herd. There’s no denying it, and get over not being cool. You are a cow for the week, embrace it and say moo.

 

So you want to go anyway. That’s cool. Here are the upsides of a cheap tour to China.

  1. Price. Flight was great, hotels were actually four-star, breakfast buffets were often spectacular. Lazy Susan lunches at the factory tours put rice and misc veggies in your belly, and two bottles of beer to split 10 ways. You can’t beat all of that for 8 days for the price.
  2. You do meet people. We met a guy from Dallas and hung out with him the whole week. This fascinating guy has been to some remote places collecting art. The crazy travel stories he told us were more interesting than most of the trip.
  3. No-brainer traveling. You worry about none of the logistics. You just float around in the tour stream in the tour tube they provided. Yes you’re tied together with a rope and have no freedom, but you also don’t need to worry about where you’ll stay, how you’ll get around, what you’ll eat, when you’ll pee. You just shut-up and follow the flag.
  4. See #1
  5. See #4