Job Discussion Forums

[inwanzhou]

I was wondering if someone could compile a list of expat info sites. My roomie and I are planing a trip to various cities for the summer holidays and we want to see different areas of China but we are becoming frustrated by all the "travel" sites online. Maybe some expat sites might be a tad bit more helpful with places to stay, things to see, prices and so on and on and on Sorry my students say that a lot!

SO anything would be quite helpful

Ciao and thanx in advance

[Ferne]

inwanzhou, don't know if these might help but just check them out


http://www.expatsinchina.com/
http://www.lonelyplanet.com
http://www.chinanow.com/english/features/travel/archive.html

What I always did is to just pick a region or city on the map that might be interesting, and type it into google, e.g. "Ningbo city information".
Or just have a big survey among whatever foreigners are around you, sometimes you will find some real travel geeks who know just where to go, what to do there and where to stay.

[inwanzhou]

Much appreciated folks!!

Ferne, I would love to take a survey amongst the other foreigners in my city but alas there are a wopping 6 of us...that's it...so I must rely on the other expats in this country because every chinese person says that their home town is the best and number 1 town in the country...really not wanting to go to the "country side" for my holidays.

[Minhang Oz]

For Shanghai [party central young folks say ] try:

www.thatsmagazines.com and www.expatsh.com
Have serious fun,
Old Dude

[Changjiang]

Here's an expat newsletter/website in Kunming:

http://members.expatsinkunming.info/cgi-bin/quickregister/scripts/command.cgi?action=3

Although I appear to be an idiot and unable to make it work as a link.

[MyTurnNow]

Best info for expats is of course in the big cities, which have the largest expat communities. Duh.
Try Thats magazines online- http://www.thatsbeijing.com , http://www.thatsshanghai.com , or http://www.thatsguangzhou.com . Sometimes you can find regional info here too.

These cities also have a lot of free magazines for expats- try the bars, western restaurants, hotels, etc. for racks of them.

Once in a blue moon AsiaXpat comes up with something useful; more HK than the mainland and it also focuses on the biggest cities. I haven't been there in a long time, but I think the URL is just http://www.asiaxpat.com . CityGuide online can be good sometimes too but wont even guess at a URL. Try a Yahoo search.

For smaller cities it gets tougher. Some cities have a bit...for example, Suzhou has a site last time I looked at http://www.2500sz.com ; click the link that says "English". Many cities have nothing other than some lame tourism promo sites, if that.

For the real hinterlands there is about nothing. This site is your last best hope.

MT