Visa for China - How many nights to be booked ?

I have a stupid question regarding the cancellation.
Is it possible for all the places and for all the nights on booking or on similar website ?
Or you use always booking because it's more easy than with another one ?
And for free...

Michel

I always use booking.com. But you have to take care when booking a certain hotel it says the cancellation is for free. In most cases it is free but not always. So watch out for it.

Thanks. I will check carefully...

Michel

Have a good travel in Yunnan Michel. It's a beautiful province. I myself travelled there last October (after been there two times before).

My first visa was for 60 days and I had to supply a full itinerary. Had us going all over China but in large blocks to make it easier. We only went to the SW, entering from Los and exiting into Vietnam. I then copy and pasted it onto a sheet with a travel agents header.

Old-style travelling doesn't work too well in China these days. There are hotels everywhere, but many don't accept foreign guests. You can waste a lot of frustrating time looking for a place that will take you.

Try to book by phone -- if you can even get a phone number -- and you'll probably encounter a language problem.

In short, on-line booking while not perfect makes travel in China quite a bit easier and less stressful.

Just to add to the post above: occasionally, even after having booked on-line, you will strike a hotel that, theoretically, won't take foreigners (Or, at least, one where the staff don't know what to do about accepting foreigner guests). I've encountered this on a couple of occasions in the last year or so and although it ended up not being a problem (I speak Mandarin) for one of these instances I had booking.com ringing me up and sending me messages apologizing and making alternative arrangements (That I, obviously, didn't use).

If you want to lessen the potential of this happening to you, don't book very cheap hotels. Both of the incidents that come to mind happened in branches of chain hotels (1 a Hanting, the other a 7 Days). If you go up-market a bit you'll be less likely to have a problem.

That said: Yunnan (Kunming/Lijiang/Dali in particular) has lots of International Youth Hostels. You'll not have a problem if you want to stay in any of them.

And on booking.com and Agoda, read the notes carefully, especially booking.com. Both list no-foreigner hotels on their English sites, with a warning note placed somewhere.

Supposedly ctrip and elong only list foreigner-friendly places on their English sites. But like I said, it is not perfect.

And regardless what you read in the papers 30 years ago about China opening up, the situation has in fact gotten worse in the past few years.

I think I will split my trip in 4 or 5 places and book by blocks.
No backpackers places but more upmarket options and cancel after.
Thanks.

Michel

I understand your point of view but I don't know, in advance, where I will go.
As I will travel at day time, step by step, I'm not too stressful about finding an accommodation there but I will buy a "new" guidebook with some names inside it.
Until know, I have the chapter of the Rough Southwest China and the Bradt one.
Thanks.

Michel