The People’s Republic of China is one of the largest countries in the world and it has a culture that can hardly be compared to the culture most of us live in. It could not have been more of a culture shock when we arrived in China, but nevertheless, we started appreciating it more and more each day of our stay. Even though the language has no similarities with any languages we know, we managed to get around on our own by using pre-printed sentences to show to people and guess what… it worked! We used trains to travel around the country and created a guide to train travel in China in order to help other travelers get around.

Our itinerary started in Beijing, from where we traveled north to the city of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia in order to stay in a yurt on the grasslands: one of the highlights of our stay in China.

After the peace and quiet of the grasslands, we flew to Hong Kong to start our journey back over land. We mostly visited large cities like Shanghai, Xi-An, and Yichang.

In Xi-An, we visited the Terracotta Warrior site and in Yichang, we went to check out the largest dam in the world: Three Gorges Dam. At the site of the three gorges dam, we also traveled through the largest ship lock in the world. Yes, China has a thing with large stuff!

Another highlight of our trip was our visit to the small mountain town of Yangshuo, where we had the opportunity to cycle through the amazing mountains before getting in an old school boat and travel through these magnificent mountains by boat.

For LGBT travelers, check our guide to LGBT laws and travel in China.