Tourist Information
Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
- ISBN13: 9780470526583
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
- Our expert authors, longtime residents in and frequent travelers to China, share their candid opinions on what’s worth your time and what’s?not.
- Frommer’s China takes you from the Great Wall, to the terracotta warriors of Xi’an; from hidden Buddhist caves along the Silk Road to mystical mountains in the East. Plus, you’ll have everything you need to enjoy a cosmopolitan adventure in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
- Learn strategies for when to travel independently and when to travel with a tour group. Our extensive transportation information and author recommendations help get you off the beaten path.
- Detailed maps have Chinese characters, pinyin spelling, and English;?supplemental chapters list translations of hotels, restaurants, and points of interest.
- Extensive and invaluable supplemental language and dining chapters help make sense of Mandarin for the traveler. Plus, useful Chinese characters throughout the book?make navigating the country easier.
Rating: 
(out of 16 reviews)
List Price: $ 25.99
Price: $ 14.90
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#2 written by CC 1 year ago
Review by CC for Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
Rating:
I just returned from a solo trip through China and the Frommer’s Guide was an excellent reference for both planning the trip before I left and for exploring the areas while I was there. The information provided in the beginning of the book (“Best of China” “Planning your trip..”) helped me to focus in on what I wanted to see and how I could best do that, while the city sections provided a wealth of useful information on neighborhoods, orientation, and fast facts for the area. The bi-lingual listing of accomodations, attractions, etc. came in handy several times with taxi drivers and helpful citizens (I tore pages out of my book at each city visited to travel lightly. I especially enjoyed (and used) the highlighted sidebars (i.e. “A Great Hike on the Great Wall” “To Cruise or not to Cruise”) as these messages were especially timely in light of what is happening now with China’s rapid development. These sections, and most of the information in general, I found to be objective and true descriptions of what I encountered in China. The book, of course, was one of several tools (including internet postings, site reviews, transportation schedules, reading other books, learning a few Mandarin phrases, etc.) that helped to create a successful trip full of wonderful memories; however, after doing lots of note taking and reading from the other sources, it was an easy choice to make Frommer’s the only book that made the cut as part of my carry-on. I was never disappointed and I’d recommended it to other travelers…Happy Journeys : ) -
#3 written by Anonymous 1 year ago
Review by for Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
Rating:
My copy of this title has the Chinese in large, useful characters right next to the maps. Only if there’s no map for a small town is the Chinese listed in the back, with the information for each town handily grouped together in alphabetical order.And like every other guide book, the map for a town is in the middle of the text talking about that town. So what’s hard to find? The hotels and places to see are right next to the map in most cases. And since the towns only have one map, what’s to guess about which maps things are on?I don’t know about the Beijing and Shanghai guides, but of course there will be a lot of repeated information. The sights don’t change, after all. The best place to eat is the same. Bus 47 still runs the same route. Of course lots of the information is the same. What do you expect?But what I do agree on is that this books is waaaaay more accurate than any other I looked at. I’m no fan of the usual schmaltzy Frommer’s style, but this book really tells it like it is. It has the most extensive, detailed and accurate practical information of any guide I’ve seen, including the do-it-yourself budget guides.And while we’re on the topic of Chinese, note that for every recommended restaurant there are recommended dishes, and the characters for them are given so you can just point to them to order. There’s also a good long list of Chinese favourites you can buy anywhere.And while the major destinations are covered, this guide also scores with some remote rural destinations I’ve not seen covered anywhere else, including LP. Even if you don’t want to go there, it’s fascinating to read about the real China away from the regular tourist routes.You know, the first thing you want to check out when you buy a guide is the author biogs. Most of the writers on this guide speak Chinese and have lived in China. It really shows. All the LP and Rough guide readers were borrowing my copy all the time and making notes. -
#4 written by P. Callaway 1 year ago
Review by P. Callaway for Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
Rating:
We just took a trip to China, and brought this book as our primary guide. In the store it looked like the best of the bunch, full of details, lots of info to help us find a hotel and get prepped for the trip, but once we got there it was not useful at all.Our biggest problem was the lack of Chinese characters for any of the places. We took taxis most places, and they would look at the pinyin (romanized) names and addresses in the descriptions section and either not understand or flat out refuse to take us. It was VERY FRUSTRATING not having the Chinese characters, and not having the Chinese addresses. We later realized that the characters for the names were on the map pages, however not all places were on the map, and the full addresses and Chinese street names weren’t listed, so it still wasn’t what we needed. Not only that but the maps were hard to find, as they were buried in the middle of the descriptions and we kept flipping past them. Even after I’d dog-eared them.
Secondly, once we got out of Beijing, most of the information was way out of date, or flat out wrong! For instance, we went to Kunming, and the first restaurant we tried to go to wasn’t there anymore, and the other restaurant had the wrong address! Fortunately our taxi driver figured out it was talking about a vegetarian restaurant that was nearby. At that point I was extremely glad we had a Chinese speaker with us! Otherwise we would have never found it. Not only that, but when we tried to go to the Stone Forest, it recommended to take the train, but the train they mention apparently doesn’t run anymore, and the ticket-seller told us that the other train (later in the day) was a really bad option, very slow, and that we should take the bus. We ended up hiring a car for the day.
The only thing we ended up using (successfully) from our trip to Kunming was the location of the internet cafe. It was China Telcom, and so not likely to change, and even so the only reason we found it was because it was near the post office, which (unlike the cafe) was listed on the map.
It’s also worth noting that the hotel we stayed at in Beijing, which was absolutley wonderful, the guide said wasn’t worth our money. Fortunately we had our friend to go scope out nice places ahead of time for us (we wanted something really nice, as it was our anniversary), and after looking at about six places, she decided the Grand Hotel Beijing, with a view of the Forbidden City, was the nicest, even though the guide didn’t recommend it. That and the St. Regis, whose location wasn’t as good for being a tourist. It turned out our hotel was one of “the” hotels to stay at in Beijing, and got all kinds of positive comments from her Chinese friends. Go figure.
All in all I was very dissapointed with this guide. We got sick of being led to places that either didn’t exist or had the wrong address listed, and after a while our friend who spoke Chinese refused to even use it, and we went and found a local travel agency everywhere we went. I don’t know what we would have done if she hadn’t been there, since hardly anyone in Kunming spoke good English.
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#5 written by Jordan Reiter 1 year ago
Review by Jordan Reiter for Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
Rating:
To begin with, readers should know that this guide was severly pared down, which explains why there are so few budget hotels and budget restaurants listed. Many section writers knew plenty of cheaper hotels and restaurants, but due to space limitations the decision was made by the publisher to list only the upper-level accomodations. This is partly because Frommer’s really isn’t geared towards the budget traveller.The Beijing section is excellent, and you should go with their recommendation of staying at the Far East International Hostel, or the hotel across from it.
I am suprised by the review that felt that the authors had never been to China. In fact, all of the authors were actually foreign residents of China. While this means that they have a more intimate understanding of their region, it often means that they are less focused on the area as a travelling destination, which may explain why they don’t go into the kinds of historical and cultural detail that a travel writer (who is experiencing the city differently) might.
Also, it means that much of the recommendations for certain sections of the book are not at all written from a traveller’s perspective. In particular, the section on Chengdu focuses nearly all of its restaurants in the middle-south of the city. After hearing locations described in terms of their proximity to the US Consulate three times, it certainly makes me suspect that the writer of the section spent a long time there. In fact, 7 of 12 of the restaurants were located no more than half a mile from the consulate. Good luck finding a description of many places to eat within a 30 minute walk of the fairly popular Dragon Town Hostel (which, although offering pretty good accomodation, was not mentioned at all in the guide) located slightly northwest of center.
As other reviewers have noted, the section on Shanghai is pretty worthless. Even the editor of the book will tell you this. Against his recommendation, the publisher cobbled on a highly shortened version of the already out-of-date Frommer’s Shanghai into the Shanghai section of the book. It is out of date and not all that helpful as a guide.
For those who travel to a new place just to try the food, you’ll love this book. It has an entire section in the back listing common dishes, dishes unique to featured restaurants, and specialities. The listing includes Chinese characters and pinyin.
If your travel plans include Beijing, this book is a must. If you’re going only to Shanghai, choose any other book.
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Review by Anna Howard for Frommer’s China (Frommer’s Complete)
Rating:
I took Frommer’s China 1st Edition on a brief visit to China 4 weeks ago. As time was short, I needed all the help I could get to see as much as possible.
The Southeast section was accurate, clear and entertaining. I travelled easily from Xiamen up the coast, seeing recommended areas on the way to Shanghai. Peter Neville-Hadley’s directions were detailed and spot-on in every area.
However, the Shangai section was a disappointment. I wasted a lot of valuable time trying to find sites. Directions such as ‘walk a few blocks southwest of the Bund’ are useless. Street names, please, with the nearest metro station indicated, not vague red dots stuck on an out-of-date map. My conclusion was that the writer of this section had no knowledge of Chinese and had not been in Shanghai for many years.
Looking through other sections which covered areas I had visited on previous visits suggest that the other chapters are as accurate as the southeast section. So use this book, but cut out the Shanghai section before you leave home.