China's Small Towns/Villages

[stefaspen]

My husband and I are travelling through China in November and are looking for recommendations of small towns/villages to visit and stay for 1-2 nights. Specifically, we have 2 nights in between Beijing and Shanghai and 2-3 nights in between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Since we are getting so much of the 'city experience' we'd love charming traditional spots with (hopefully) great accommodations. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give!

[claassenam]

I hope that somebody can help you out stepaspen. I'm afraid that based on my experience in China a couple years ago I don't have much hope that you are going to find the combination of charming traditional little town coupled with great accomodations in China. In a few years, maybe (and hopefully I am incorrectly cynical) but the two statements seem to be mutually exclusive. Even in the larger cities outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong such as Chengdu and larger tourist spots such as Xian the "nicest" hotels are the large business-y Sheratons and Novotels and they are sub-par compared to those worldwide.

I think your goal of visiting the charming smaller towns is an excellent one, and I am sure that you will find decent (and hopefully equally charming) accomodations I just think you should lower your expectations regarding service and quality when staying in those smaller towns. You should also be paying a much lower price to go along with it, so it is not necessarily a bad thing!

Like I said I hope I am completely wrong. I'd love to hear your experiences in November and perhaps you will have some great recommendations for my next trip to China when I too hope to visit some of the smaller, less-touristed areas.

I do recommend Tripadvisor for hotel reviews, they are pretty comprehensive. In regards to what you are looking for, you may simply want to click on the names of all of the individual towns in China, find a smaller hotel with good reviews that may fit the bill, and then figure out if that is a town you can travel to between the major cities. I just did that to do a little research and it seems that there may be a couple hidden gems amongst all of the sub-par Sheratons and Hiltons.

[stefaspen]

Thanks for your response! I should have phrased that a bit differently - we are less concerned with the hotel than we are with finding the small amazing villages. I am a photographer so I really want to find gorgeous little spots off the beaten path. I've also read about some great hikes you can do in different areas that have hotels on top?! Ring a bell with anyone out there?

[kyshel]

Oh, I hope you've seen the new issue of Conde Nast Traveler!
They have marvelous little off-the-beaten-path places for nearly-every-country-in-Asia-you-could-possibly-want-to-see!!
I don't always dig into an issue, but this was just awesome!

[stefaspen]

Great! Thanks for the tip, I'll go get it today!

[maylinglai1]

Oh sorry, I see you posted again. I replied to your other posting. If you are in Shanghai, stay in Shanghai and visit the 4 villages outside of Shanghai. I think there are extensive details on how you get to them on this website guide primarily for ex-pats:
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai