Travel in China isn't as hard as you may think: If you can manage Paris without speaking French, you can manage Beijing without Mandarin. Tens of thousands of visitors travel in China independently each year, making their arrangements as they go, with nothing more than a guidebook and a phrase book to help them. You can certainly arrange various levels of assistance, either upon arrival or from home, but you can also travel just as freely as you would elsewhere, perhaps using agents to get your tickets, and picking up the odd day tour.
But whether you plan to travel at random, with a preplanned, prebooked route, or with a fully escorted tour, it's vital that you read this chapter carefully. The way you're used to traveling, even in many other developing nations, doesn't apply in China. Much of the advice on travel in China is far from wise. What's good advice in the rest of the world can be the worst advice in China, and without absorbing what's below, some of the rest of this guide may seem inscrutable.
