Spring Festival (and the winter break for that matter) is just behind, which means it’s the busiest time of the year – traveling-wise. After all, pretty much all of China is shifting some way or another, going back to celebrate the holidays with their families, visiting friends and relatives, or simply taking advantage of having a couple days off work to travel.

Traveling season also means that those who venture into leaving the comfort of their homes to go on a journey, may be facing a series of obstacles.

Obstacle #1 | The Tickets
The problem with this one is: Officially, you can only start purchasing train tickets (the main means of transportation here) about 10 days before you mean to travel. But when the 10th day before the journey comes, and you run to the ticket center early in the morning, and get to be the first one after they open their doors to purchase a ticket, the answer still will be most likely: “Sorry, no more tickets available!” How that’s possible? Yeah, good question! But you can’t just go a day earlier, because then the reply will be: “Sorry, we don’t sell the tickets for that day, yet. Come back tomorrow!” See what I’m saying?

Obstacle #2 | The Taxis
Taxi drivers around Spring Festival are a peculiar thing. Not only are they usually not willing to turn on their meter (because they sure want to make that extra cash during the holidays), but if the place where you want to go is not on their list of places where they like to go, you’re pretty much screwed! So, the golden rule for this: Better not depend on taxis during Spring Festival.

Obstacle #3 | Crowds Everywhere
Now, that’s not usually an unusual thing in China. But it can turn into some serious trouble, when you need to get on a train, and the line of travelers trying just to get into the train station seems endless. It’s an even bigger problem, when you’re trying to get on a train that is so crowded, that there literally is no more room for one more person!

And of course, there’s lots of other obstacles as well. So, the wise traveler in China around Spring Festival is the one who knows how to deal with these problems.

I was smart in my own way, this year. Instead of taking the train, I took the bus (which is a little more expensive, but can get me to where I need to go with much less trouble). Also, instead of traveling when everyone else would do so, too, I waited, till most everyone was busy celebrating, right around the big holiday. And that gave me nearly empty buses, and a lot more leisure during my travels.