Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chinese New Year at Chaoyang Park is festive, but very crowded.
Besides the extreme periods of midwinter and midsummer, the other times to consider
avoiding for your visit include the two major annual holidays: the Spring Festival, or
Chinese New Year, which usually happens around the end of January or early February,
and the October National holiday, beginning October 1. The advantage of Spring Festival,
however, is that a third of the city departs for individual hometowns around the country,
and the chronic traffic issues miraculously disappear. The downside is that many venues are
closed and traveling outside of Beijing is expensive and tickets are hard to book.
If you're planning to visit schools for your children, check ahead with each individual
school to see when it is closed throughout the year. Major holidays occur in winter and sum-
mer, and they will also be affected by the Chinese national holidays, Easter, and various
other cultural holidays.
If you're coming to Beijing specifically to search for work, the time you really want to
avoid is between Christmas and the 15-day Spring Festival. The city all but goes into hi-
bernation during this period, and many employers are either out of town or thinking about
being out of town. Decisions are put on hold, and potential new jobs are shelved. It's also
the time that many locals, after having received their end-of-year bonus at Chinese New
