Travelling in China, you will probably face the problem of exchanging money. Below I will give you some tips about this problem.

We had no problems exchanging money in all the big hotels that we stayed in. Some of the travel books will tell you to go to the official banks to get a better rate, but there didn’t seem to be enough of a difference to make us want to 1) find the banks, 2) find out the operating hours, 3) venture in there and hope that we found someone that spoke English (once you get out of the big American hotels it can be very difficult finding someone who speaks English).If you travel to China, take note of the basic problem.

Also, be sure to get some of the small bills/coins (China has tiny paper bills that are worth about 1 cent). There are plenty of things that are very inexpensive, and people/vendors are not always able to change big bills. (I’m talking here about bills the equivalent of our $5 and $10 – they are too big in many cases).

As far as prices in China, things are less expensive there than here. Taxis are very, very inexpensive. Guided China tours are about half what you would expect to pay most anyplace else. Hotels (Sheratons, Hyatts, etc.) are also about one half of what you would pay here. Restaurants are very reasonable. We were able to get some good prices on some gold jewelry; but jade was very expensive.