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A foreigner friendly budget hotel in Beijing

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I had a trip to Beijing about two weeks’ ago and stayed at a hotel called TravelerInn Huaqiao Hotel (旅居北京华侨饭店) that might has the same density of foreigners as other 5 stars Beijing Hotels.

This hotel is located northeast corner of the Second Ring Rd. in Beijing. It is 10 minutes walk from Beixinqiao Subway Station on Line 5 or 13 mintues walk to Lama Temple Subway Station on Line 2. During our stay in the hotel, I saw more foreigners than Chinese and was pretty sure it was FULL. Why it is so popular?

Well, designed Liang Sicheng, one of the best Chinese architect in 1950s, it offers a very different feel than other modern hotels you will stay in the cities. First of all, it is in hutong area. You will have to walk through a narrow lane (a.k.a hutong) before you see the well decorated hotel surrounded by old houses. The walk offers you some real images of lives of Beijing people. Second, the whole building is in Chinese style, from the yard/garden to the overall color. I enjoy the lobby design a lot: red and green in harmony. Third, if you pay attention, you will notice there are some very important neighbers. China Red Cross HQ is on one head of the hutong, the home of a General who was an important character in the wars around 1930s is next to the hotel.

The people in front desk can communicate in English very well. And I aslo see tours from Europ so I guess CS can speak more than one foreign languages. As we checked in at 8am, earlier than usual, they didn’t have the room I booked, they gave us a free upgrade from Dulex Room to a HUGE Suite for RMB 498/night. This was the biggest bonus at this stay. The interior of the room is pretty the same as regular budget hotels. The last renovation was in Sep. 2007, everything looks fine. Recommended for: family vacation and budget travelers. See more images here.

I stumbled to some Zurich Hotels from easytobook.com as I am curious about the hotel rates in European cities. The webiste is user friendly, its design looks good. But the best price is EUD 83/night for a single room in a 2 stars hotel in a entertainment district in Zurich, Switzerland. Hmm. pretty expensive. Maybe Switzerland is the last country in Europ to visit if you have a very limited budget. Soccer fans have suffered from not able to get visas to see the recent Europ Cup recently.

Hotels in Hong Kong? Carlton Hotel Hong Kong is amazingly attractive to people who want budget trips: only EUR 27/night in Tsim Sha Tsui. Want to check out next time I am Hong Kong.