Beijing is the second leg of our adventure. After staying in El Nido, Palawan for 28 days (and a day in Puerto Princesa City), we flew back straight to Manila to spend Holy Week with the family and flew out to Beijing on the night of April 26.
This might be one of the most expensive part of the leg because we only spent four days and three nights in this awesome city and yet paid for tours and entrance tickets everyday to different tourist spots that we wanted to see.
Here’s a summary of how much I spent in Beijing.
| Pesos | Yuan | USD | |
| Taxi to Airport from Home (Manila) | 290 | ||
| Snacks at the Airport | 135 | ||
| Terminal Fee | 750 | ||
| Airport Travel Tax | 1620 | ||
| Cebu Pacific Ticket MNL-BJS | 938 | ||
| Baggage Reinstatement | 400 | ||
| Total for Manila Expense | 4133 | 96.27 | |
| Bus to City Center (Beijing) | 16 | ||
| Van from Xidan to Hostel | 30 | ||
| Hostel Dorm for 4D/3N (Paid for 4N) | 120 | ||
| Food and Drinks | 100 | ||
| Tour Activities | |||
| Summer Palace plus Guide Map | 40 | ||
| Yuyuantan Park | 10 | ||
| Beijing Zoo | 20 | ||
| Great Wall | 230 | ||
| Bus/Subway/Rickshaw | 28 | ||
| Beijing City Map | 2 | ||
| Train Ticket to Nanning | 276 | ||
| Bus to Hanoi | 148 | ||
| Total for China Expense | 1020 | 157.07 | |
| Overall Total | 10,864.26 | 253.34 |
The exchange rate at XE.com as of the time of writing is Php42.93 and 6.49 Yuan for $1.
The plane ticket is ridioculously cheap, thanks to Cebu Pacific promotion last New Year. This ticket was booked though almost four months in advance.
There are still a lot of opportunities to save money like sleeping at the airport instead of travelling in the wee hours of the morning. That act alone cost 60 Yuan per person (30 for the Van and 30 for the hostel).
Transportation was never that expensive. We only paid 1 Yuan per person for a bus ride and 2 Yuan per person for subway (regardless of distance).
Food is cheap except if you eat at restaurants. We only ate at snack houses that serves noodles and we bought a lot of food supplies from the supermarket. 4 liters of water cost only 6.6 Yuan per bottle and it saved us a lot of money instead of buying small bottles. I was thinking of having our bottles refilled instead to save more but unfortunately I didn’t see any water refill station.
The price of the tours though are non-negotiable. So we always opted for the cheapest one. for the tourist attractions within the city center, we didn’t book our tour thru our hostel nor any travel agencies but instead did it our own.
Bear in mind that this expense list also include the transportation from Beijing to Hanoi which cost 404 Yuan which constitutes the bulk of the cost. This also accounts the expense in flying out from Manila which already ate up almost $100 of my budget.
Overall I could say that travelling in Beijing is really affordable for budget travellers like me.
“Travelling does not need to be expensive.”
wow so it was like 10k pesos plus airfare. I was expecting a range between 15k at least plus airfare for Beijing. This is within my Beijing budget that I’m planning for (including na ren pala ung expensive travel tax)…thanks again for this Flip. Ur like “Rocky” in coming up with cheap travel tips hehe
you’re welcome Marky… make sure you get a promo ticket from Cebu Pac
wow! nice nice summary of expenses. i like to see more of this pre to give me an idea on where to go next.. haha
thanks to cebupac promo fares
more to come, naka scheduled posts na sa wordpress… and i agree thanks to low cost carriers’ promo fares
kahit minsan bad trip ako sa cebu pacific. salamat talaga sa kanila, traveling is now affordable!
haha ako rin for some reason budget airlines dont have the best customer service pero kasi sobrang mura ng flights nila, so captured market pa rin nila tayo
hello there!
i’m planning to go the same route: Beijing-Hanoi!
i’d like to ask about your experience during the Beijing-Nanning train ride (did u take train T5?).
Im a solo female traveler, NEVER been on a train for more than 8 hours so I don’t know if i could survive 28 hours on a seat. (Your RMB 276 ticket was a hard seat right?) the hard sleeper cost RMB483 and it’s too much for me.
I also saw that u have no expenses in Nanning. Where did u sleep before getting the morning bus to Hanoi?
Did you blog about this beijing-hanoi trip somewhere? if u’re too lazy to reply a link will suffice
thanks a lot mate!
hi, yes i blogged about this trip; http://flipnomad.com/2011/06/how-travel-overland-from-beijing-hanoi/
we didn’t go to a hotel in Nanning and just waited at the train station until the shops opened in the morning, the ticket cost was for a hard seat
hello, you haven’t seem to include the Hotel expenses. May I ask how much is the cheapest hotel in beijing?
kahit ung range lang,hehe
hi, i think there are less than $10 rooms especially during low season… you can check out agoda or other hotel booking engines for the updated prices…