China Travel Advice

Q: What would be a good central location in Xi'an to book a hotel? We are looking for a clean boutique type, with local charm (with in room toilet/shower)... More importantly, it is so hard to figure out a location without knowing the city. We will be flying in and out of Xi'an.

The city-wall of old Xian still stands today, which more or less marks the core of modern Xian. If you stay at a place inside the wall or close to it, you're in central Xian. The old wall is about 4.5 km in length east-west and measures about 3 km north-south. The center of this part of the city is the neighborhood around the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, which are at the intersection of main avenues in the city. The area is close to sites such as handicraft markets, Forest of Stone Steli, the Great Mosque, Muslim food street, main shopping avenues of the city, and an airport shuttle terminal. This probably gives you a rough idea where "central" Xian is and what it is like.

There are many hotels in Xian, but you may not be able to find a "boutique" hotel as they're known in the West. Nice hotels in Xian, as in other Chinese cities, tend to be new, large, and modern; really small ones may be lacking in terms of facility and service. But there are inexpensive and still decent hotels in Xian, which cost about 200-300 Chinese dollars (US$30-50) per night. Rooms in nicer hotels cost about $70-100.

Here are a few hotels in central Xian that do not cost a great deal.

Xian Hotel. One of the older hotels in Xian. Established in 1929, it used to the prime hotel in the city, serving some prominent people of its time. Now it is no longer as prominent as it was once upon a time as so many new hotels have been built in recent years, but it is a decent place with a history. About one km from Bell Tower. Rates $30-40.

Grand Mercure Xian on Renmin Square. About 1.5 km from Bell Tower. One of the older hotels in the city (established about 50 years ago - you can tell by the name of it in Chinese, "Renmin Dasha" or "People's Building"). Rates $30-70.

Guanzhong Hotel. Featuring traditional decor and furniture. About one km from Bell Tower. Rates $40-50.

Citadines Apart Hotel Xi'an Central. Located about half a km from Bell Tower. Is an apartment-type of hotel. Rates $60-70.

The Tang Dynasty Hotel. About one km or 10 minutes walk from Bell Tower. It features a nice historical theme (as the hotel's name indicates - the Tang dynasty used to be centered in the region), but it is actually a new hotel, opened a few years ago. Rates $40.

Grand Park Xian. Located outside the Southern Gate of the old city. Rates $80-90.

Bell Tower Hotel Xian. The hotel stands next to Bell Tower. Rates $70-150.

Just in case you want to know, there is a Super 8 hotel in central Xian. There is also a Rujia, which a Chinese economy hotel chain. The former is a few hundred yards from Bell Tower while the latter about one km from the tower. They're generally clean and decent and charge nightly rates of about $35.

As said earlier, there are many hotels in central Xian, and listed above are just a few examples, on the less expensive side. If you check into a hotel and don't quite like it, you can move to another later on if you come across one that you do like, that is, of course, that you have more than one day to spend in Xian.