What is YiLongWei.com?
This web site is created for those who wish to visit China on a limited budget (sometimes called "the backpackers")..
YiLongWei is pronounced as: "Yi" like "i" in the English word "in", "Long" close to English "long" and "Wei" similar to the English word "way". YiLongWei can be a proper name however here it does not have that function; to me it sounds good, when written in Chinese it looks good and it has interesting meaning too ("Yi" - easy, change, "Long" - dragon, "Wei" - act as, to be)
How has it come about?
In early 2005, before my first visit to China I was collecting information from various books and from the Internet. The travel guide books were very useful however I put a lot of energy into the on-line research because I was hoping that I could find more up-to-date information on the Internet. It turned out that hours and hours of research were needed because bits and pieces of useful stuff were scattered all over the (cyber) place; some web sites had good pictures, others were relevant but narrowly limited to one thing (for example how to get from the airport to the centre of the city), some other had useful travel tips, some had lively discussions on their bulletin board, most of them were commercial web sites with the primary focus on selling tours... Upon my return from China in October of 2005 I decided to put together a web site where travellers to China can find most of the information they need before their voyage.
In 2005 over 120 million of people with tourist visas in their passports crossed the Chinese border. The number of tourist visiting China has been steadily increasing over the past several years. By the year 2020 China is expected to be the number one tourist destination in the world. This web site is put together for all those millions of travelers out there, regardles whether their dream of visiting China will come true or not. I had some of my own notes, I brought 600-700 pictures from China and since October of 2005 I've been collecting information from various other sources (books, magazines, the Internet, videos and DVDs etc).
What is unique about this web site, then?
What I hope to acomplish is twofold: on one hand I will try to offer relevant and interesting content and on the other hand my hope is that you, the visitors, will voice your opinion and filter the content of this web site through your own experience. Almost every single page on this web site will be linked to the bulletin board where everyone and anyone can post their comment, agree or disagree with what has been said and supplement or amend something that needs to be amended or corrected. How successful this concept will be - the time will tell...
At this time (2007) traveling through China is very safe and very inexpensive. Of course, if you go to the travel agency in your country they may charge you around $4000 for a two weeks package. You will have a travel guide at all times, rooms in elegant hotels, minibuses driving you everywhere... However, if you decide to travel on your own and stay at the youth hostels or inexpensive hotels you may need only $2000 and you will be able to stay in China for one month. However in that case you won't have anyone else to think and plan for you. Yet, if you do a thorough planning yourself your trip will be worry free and the one that you will remember the whole your life. YiLongWei.com has been conceived with the second group of travelers in mind.
Thank you for visiting!
These are just a couple of temporary pages only; while you are reading this the real YLW web site is taking shape behind the scene... The tentative date of opening of the web site is August 01, 2007. You can send me an and I will notify you when the site is up and running...