It can be hard to know what to expect if you’re visiting a giant Chinese city for the first time. Yes, you can draft an itinerary and learn a few phrases, but you’ll definitely encounter surprises. Here are some things I wish I’d known before I went to Guangzhou — and why I ended up enjoying myself, despite the fact that my expectations for visiting Guangzhou didn’t always line up with reality.
If you’re worried about navigating Guangzhou without speaking Chinese, I’ve also written a detailed guide to visiting Guangzhou with only English.
Getting Around
I knew Guangzhou was big — I just didn’t realize how expansive it was until I started trying to get from point A to point B. It turned out that I had to allow for a lot of extra walking and cab or metro time for each trip. This left me exhausted (and with over 20,000 steps handily logged) each day. And if I’m honest, I mostly used cabs rather than taking the metro — cabs are cheap, and getting to metro stations requires even more walking.
I wish I’d taken the city’s physical landscape into account before booking my lodgings. If you’re headed to Guangzhou, first figure out what you want to see, and then find the hotels that will put you in the closest proximity.
As a warning, know that both Google and Apple Maps can be very confidently and insistently incorrect. Be prepared for extra walking in the event that this happens. Finally, beware of scooters. They respect no traffic rules and are as happy on sidewalks as they are on roadways. It’s worth staying alert, especially because it’s easy to become distracted by the many sights and sounds around you. I nearly got hit (not for the first time) as I was staring at this amazing display.
Public Spaces: Loud & Lively
I was so excited to visit the parks of Guangzhou. I was looking forward to birdsong and new plants, to quiet spaces in which to wander and get away from it all. But it turns out that’s not what the parks are about here. They are lively, noisy, and studded with artificial creations. So while you won’t feel immersed in the natural world, you will find distractions and excitement galore.
My greatest delight was the sheer number of activities in which people were involved. You’ll gain a rich introduction to jianzi, a kind of Chinese hacky sack played with a feathered shuttlecock. You’ll see people playing badminton and ping-pong, practicing tai chi with fans, and even ballroom dancing. Don’t miss this extravaganza, especially on weekend mornings.
Parks are crowded and well-used. You’ll find people on nearly every path, even in the middle of a weekday. Every space feels well-occupied — even the base of the Ming Dynasty wall in Yuexiu Park, the only existing ancient wall in the city, was occupied by jianzi players.
Parks can also be noisy, with people chatting and walking by with music blaring out of small devices. Even the parks themselves get in on the noise action, pumping calming music out through speakers tucked into the foliage.
I wasn’t quite ready for the extra decor and embellishments in the parks. Want Cinderella’s carriage, a Roman colonnade, traditional pavilions, or giant horses for Chinese New Year? Guangzhou’s got you covered.
Parks as Performance Spaces
One of my greatest irritations in Guangzhou turned out to be the number of people out for photo shoots in these locations — I quickly tired of photographers shouting directions and their subjects blocking the paths. But if you like cosplay and people in fancy dress, you’ll find plenty to attract your attention, particularly at the Orchid Garden and Yuntai Garden.
Small Surprises: A Brief Interlude
I love stumbling on things I don’t expect, like the Cantonese opera in Liwan Park.
It’s free, every single day from 2:00-5:00 p.m. Just pull up a tiny stool and look around. This is a real slice of life moment — some people actually watch the performance, but others play cards, stroll through the audience, or chat with old friends.
Another lovely surprise was the Baiyun Mountain Cable Car, which turned out to be one of the nicest rides of this sort I’ve ever taken. If you go early on a weekday, you’ll find it nearly empty — and it will whisk you silently uphill with views over gardens and trees.
On a less pleasant note, I had a cultural immersion into the world of spitting. Men spit all the time in China, often right in front of you and without warning. I can’t tell you how or why this has become a national pastime; I can only tell you that I’m not a fan.
Food on the Fly
If there’s one place I found myself constantly adjusting my expectations, it was at mealtimes. First of all, there’s so much choice — after all, you’re in a land where an ordinarily simple decision about which peanuts to buy for a snack can be paralyzing.
Secondly, street food stalls and restaurants alike can be intimidating, especially if there are no English menus or translations on hand. You have to sneak glances at what other people have ordered to figure out what’s on offer, and sometimes even that doesn’t yield useful information. This was an area where I just had to be brave and try my luck at whatever looked promising.
If I were to do the food part all over again, I would have signed up for a food tour early in my trip. That would have given me more insights into how to manage Guangzhou’s famous food scene.
Beautiful Bio Breaks
It’s a fact: when you’re walking around all day, you need to find restrooms. I wondered how this would go in Guangzhou, and it turned out to be easy. You’ll find public toilets all over the place. They’re plentiful in parks, and you’ll even see signs for them along the streets. The bonus is that they are often surprisingly lovely.
I found restrooms fairly clean, though most of them only have squatting toilets (you soon get used to this). And I quickly learned to carry my own toilet paper. I’ll repeat that, because it was one of the most important things I wish I’d known before setting out: always have a pack of tissues in your bag.
Aesthetic Expectations
Guangzhou is known as the City of Flowers, so I expected to find a city with lots of plantings and greenery. But you’re more likely to find narrow sidewalks and alleyways with rows and rows of buildings.
That said, flower lovers can still find them in profusion in the city parks — even in February.
In addition to flowers, I enjoy the charm of a good neighborhood, so I had high hopes for Dongshankou. This historic district, lined with stately mansions from the early 20th century, is famous for its small cafes and Art Deco homes.
I greatly appreciated some of these buildings; they blended traditional Chinese and European architecture in a way I rarely saw elsewhere. But cafes were fewer and harder to find than I’d expected, and the streets were maddeningly thronged with Instagram photo shoots. It was crazy, especially on a Saturday afternoon. So if your itinerary includes Dongshankou, keep your expectations low. I would not go out of my way to visit, unless you want to sit down with an elaborately plated coffee (and more people taking pictures) at Tiff Cafe.
Museums for Context
I was glad that my tour guide suggested the Thirteen Hongs Museum on my first morning, because I had no idea it existed — and if you want to get grounded in the trade history that catapulted Guangzhou (once Canton) to fame, this is the place to do it. This free museum does a fantastic job of displaying model shipping vessels, trade goods, and other artifacts to guide you from Canton’s glory days to the darker hours of the Opium Wars.
As museums go, the hands-down winner for me was the clumsily-named Museum of the Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum of the Nanyue King. I’m glad I had this one on my itinerary, because I would’ve kicked myself if I’d missed this glimpse into daily life and royal wealth between 204 BC and 111 BC. But I wish I’d known how difficult it would be to purchase tickets through their WeChat site — thank goodness my concierge was there to help.
I also wish I’d had a heads-up about the multi-floor museum housed inside Zhenhai Tower in Yuexiu Park. Had I known about that collection, I would have budgeted more time and energy for it. But I’m glad I lingered once inside, and I’ll be writing more about them in a future post.
To understand more of what I was seeing, I wish I’d brushed up on my Chinese history before traveling. Just an hour of learning — especially about the Han, Ming, and Qing dynasties, plus the Republic of China — would’ve done me a world of good.
My Expectations for Visiting Guangzhou: What I’d Do Differently Next Time
If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to be less anxious about this trip. Was traveling in Guangzhou more challenging than many other places I’ve been? Yes. Was it also entirely doable? Absolutely.
I would also go back and read a little history, make a few shifts to my itinerary (add a couple of museums, subtract Dongshankou), and pack a few extra tissues in my bag. I would give myself a fuller understanding of just how large the city is and how its public spaces function. But overall, I wouldn’t change much.
