Car and driver rental in Beijing

My husband and I will be going to Beijing in October of this year and would like to know best way of getting a car with driver for sightseeing, etc. Just for two people. Is it better to go on the internet or wait until we get there. Anyone know any prices. Thank you. Oba

Car and driver rental in Beijing

I am going to Beijing in early June and have booked Robinson Li (www.beijingtaxi.com). He has been very helpful and easy to deal with via e-mail. I got his name as a recommendation on this forum - I%26#39;m happy to let you know how it goes after my trip. His e-mail address is robinsonlitour@hotmail.com

Car and driver rental in Beijing

I would recommend waiting til you get to Beijing to find a tour guide. It will most likely be cheaper b/c you can negotiate the price. Anything is negotiaoble in China. Just my opinion.

We just returned from Beijing and spent a fabulous day with Robinson Li at beijingtaxi.com. He is funny and friendly, his English is great and he went out of his way to make our day special. He took us to the Great Wall (Mutanyu and another spot not yet fixed up), Ming Tombs, arranged a killer Peking Duck meal at a small restaurant and arranged for tickets to the acrobats at the National Theatre. Get ahold of Robinson Li...you won%26#39;t be disappointed!

JJvC

JJvC- Can you give us an idea of the cost for this service? Just a ballpark figure?

Lyn

i have been reading your question about drivers for the day. In china, in the large cities such as beijing, there are different coloured taxis of different sizes. From what i remember when i needed to hire a car with driver for the whole day last year, there is no reason why you can%26#39;t just hire a beijing taxi driver for the whole day to take you anywhere - however he will speak no english at all. The smaller the taxi (3 types in beijing if i remember correctly) the cheaper it is. However, rather than clocking up a metre all day make sure you agree a price before you depart for the day depending on wherever you%26#39;re going and how many hours you%26#39;re going to be gone for. It is incredibly helpful if you could get the hotel to help you with the language side of things. i was lucky enough for a chinese friend i met there who spoke english to help me and negotiate with the taxi man. Just get them to phone for a taxi at the hotel and explain that you want to go somewhere for the whole day rather than just across the city!

Don%26#39;t get big companies that rip you off and are specialised in the tourist trade to provide you a chauffer service in a shiny car (unless you want a tour guide and mod cons and money%26#39;s no object). If you%26#39;re going out of Beijing to the great wall simply hire a taxi for the day because the driver will earn the same amount of money that he%26#39;ll earn for every hour in beijing yet he%26#39;ll just be lazing around for a few hours waiting for you wherever you go (rather than working!!) So its good for him and its good for you.

I don%26#39;t know much about private sightseeing tours of beijing city, however if you go to the great wall or to an area of interest outside of beijing for the day then get people to negotiate with the taxi company for you as to ho much you pay. I think for about eight hours, when I went to a section of the great wall, the taxi driver charged about 38 british pounds (give or take a few pounds either way). This i thought was fantastic for a whole day%26#39;s private driver hire and unimaginable somewhere like Europe!! Make sure you agree a price and remember, the smaller the taxi, the cheaper. be sure to bargain hard tho and whatever you do don%26#39;t pay a lot more than that! i think i paid thirty eight. well, it was certainly between 20 and 45 - cant remember now exactly!

When you go to Beijing whatever you do don%26#39;t go to the touristy section of the great wall near beijing city. The best section, and about two and a half hours away, is called SIMATAI. Leave early in the morning and, compared to the section of the wall in beijing, it%26#39;s unbelievable (there are not that many tourists there at all either - and there%26#39;s even a cable car if you don%26#39;t want to walk up!) Its not at all a dangerous section of the wall as some of the guide books might imply - plenty of normal tourists with normal shoes on! Its absolutely fantastic and one of the most amazing places i%26#39;ve been in the world. The one in beijing is full of tourists, not nearly as beautiful and full of souvenir stalls.

Admission at Simatai is also very cheap!

I recommend a trip to the Lama Temple in Beijing too (see lonely planet!) many tourists often miss this out and it was very good experience! Again, like anything in beijing just stop a taxi and make sure you have the name of the attraction written down in chinese characters by someone at the hotel, and he%26#39;s sure to take u there!! I emphasise again, if u do do a day trip in a taxi, or for that matter go anywhere in a taxi, make sure tha tyou have the location of the place you want to go to written down in chinese characters!!

If you do want to have a car chauffeur hire that speaks english and you want to spend more money than i%26#39;m suggesting then certainly wait until you get to china and don%26#39;t book anything on-line before you go. Go to one of the Tourist Information centres in beijing or simply ask at the hotel.

Lyn, As I mentioned we had a great day with Robinson Li. I think the cost was somewhere around $80 - $100 U.S. equivalent. With three kids in tow we wanted them to get something other than transportation out of the day so were willing to spend more for Mr. Li%26#39;s English and insight. Certainly you would want to negotiate ahead of time. I have also gone to the Great Wall alone (without the addition of the Ming Tombs, Peking Duck and Acrobats) with a driver speaking no English and no personality...the cost was $55 U.S. equivalent. Mr. Li was more than worth the extra $$ for his personality alone! JJvC

I hadn%26#39;t read the other member comments before i wrote to you about hiring a car and a driver for some of your time in beijing. Of course it is great, as some other members say, to have a reliable driver who can speak English. If the price for Mr Li is what you were thinking of then i%26#39;m sure this would be a fantastic, if not much better option, than my suggestion. It%26#39;s very good to know that you will get a good personality and a good linguist from a driver. As Mr Li is personally recommended then you can%26#39;t go wrong with him i guess. If you get the right driver or guide anywhere in china its great. If you get a very annoying one it%26#39;s hell! Thats why recommendations like Mr Li on trip advisor are so cool!

The taxi option is just as good if one day you feel you%26#39;d like to go somewhere and not spend as much money (especially if you%26#39;re in another part of china and the array of guides is worse!), however i forgot to mention that the reason i found the normal taxi option better than a private driver every day in beijing was because i was in china for several weeks and therefore could not afford this type of service on a regular basis (especially as i%26#39;m a student!!).

It can often be very annoying in china if you do hire a private english speaking guide and they turn out to be too chatty and not neccessarily what you were looking for or can%26#39;t in fact speak english well at all! This is why it is often better to see beijing independanly. However, Mr Li appears to be one of the many experienced drivers and guides who does strike the right balance and has a good personality and is in touch with tourism. A couple of guides in china that i paid money to show me around main attractions, such as the terracotta warriors, got on my nerves so much that, in a polite and friendly way, i simply had to ask them to go away (not because they were nasty, all chinese people are so friendly, but because their level of english was awful or they didn%26#39;t realise that an information overload wasn%26#39;t what you wanted - especially if you didn%26#39;t understand any of it!!)

Please write back after you%26#39;ve been to China with a reminder of Mr Li%26#39;s contact details if you do opt to go for this option and if he is, as other members have said, a great guide! I have to go back to beijing for several months next year therefore such a good guide would be fantastic when people come to visit me and they want to go sightseeing!