Qingdao Travel Guide to North East China’s seaside getaway

Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

If you’ve read some of my other posts, you may remember that I lived in China for two years (read more about my first weeks there in this post). With that two years came a lot of traveling through the country. I was an TEFL teacher in a smaller city, and since I worked for a private school we only taught weekends and some evenings. That gave me time off during the week to take short trips to nearby places. My city was Jinan, in Shandong province in the North East of the country.

Within the same province but on that little sticky-outy piece of land to the East of Jinan is Qingdao. It is a wonderful little seaside town, with a German influence from early 20th century settlers. That means it’s also known for it’s beer. We’ll come to that later. Since Qingdao was one of the closest nice places to go to a beach, see the sea, and generally get away from it all, I visited a couple of times. If you are looking to visit China or already live in the country today I’m going to tell you a bit more about the delightfully vibrant city of Qingdao.

We’re going to Qingdao

It took some adjusting to get settled into life in China. Finding my place in the world within this ridiculously populous country of 1.3 billion people was no easy task. Especially as a foreigner whose conversational skills at first were limited to ordering food and stating my profession. That’s only going to get you so far. My travel was also limited for the first 6 months because as the rookie teacher I was given the work schedule that included mid-week adult teaching classes. That meant I couldn’t travel as much as I wanted to or as far. When I did get some free time I wanted to see the places I’d heard of: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu (let me see pandas!). So Qingdao, although I’d heard of it, didn’t really make the list.

Our school schedules ran for 6 months then we got new classes. I graduated from bottom of the pile 6 months in when an influx of new teachers arrived. Suddenly I was free. I could go further away, and travel more often. Another teacher suggested some of us take a trip to Qingdao, and with no work for a few days we all agreed. Bucket and spade in hand, we set off on the 3 hour train ride to the beach. Instead of looking at Qingdao hotels, we ended up in a hostel, Kaiyue International Hostel and it was a great stay. Close to many of the sites you will want to check out, and like most Chinese hostels, very clean and well run.

There are beaches in China?

One thing about China that many people know but rarely experience on travels elsewhere is the air pollution. On good days it can be hazy, with a peek of blue. On bad days it’s just grey. My city of Jinan was surrounded by mountains and basically a basin where the pollution seemed to get trapped quite often. So getting out to the seaside, the fresh air and blue skies of Qingdao was refreshing. We checked into our hostel and set off for the beach.

I’m English so beaches and I don’t generally go hand in hand. It’s kind of like Sunburn Central to me. But I was not going to argue today after so long being away from the ocean. The beach was packed. Which makes sense, I mean we’re still in China right? There’s still a ton of people everywhere. But it was still really wonderful to see the sea again. One thing people love to do in China is fly a kite. The beach was full of people flying kites and it was magical looking up at all the different colors of kites all around us.

I’m on a boat! I’m on a boat!

There’s no way you can get on a boat now and not sing this song right? Just me? Probably not. We organized a boat tour around the bay. Unfortunately we were not on a Lonely Island, and instead crammed onto a boat with dozens of other tourists. But we made a space for our group at the bow of the vessel, and lay back relaxing as we sailed around the coast.

Seeing the city from the water, and letting the sun beat down I felt like I was finally in vacation mode. You won’t have many opportunities in Northern China to get in a boat on the sea so if you do visit Qingdao, make sure you book a boat trip. If the rest of my time in Qingdao was this relaxing, I was sure I was going to love it.

Doin’ some time at the Qingdao Prison Museum

It’s not all beaches and boats, we wanted to get some culture while in Qingdao. Or try at least. So we looked for some Qingdao tourist attractions in town. I mentioned before that Qingdao has a German influence because of it’s past. Well we came across a German Prison Museum so thought that might do the trick. The buildings were certainly more European than Chinese, it was a change from what I was used to seeing in China. I was pretty excited about learning more on the history of Qingdao and it’s German past.

Excitement is about as far as I got. Although it’s pretty cool to look around the museum, most of the signs were not translated (to see some great signs I found traveling through China check out this post). Reading Chinese wasn’t on the table for me so we looked around the museum, into the old prison cells and kind of got the gist from what the signs were telling us. But that was it. A cool place to check out, just don’t expect too much. Unless you’re getting married like one couple we saw there. Prison for your wedding? OK I’m going to leave that one there!

What other German influences does Qingdao have?

Prison wasn’t all the German’s contributed to Qingdao. The architectural styles they imparted on this seaside city in China also extended to European cathedrals. We walked up one cobbled street to a huge replica of a 12th century style church. St. Michaels’s was built in the 1930s in Qingdao and is a lovely building.

The interior of the building is just as nice as the outside. Painted murals adorn the inside of the Roman Catholic church. We enjoyed a nice walk up through the streets of old Qingdao to check out this church. They were about to start a wedding there though so we weren’t able to spend as much time as I would have liked.

All you need is beer at the Qingdao International Beer Festival

I promised I would get back to beer didn’t I? That’s right, Germans wouldn’t be Germans unless they brought their love of beer with them. That was certainly true of the German settlers in Qingdao. No doubt you’ve seen the most famous of Chinese beers even in supermarkets and liquor stores back home even. Tsingtao beer in it’s green bottle is exported all over. Chinese beer if I’m honest is not great, but when you’re living there you get used to it. And Tsingtao is one of the better ones. That doesn’t mean it’s good. It means that it’s good for China. I made the mistake of viewing it through rose tinted beer bottles when I returned home. I bought some, full of nostalgia, only to realize it doesn’t compare to European beers.

But what better place for Oktoberfest than Qingdao? Makes sense right? What doesn’t make sense is why they have Oktoberfest in August. But I digress. My final trip to Qingdao coincided with Oktoberfest which promised not only Chinese beers, but real German beers. After months of no foreign beers I was ecstatic. It was everything I’ve dreamed of, and more. This is where I discovered my love of Paulaner beer. One problem with all this beer is that you’re going to need the bathroom at some point. Now public washrooms are not China’s forte. But I had to just suck it up and brave them if I wanted good beer!

Can you drink in public in Qingdao?

In a lot of places around the world drinking in public is frowned upon. Keep your liquor containers hidden or keep to the bars. China is different. They actually seem to want to make it more convenient to walk and drink. China is full of street stalls selling snacks – fruit, dumplings, bread, takeaway sandwiches, tofu. But the best street cart was this one we found in Qingdao.

• 

• 

The lady had a keg of beer and just filled up a plastic bag. You know, the kind you usually put your vegetables in at the supermarket. She handed me a straw and off I went, carrying my bag full of beer down the street. The only problem – you can’t put it down until you’re finished! Well I guess you can always hand it on something.

Chinese street food is always on the menu

Another great thing we found in this city was the markets. In China, you will always find someone on the street selling something. They will have a food stall, a bike selling fresh corn from the back, or just a blanket on the sidewalk with something for sale. I could go walking late at night and still find people selling things. So it was no surprise to find markets all around Qingdao.

• 

• 

I miss one thing about China more than anything, and that’s looking through the street markets. The vegetables and fruit are some of the best, better than the supermarkets a lot of the time. The street food is delicious. There’s nothing like hot, fresh from the oven scallion pancakes, or boiled dumplings, fresh cooked corn, or hot sweet potatoes. Even as a vegetarian I was able to find street food that would cater to me..

Why should you go to Qingdao, China

All good things must come to an end, and so must my time in Qingdao. It was a perfect weekend getaway from Jinan for me, and I’m sure from any other city in the area. I had plenty of things that kept me busy, and if nothing else the sun and sea air were rejuvenating. Finding somewhere not overrun with people in China can be challenging, and that’s definitely true of the beach. A rare commodity at the best of times, people flock to Qingdao in the summer. I suggest getting out on the water and enjoying a boat ride, or fly a kite at the beach.

The city has so much more to offer than the beach though. If a European vibe is what you’re missing while in China, Qingdao can scratch that itch a little. I say the city is definitely worth checking out if you’re spending quality time in China. Get yourself some amazing street food at pretty much any turn, and of course wash it down with a bag full of beer!

• 

• 

If you’ve enjoyed this post please share using the social media buttons below, or leave a comment. Have you been to Qingdao? What other places would you recommend people not miss in China?