Don't travel in China during Chinese New Year

The 2016 Spring Festival Travel rush is from Jan.24 to Mar. 3. It is predicted that about 320 million passengers will travel by rail during the period, 8.2% more than last year. The railway tickets will be under great demand. TravelChinaGuide recommends you to book tickets as early as possible, or avoid traveling during the period.

The Spring Festival Travel Rush, also known as Chunyun in Chinese, or Chinese New Year Travel Rush, Lunar New Year Travel Rush is considered to be the largest annual migration. It is the special period when China faces an extremely high traffic load, which results in great transportation problems, especially on the railway services.

Millions of people working or studying out of their hometowns will be hurrying home to reunite with families as the Chinese Spring Festival approaches. This long-held tradition is the main reason for the rush. The other is that the holiday is one of the two week-long holidays of the year, a perfect travel time for many people. The rush usually begins 15 days ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year and 25 days after that.
  

During the 40 days of Chunyun period, the inter-city 

transportation faces great challenges. The demand

 for tickets far exceeds the supply. Various measures 

are adopted to alleviate the problem by opening 

many temporary trains,  extending the working 

hours of booking office and opening up more booths. 

More policemen are deployed to insure the public security. The application of real name system is taken to relieve the difficulty in buying tickets and effectively stop scalpers who profit a lot during this period.