What to do at Hainan for 4D3N 海南

A while back we wanted to do a family trip during the year end school holidays. With 7 adults and 3 kids, we filtered through our preferences and concluded on visiting Hainan! This is the first Hainan trip for everyone. Considering that only Jetstar and Scoot flies direct to Hainan, Jetstar’s flight schedules to Hainan limited our trip duration to only 4D3N.

All google services are not accessible in China unless your SIM/eSIM is from overseas. We bought our SIM and eSIM online prior to our trip and had no issues accessing Netflix, Youtube, Whatsapp etc. and also local China apps. The SIM Cards and eSIMs we bought worked well with plenty of data for our media uses!

Before your trip, make sure to do the following:

1. Setup Alipay or Wechat for payments and Didi.

2. Download Dianping 点评 for food recommendations near you.

3. Download Gaode Maps 高德地图 in place of Google Maps.

Trip Planning

After consulting friends who have been Hainan, we decided to spend 2 nights at Sanya 三亚 for their variety of sightseeing activities for the whole family and 1 night at Haikou 海口. The plan is to make our way to Sanya right after we land at Haikou Meilan 美兰 Airport.

Terminal 2 Floor 4 landslide has McD, Hainanese Restaurant and Food Court. They are open from 6AM to 11PM.

💡Tip: Airside shops for International flights are not connected to Domestic flights side. There are few airside shops for International flights. Eg. There is only ONE dining option, Chen Ji, at airside for international flights.

We bought the 13:04 train tickets to Sanya, thinking 2 hours was sufficient time for a quick lunch before our train ride. However, it was raining on the day of our departure from Singapore and the flight was delayed for takeoff. We landed at 12:05 instead of 11:10. After clearing Hainan Customs and collecting our luggages, there was just enough time for us to join the queue to board our train at 13:04.

Transport and High Speed Railway (HSR)

Meilan Airport has 2 terminals connected to Meilan station 美兰站 via the basement. We booked our high speed train tickets from Meilan to Sanya via trip.com, filtering for the fastest travel duration.

Booking using trip.com was straightforward and our tickets were confirmed within the same day. Children can travel for free, sharing a seat with the adult, and not being assigned a seat. To make sure your child has a seat, you must buy a ticket for your child. Child tickets are discounted but trip.com will charge full adult ticket price upfront and refund the difference after seat confirmation. This is standard practice for other online vendors as well. Children aged 14 and above pay adult prices.

Hainan HSR has 2 lines - East Ring and West Ring. We took the East Ring from Meilan 美兰 to Sanya 三亚, and the HSR ride took us 1h 41m.

Expect queues when entering Meilan station as there are security checks with luggage scanning. After that, queue to enter the train platform at the manual check gate, usually at the right side with a train staff, as other queues are for passengers with Chinese ID cards. The gate opens 15 mins before departure time.

While our 2nd class seats were nice and adequate, there were standing ticket passengers who were loud and annoying. If you prefer more privacy or some quiet, consider getting 1st class seats.

Packet drinks and cup noodles are for sale on the train. If you plan to eat on the train, it is best to pack your lunch at Meilan Airport.

We booked a minibus with a mandarin speaking driver via Ctrip. It was the only place we could find decent drivers. Google search results looked doubtful so we just went with Ctrip.

Accommodations at Sanya and Haikou

For accommodation, we decided to stick to international brands after a few bad experiences with “well-reviewed local hotels”. We booked Hilton Garden Inn Sanya and enjoyed our stay there (their local breakfast was decent). If you like sunsets, consider their seaview rooms that allow you to enjoy Sanya’s sunset from your balcony. Also, the hotel is directly opposite the popular Yi Heng Night Market 亿恒夜市.

For Haikou, we wanted to stay near the famous Qilou Old Street 骑楼老街. The international brands were quite a distance away, and we found a hotel that opened in 2023 that was close enough. v8plus Huanzhi rooms were clean and nice. There is also a department store (明珠广场) with a large supermarket (旺豪超市) less than 10 mins walk away.

We ended up taking a Didi from our hotel to Qilou because it was raining that evening and Didi was only ¥10 each trip. In hindsight, we could have stayed in an international brand hotel since it was convenient to Didi. Another datapoint - our Didi from hotel to Meilan Airport cost ¥34 for a 40 mins ride.

Sightseeing Activities for The Family

With 2 elderly and 3 young children, we looked out for family friendly spots, and had to balance between packing our itinerary for the few short days we have and not tiring them out with a full day of activities.

China uses an A-rating system to classify tourist attractions, with ratings ranging from 1A to 5A, where AAAAA represents the best of the best. Hainan has two AAAAA sites - Nanshan Cultural Tourism Zone 南山旅游文化区 and Big and Small Cave Scenic Area 大小洞天.

Here are some places we went and what we feel about them.

Nanshan Cultural Tourism Zone 南山旅游文化区 (5A)

A must do at Sanya and you will need a half-day and even a full day to explore the whole area.

All other ages enter for free. Most attraction tickets in Sanya are cheaper during low season, something you might want to consider for your own trip planning too.

The tram ticket (¥30 per ticket holder) is necessary to explore the huge zone and includes a free guided tour (in Mandarin) at some stops. Expect queues at each tram stop. Thankfully trams come frequently.

We didn’t manage to visit every attraction there, but managed to take the tram all the way to the end to the sea view platform for a panoramic view of the Guanyin.

Yalong Bay Tropical Paradise Forest Park 亚龙湾热带天堂森林公园 (4A)

A must do at Sanya and you need at least half a day to explore. The park has 3 distinct segments - Orchid Valley 兰花谷, Guojianglong 过江龙, and Peak Park 山顶公园, each is served by a shuttle bus station. The open shuttle bus ride is an experience in itself as the shuttle winds through tight roads leading up to peak park station. The ride up to the peak took 15 mins, so those prone to motion sickness might feel queasy.

The recommended route is to visit each segment in sequence, and you should follow this recommendation if time permits. It could be fun to end the whole visit with the zipline downhill from the peak, which we couldn’t do. We bought the combo ticket for ¥288 each that included Entrance ticket + Shuttle bus + Dragon Rope Bridge + 6D Cinema Experience + Glass Bottom platform.

The Glass Bottom Platform 全海景玻璃栈桥 was our top experience. The glass floor is known to induce fear for those afraid of heights. It helps to not look down and look up to enjoy the panoramic view of Yalong Bay instead. Skip the “6D Cinema Experience” 雨林魔幻影院, it is just bad.

Tianya Haijiao Scenic Spot 天涯海角游览区 (4A)

Imagine Sentosa’s stretch of beaches - this sums up Tianya Haijiao. We were contemplating between visiting Tianya Haijiao and Big and Small Cave Scenic Area 大小洞天, and took our driver’s suggestion for this.

While Tianya Haijiao is technically free to visit from 1 June 2023, they sell tram tickets at ¥68 so you can walk less. Couples can rent small electric scooters instead of taking the tram. This is a popular spot with wedding photo shoots as it offers contrasting colours perfect for photos.

Our collective response to Tianya Haijiao was… meh😅. The hot weather didn’t help. If you don’t find Sentosa’s beaches appealing, Tianya Haijiao won’t appeal to you as well. However, if you love beaches, then yes!

Qilou Old Street 骑楼老街 (4A)

Qilou Old Street got upgraded from a 3A to 4A attraction in Apr 2024. A must visit at Haikou. It has well-preserved buildings that are a fusion of European and Asian architecture. One of the most unique ones we have seen in Chinese cities.

There was a downpour just before we visited it after dinner. The area was buzzing and was not crowded. We bought local snacks there (there were many coconut-based snacks in Hainan) to bring home and the children had fun hunting down toys. Nice place to spend an evening.

A quick note about Hainan food - It is not bad but nothing to wow about. Wenchang chicken is good, but not as good as Singapore Hainanese chicken rice. Their live seafood is fresh, but not as flavourful as our seafood zi char. And the service sucked everywhere we went. The best overall food experience we had was Putien (30% off between 3-5pm) and Bgel, both at Sanya Summer Mall, right next to Sanya Station. It is a new mall (B2 wasn’t completed yet when we went). Oh there is Chagee at the mall too 😉.

We now have quite a bit of experience planning for trips to China. It is certainly harder with scant Google search results and outdated Chinese websites. If you need some quick pointers while planning your trip to China, send us a DM and we will try our best to share tips that can help you.

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