Where to go this holiday season? Qunar has the answer

“Shanghai sure got cold in a hurry!” we muttered under our not quite frigid breath, returning from a weekend trip to Sanya, the Miami of China (well, without the glam and the glitterati, but a whole lot more prostitutes). Anyway, our trip? Awesome! Yalong Bay (a beach resort area in Sanya) was gorgeous, and the sunny 30 degree weather has left us feeling and looking a little George Hamilton.

But, we aren’t here to tell you about the beautiful Hainan beach town, it’s hardly undiscovered. We are however here to tell you about the website that got us there, Qunar.com. The site, which in Chinese means “where to go”, is a comparison shopping site for flights, lodging and vacation packages; and it does so by querying databases of a dozen leading Chinese online travel sites (including Ctrip and Elong). While the site is bilingual, features on the Chinese language side are far more robust (one can only comparison shop for air ticket deals in English), yet another reason to make learning Chinese part of your new year resolution. Qunar has a very rich and intuitive user interface, finding your way around the site is a breeze. Take flights for example: Users can further parameterize using price, departure time and arrival time after a query has been made, results change dynamically. And for those still trying to overcome the RMB sticker shock, Qunar even has a currency converter so you’ll know exactly how much you’re spending in your native moolah. Not too shabby eh?

If you are still working on your holiday getaway, we highly recommend using Qunar.com to find your accommodations. While we’re at it, Sanya isn’t a bad place to go either, especially this time of the year.

P.S Qunar doesn't support Firefox or Safari. While our conspiracy theorist mind wonders, it most likely is because IE has 99.999 percent of the market in China