Binoculars

Rmm6

The "What to pack" section for this trip says to bring binoculars. I'm wondering if people who've gone on this trip brought binoculars or not and did they regret it either way. What would they be for?

Thanks for your help
Melanie

British

At least for the river trip they might be useful for seeing details of scenery and wildlife.

Rmm6

Yes, British, I was thinking that too. I wouldn't want to miss out on seeing things. I'm wondering because I've heard that we have strict weight limits on this trip and binoculars are quite a heavy item, relatively.

Melanie

British

Ours are not that heavy and we always carry them in hand baggage. I feel binoculars are something that might tempt people from stealing from checked luggage. Would love you to post a detailed review of your tour when you get back, I would like to go to China but I keep putting it lower on my wish list.

Rmm6

Oh, I didn't realize that hand luggage wasn't weighed on the on tour flights. Hmmm. I will certainly post a review when we get back. My last one for Tanzania & Kenya didn't go through for some reason. Did you mean to post it here on the forums? We do get more space on here after all.

Barrie D

All airlines have carryon weight and size restrictions. You can skirt it beacause “Groups” don’t check in at the counter. The tour company & Tauck director obtain & distribute the boarding passes. But if you’re dragging a carryon too large & heavy and they need the overhead space, the airline can always require you to gate check your bag. When I’m traveling, my telephoto lense becomes my binoculars, but there are definitely places on this tour (like the cliff coffins) where they’ll be handy. We did this tour a couple of years ago & loved it.

Bill in NC

Withour question I think you should take binoculars. They are indispensible for the river cruises. They need not be heavy nor expensive. I paid less than $30 on Amazon for a very small pair that served me well for the entire trip.

BKMD

Bill - I believe we were on the same trip. Barry here. Hope all is well...

I'm very surprised you found binoculars useful. The smog was so awful just about everywhere, I can't imagine that you could see anything with them. I vote no on binoculars for that reason. Pollution mask - absolutely!

Rmm6

I didn’t find any need for binoculars, except as Bill said, for the cliff coffin. Even then, a telephoto lens was perfectly adequate and I’m glad I didn’t bring them. This was, indeed, a fantastic trip. The smog wasn’t too bad in Beijing when we were there, but Xi’an was awful.

Barrie D

If you aren’t bringing a telephoto lense, you should definitely bring small, light “sport type work great” binoculars. Sorry to hear about smog so bad you couldn’t see anything, that wasn’t our experience. It was all blowing south, so our worst smog was in Hong Kong.