Staying with a family in Nanjing

May 8, 2010 7:30 AM

I might possibly be going to Nanjing in July of this year and would love to stay with a family instead of a hotel. I will be there for two weeks and would be fine with paying or trading a service (perhaps teaching English or Spanish) for the stay. Does a site exist that might have listings like this or is there another way to seek this out?

I'm not looking for the cheapest way to go since I did find some hotels for under $40/night but I'm looking for a more cultural experience.

posted by yfatah to Travel & Transportation around Nanjing, China (3 answers total)

Have you checked out couch surfing? You can fill out a profile with your own talents/interests and can "trade" skills for a couch to crash on. There's also a metafilter club for surfers. As far as I know (I've never actually hosted/surfed) the people involved are generally younger and single, though it's not to say you might still find a family.
posted by allymusiqua at 11:39 AM on May 8, 2010

Are you a Chinese national? If not, please be aware that if you are a foreigner in China, you must either stay in an approved hotel, or be registered with the local government within 24 hours of your arrival. Wikitravel (see the section on "registering your abode") has some info about it, but Chinese bureaucracy is confusing so you'll want to get as much info about the procedure in advance as possible. In my experience, many Chinese people are not aware of this procedure, but you'll definitely need a Chinese person's help in doing so.
posted by xmts at 4:33 PM on May 8, 2010

I live in Nanjing, and am also on couchsurfing and in the metafilter club there. However, I'll be traveling throughout July, and I'm probably not the cultural experience you're looking for. I know that some smaller cities and villages have homestay as a standard option for accommodation, but in a big city such as Nanjing it might be harder or impossible to find. Outside of the major hospitals and bus stations, one can always find people offering rooms for rent, often in their apartments or houses, but I think they might balk at having a foreigner. Hard to say....rules about where foreigners can stay seem to be much more relaxed in eastern China. I live across from a children's hospital, and people in my building offer rooms for between 30 and 50 RMB according to their signs, but it's definitely not a "cultural experience" sort of arrangement, and I doubt there's a shower available. You might also try posting this question on either HelloNanjing or NanjingExpat.

Hope you enjoy the trip. It's going to be unbearably hot and humid in July. They don't call it one of China's ovens for nothing!
posted by msbrauer at 5:45 AM on May 9, 2010