Cost for 8 full days in Beijing and Xi'an (including airfare from Chicago, hotel, attractions) < $1500. How?

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I travel a lot.  Well, as much as I can afford with the time and money I have available.  There is so much world to see.  So many cultures to experience. So many experiences to try.

So it is important to me to use my travel dollars and days pretty efficiently by watching airfare prices and looking at a lot of housing options, and how those options will affect transportation costs and times.  I post many of the deals I find in this blog.

I also am willing to go wherever that takes me, within reason.  My 10-day trip to Beijing was fairly unintended. China wasn’t at the top of my list of places to go (which basically is a list of all the places I’ve not been yet, where I feel that I’d be safe). I found a flight that was $458 (including bags) so I just bought it as the weather then was supposed to be low of 50s at night and high of mid-70s during the day – perfect for travel, in my opinion (I’m from Chicago).

Then I went online to find a place to stay, and because I was looking about 3 months in advance, I found a place where I had (essentially) a hotel room in a hostel.  This was very affordable. And the location of the hostel was within easy walking distance of 3 different train lines, and walking distance of the Forbidden City, Lama Temple, and the lakes. Depending on where you are going, different lodging sites will have better rates, but you can check Airbnb, Google, Booking.com and other sites to find the best combination of rate and location. Which made transportation within the city cheap and not time-consuming. The train in Beijing to see the attractions in the area is very cheap (especially since I rarely had to go far – it’s based on distance).

When searching for a place to stay, I concentrate on the trifecta: safety, cleanliness and transportation access.  As a single woman who often travels alone, the safety of locations and within the lodging itself is of extreme importance to me.  Also, I want things to be clean.  They can be old and run-down if that saves me money.  But I want to not feel like I’m going to get an infection or bedbugs if I sleep there or use the shower.  Transportation cost and time are also factored in.  A cheap place far from the places I want to see might be costing me much more in time and train fares than it is saving.
Finally, I checked transportation options for other cities since I wasn’t sure I needed 8 days in Beijing, and decided to add a stay in Xi’an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.   I similarly found a cheap place to stay there.  And thus was born a 2 city 10 day trip from Chicago to China for something around $1200 all together.