City planners in ChongLi have a big dream. That ChongLi will become the playground not only for Beijingers but also those foreign tourists who arrive in Beijing with an interest to do more than just see the standard sights. In ChongLi, they envision, a whole recreation industry will emerge to fulfill those getaway dreams of both foreigners and Chinese alike. It appears that dream might just come true.
Located 50 KM north of Zhangjiakou in the northern Hebei Province mountains, Chong Li is rapidly being transformed into what the planners hope will be the #1 playground for Beijing'ers. Up to very recently it was just the little town you drove through to get to Wanlong or other regional attractions. A few years ago a couple of hotels were built to serve the growing needs of visitors to the two ski resorts around it. Frequent skiers began as well to soak up the available rental housing in town. Then they got getting serious about development with an explosion in new housing designed for the vacation market which finally, successfully, kicked off the China ski condo industry in a big way. A new Bar Street with restaurants and entertainment, as well as a host of new small business dedicated to serve visitors, round out the offerings as the new housing is snapped up and becomes the base of a substantial new Ski town.
ChongLi Property Development Middle
ChongLi Property Development South
ChongLi Property Development North
Officially, ChongLi is a County in the City of Zhangjiakou. This is why many references of the 2022 Winter Olympics sites refer to Zhangjiakou and not ChongLi. Make no mistake though in thinking they are anywhere similar in nature. ChongLi is a real mountain high elevation town. Zhangjiakou proper is a lowland desert city 50 km to the south where it hardly ever snows.
However, getting to ChongLi is a process of getting to Zhangjiakou and then taking the road (a 4 lane expressway) north 50 km to ChongLi. Getting to Zhangjiakou has 3, and soon to be 4, options:
1. Drive from Beijing on the G6 expressway. This is a 3-4 hour trip depending on traffic.
2. Take the trains from Beijing to Zhangjiakou. The former Zhangjiakou South train station has been closed and a new station closer to the intersection of G6 and the road to ChongLi called Shalingzi is now the train station for Zhangjiakou. The trip is 3+ hours with sleeper service available on most trains. Eventually, the high speed train from Beijing to Inner Mongolia will pass through Zhangjiakou cutting the trip to less than 1 hour but that is still under construction.
3. Take a bus. If you can connect with one of the busses the resorts run back and forth to Beijing, this is a great option at a reasonable cost. However, they do not run everyday and the schedules are always changing so check with the resorts if you want to try this option. The other are the public busses. These are very cheap but take longer and more difficult to navigate if you do not speak Mandarin or are not familiar with traveling in China by public bus.
4. The soon to be 4th option is by plane. A new airport has been built (Zhangjiakou ZCZ) that is supposed to be opened in January 2019. However, service schedules, routes and carriers have not been announced. Certainly, there will be flights from Shanghai and a few other major cities, but whether there will be a short flight from Beijing has not been announced.
I Snow hotel in Chong Li
Chong Li now has eight new hotels built specifically for the resort business. The first to open was the I Snow hotel, a basic but comfortable business hotel level property. This was followed by the Rong Chen, a 4 star hotel associated with a major property development. Opened in 2013 winter was the third major hotel for this small village, the Morte Fountaine Holiday Hotel (梦特芳丹假日酒店) that is at the turn off for the road to Wanlong. Across the street from the Fountaine is the Spa Holiday Hotel. Both are also connected with major property development projects.
That summer also saw the opening of 3 new moderate priced hotels in the new Walking Street area and another on the main street. An additional 4 star hotel on Main Street was completed the following year and more have sprung up since then.
In addition to these are the lodgings at the main base villages of Genting Secret Garden, Wanlong and Thaiwoo. Also a couple of stand alone resorts are on the road between Secret Garden and Duolemeidi.