I slept on a fair number of sleeper trains during multiple trips to China. It’s basically the most popular way to get around the country. A few years ago, Xuzho

I slept on a fair number of sleeper trains during multiple trips to China. It’s basically the most popular way to get around the country. A few years ago, Xuzhou-Xi’an, a 10 hour trip, was priced at 315¥ (around $50 USD) for each “soft bed” (four soft beds to a room), which was perfect for a travelling family. Recently, the high-speed rail lines have started to shift things in favor of daytime trips between large cities (Beijing-Xuzhou used to be 7 hours by sleeper train, but it’s now 2.5 hours by bullet train). But, the train remains the best way to travel within the country. It’s smooth, quite cheap (esp. for an American traveler), and increasingly comfortable.