Chinese travelers seek new experiences during National Day holiday

China's latest holiday travel boom was about more than ticking attractions off a list.

During the week-long National Day break, travelers took longer trips, explored lesser-known destinations and made time for experiences that once might have seemed too time-consuming.

More than 2.1 billion cross-regional trips were made across China during the holiday, up 0.7% from a year earlier.

Rail travel remained particularly busy, with passenger trips exceeding 20 million a day for three consecutive days.

New trains open up new destinations Four new high-speed rail services opened around the holiday, including the Xiong'an-Shangqiu section of the Beijing-Hong Kong high speed railway and the Harbin-Yichun section, making it easier for travelers to reach diverse cultural and natural destinations.

For the Harbin-Yichun section, known as China's northernmost high-speed railway, the holiday marked its first major travel rush since opening.

"The scenery along the Hayi line is beautiful.

I can now make a weekend round trip just to see the autumn colors," a traveler from Beijing said.

The new connection has already brought more visitors to Yichun, a forested city in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

From October 1 to 3, its A-rated tourist attractions received 21.5% more visitors than a year earlier.

Some of the city's best-known spots, including the Tangwang River forest and stone landscape and the Wuying Korean pine forest, each drew more than 10,000 visitors a day.

History becomes part of the holiday experience The 90th anniversary of the Red Army's Long March victory also put China's revolutionary history in the spotlight during the holiday.

In Ruijin, east China's Jiangxi Province, tourist attractions welcomed more than 950,000 visitors in the first six days of the break.

At the Red Well, a site associated with the history of the revolutionary period, visitors continued to line up despite rainy weather, with queues stretching up to 200 meters.