fact or fiction

Is it a fact or merely fiction? Fact or Fiction explores travel myths to help you avoid making that wrong turn.

681 People Wanted to Go to Space. Only Two Booked
The page later showed two bookings. The gap tells us how early the market still is. For several hours on September 16, a travel listing on Ctrip appeared to show 681 sales for a Virgin Galactic spaceflight.
By Jina day ago in Wander
I Surveyed China’s Pinglu Canal in 1968. Fifty-Eight Years Later, I Watched It Open.
Pinglu Canal: A River a Century in the Making, How It Pushes Southwest China to the Sea How a 1968 survey team’s idea became a 5,000-tonne waterway to Beibu Gulf in 2026
By Jina day ago in Wander
The Cheaper Hotel Room Has Two Beds. That Is Your First Clue.
Two beds cost less than one: the pricing ledger of a 58-room hotel Open a booking app. Same hotel. Twin room listed at 438. King room at 518. You pick 438. At check-in, the front desk gives you a key card. The room is on the second floor. The window faces a parking lot. You stand there for a moment, then call the front desk: Can I change rooms? The front desk checks and says there is a south-facing king room on the fifth floor, unsold tonight. You can switch, no extra charge.
By Jin4 days ago in Wander
The 7.4x Visa Fee Hike Nobody Is Talking About
The Temperature Gap in the Name of Reciprocity: Structural Tensions Behind the China-Japan Visa Fee Adjustments On September 14, 2026, the fee schedule at the visa window of the Chinese Embassy in Japan changed. Single-entry visas jumped from 2,250 yen to 16,750 yen. Double-entry visas rose from 3,750 yen to 25,100 yen. Six-month multiple-entry visas went from 4,500 yen to 33,500 yen. One-year multiple-entry visas went from 7,500 yen to 50,250 yen. The increase was about 7.4 times. Applications already accepted before September 14 were charged at the old rates. Visas for third-country nationals remained unchanged.
By Jin5 days ago in Wander
I Booked a Three-Hour Hotel Room. Here’s Who Else Was There.
The Three-Hour Hourly Room At three in the afternoon, the hotel lobby is next to the high-speed rail station. The LED screen scrolls: Hourly room, three hours, from 68 yuan. A man in a gray jacket hands over his ID, backpack at his feet. The front desk swipes the ID, registers him, and hands him a key card. The elevator goes up to the seventh floor. At the end of the hallway, a linen cart blocks half the way. He swipes the card and enters. The curtains are drawn. The sheets are flat. The air-conditioning vent hums low.
By Jin7 days ago in Wander
I’ve Transferred Through Dozens of Airports. Only One Felt Effortless.
The measure of airport design is the passenger’s feet and heart The standard for judging an airport is the passenger’s feet, eyes, and mood. The architect’s sketch comes later.
By Jin7 days ago in Wander
The Red Lantern Lie
Tracing the "One-Face" Ancient Town: Who's Behind the Same Design? From Wuzhen to Lijiang, Dali to Pingyao, walk into any "must-visit" ancient town and the same scene greets you.
By Jin9 days ago in Wander
Why Do We Remember the Pyramids but Not the Ziggurats?
The Shadow of Stone A modern man walks to the site of the Ziggurat of Ur, in southern Iraq. He sees a mound of earth. Thorny camel grass grows on it; rain gullies run down its sides. The guide points to the mound and says that this was a wonder of the human world 4,300 years ago—the Sumerians built it with mud bricks, seven levels high, with a temple on top where priests could stand and see the Euphrates. The tourist stares at the mound for a long time, nods, and takes a picture. The picture shows only dirt.
By Jin13 days ago in Wander
The City Without a Sidewalk Sizzle
Saturday, 10 p.m. on Dingxi Road. The pavement is clean. Three shared bikes lie tipped over against a flower bed. Under the streetlight, an old woman sits by an ATM booth, selling gardenias wrapped in old newspaper, five yuan a bunch. She doesn't call out. In half an hour, no one stops.
By Jin14 days ago in Wander
Twenty-Four Hours in Lucca
Would you like to see the best-preserved and most integrated fortification system in the world? Great! It happens to be the city where I grew up, known to the locals as "The city of 100 churches".
By Sasha Desideri20 days ago in Wander
Perfectly Warped
Perfect 24 hours, you say? Somewhere I know? Well then, let's take a little trip inside my mind. I know it well, and I'm delighted to share. Whether you're brave enough to see it though is entirely up to you. Since it's supposed to be idyllic, it's a Saturday with no teaching.
By Julie Lacksonen20 days ago in Wander
The 13-Day Dream That Wasn't
The booking window for National Day airfares opened ten days earlier than usual. August hadn’t even ended, yet over 60 percent of the chartered cars for the Xinjiang loop had already been locked in, and the wooden cabins in Kanas were tagged “sold out for National Day.” Travel platforms recorded a 61 percent year‑on‑year surge in search traffic—the media called it “the craze for combining holidays.”
By Jin21 days ago in Wander