Spring Festival: all you need to know about China’s most important new year festival (5)

行(xing)-春运 (Spring Festival Travel Rush)

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The first day of the Spring Festival is specifically for family members. After that, people will visit their relatives and friends, exchanging greetings and presents. This is known as the “New Year Visit.”

In modern times, the younger generation usually live in big cities far from their hometowns. This means that the approach of the Spring Festival marks the start of the world’s largest annual migration, known as chunyun, bringing family members together despite the long distances.

The travel rush, usually a period of high transportation demand as people return home for family reunions, will last from Jan. 26 to March 5 this year, while the Spring Festival, China's biggest festival, will fall on Feb. 10.

The country is expected to see a record 9 billion passenger trips made during the annual Spring Festival travel rush this year, the Ministry of Transport said on January 16.

Passenger trips via railway, highway, waterways, and civil aviation are expected to hit 1.8 billion during the period, Vice Minister of Transport Li Yang told a press conference.

About 80 percent of the trips will be self-driving trips, which are likely to hit a new high.

The heavy travel volume has made it very difficult to buy train tickets. The transportation authorities have already developed mobile apps and websites to help people get tickets, while people who are not familiar with modern technologies can also use more traditional means to buy tickets, including visiting a kiosk or ordering tickets by phone.

In a bid to avoid the travel rush, many families have abandoned the traditional way of celebrating the festival at home. Family members living in different cities will pick a rendezvous that is less crowded, such as small villages or tourist sites, and celebrate the festival on the road. This new trend is called “Reverse Spring Festival Travel Rush”.