 Macau Budget Travel Guide
Macau (8 November, 2007)
© Timothy Tye using this photo
Macau, the Portuguese Footprint in China
Hello and welcome to Macau Budget Travel Guide, a travel guide I created to help fellow budget travelers like me navigate their way through the former Portuguese colony of Macau on a shoestring budget.
Although not as expensive as Hong Kong or Shanghai, Macau is one of the more expensive cities in China. It is certainly more expensive than many Chinese cities, especially those deeper inland. With this budget travel guide, I hope that you will be able to explore and enjoy Macau the way I did.
Venetian Macao Resort Hotel
Author: Dennis Wong (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
Now let me tell you a bit about Macau
Macau (map), also written Macao, is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. It comprises a peninsula and two small islands located 60km (37 miles) southwest of Hong Kong and 145km (90 miles) south of Guangzhou. Macau is located between two rivers. The estuary of the Zhujiang River (Pearl River) is located to the east of Macau while the Xijiang (West River) flows in the sea on the west side of Macau.
Guide to Macau Hotels
It's never easy finding the hotel that's just right for your stay. Still, by taking a little time to do your research, you increase your chance of getting a good hotel at the best price. Go through the list of hotels in Macau which we've put together, arranged city by city, with full description, star rating, address, location map and evaluation. Pick the hotel of your choice and view the rates offered by different booking sites. Yes, we show you prices from different websites, so you don't have to visit them one by one.
More about Macau
Macau borders on the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone in Guangdong Province. There are two crossings between Macau and mainland China. The main one is at Portas do Cerco (Border Gate) on Macau side, and Gongbei checkpoint at the Zhuhai side. The new crossing is at Lotus Bridge (Ponte Flor de Lotus), which links Cotai in Macau with Hengqin Island in Zhuhai.
MGM Grand Macau Skyroof Plaza
Author: WiNG (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Tourism attention on Macau has all along been focused on gambling. Macau is the only place in China where license is given to operate casinos. The most glittering is the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel.
Since 2005, a different form of tourism attention has been directed to the city when its own town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Historic Centre of Macao, as the inscription is titled, covers a large portion of the Macau Peninsula. Within the historical zone are beautiful churches that have been carefully restored, and are now open to visitors. They are all listed in this travel guide. Read about each of them before you embark on your trip to visit Macau.
MGM Grand Macau
Author: WiNG (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Get to know Macau
Macau Budget Travel Tips
My first and most important travel tip for budget travelers to Macau is this: get used to taking the bus. The way to do it is, buy a bus map. It shows all the routes of the various buses in Macau. With that in hand, you are ready to explore the whole of Macau, from Macau Peninsula to Taipa and Coloane.
For short distances, especially within Macau Peninsula, I prefer to walk, and I encourage you to do the same. Macau is so rich in culture and history, you won't see much if you hurry through in a bus.
To further prepare for your trip to Macau, please read the following topics.
Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Guia, Macau
Author: lidxplus (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
Macau is tiny. It only measures 12km (7.25 miles) from north to south. Refer to Map 1. The Macau Peninsula (1) is the northernmost part of Macau. In the middle is the island of Taipa (2) and to the south the island of Coloane (3). The sea between Taipa and Coloane have recently been reclaimed, connecting these two islands as one. The new land is called - for want of a better name - Cotai, a portmanteau of Coloane and Taipa.
Macau Peninsula was originally an island with a sandbar linking it to mainland China. The linkage is broken at high tide. Then, during the 17th century, land reclaimation made the link permanent and transformed the island into a boot-shape peninsula. Today the Macau Peninsula forms the main portion of the urban area of Macau. This is where the city is located.
Avenida do Infante Dom Henrique, Macau
Author: Cdip150 (public domain)
Within the city of Macau is a heritage enclave that in 2005 was inscribed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site. In actual fact it comprises two areas of Macau. See Map 2. The main heritage area is on the west side of the city. It is an elongated area with Casa Garden to the north and the A-Ma Temple to the south. In between are narrow streets dense with heritage sites. On the eastern side of the city is Guia Hill. The Guia Fortress, chapel and lighthouse, all standing on the hill, form a second and smaller heritage area.
Macau Peninsula is one of the most densely populated places on earth. The area on the northeast part of Macau peninsula is jam-packed with flats, the majority of which are in a rather run-down state. These were constructed in the 50's to 70's to house the influx of refugees streaming into Macau, once in the 1930's following the Japanese invasion of China, and again in 1949 following the fall of the communist takeover of mainland China.
Grand Lisboa and Casino Lisboa, Macau
Author: Vmenkov (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
Taipa was originally three small islands, but over time silting had merged them into one. Taipa has seen rapid development in the last few years. The north side of the island facing the Macau peninsula is now crowded with high rise flats, taking some pressure off the density of Macau peninsula. Three undulating bridges link Taipa to Macau peninsula, allowing people who buy homes in Taipa to commute to work on the peninsula. Taipa is also where the newly built Macau International Airpot is located, though the run way is not on Taipa itself but on reclaimed land out in the sea.
Coloane has the only pocket of rural Macau. This is where the pace of life slows down considerably. You can walk along the seaside in Coloane, and the feeling is like you're in a small Chinese village, nowhere near to a densely crowded city. There are also much fewer people living here than on the peninsula and Taipa. A causeway linked Coloane to Taipa. However, considering the land between Coloane and Taipa have been filled in, the causeway has now become just a main road.
View of Macau towards Zhuhai
Author: Jakub Hałun (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
The reclaimed land between Coloane and Taipa is called Cotai. This is where a lot of exciting development is taking shape. One of these, the Venetian Macao, is a mammoth casino and recreation project. It is housed in the biggest public building in the world (and the second largest building after the Pentagon).
Macau Peninsula is very crowded and in many places where the locals stay, you will find that it is also quite run down. The places that have now been inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage Site is however neat and tidy, and have been much spruced up for the sake of tourism. Earlier guidebooks mentioned that there are no proper roadsigns in Macau. That is no longer true, especially within the heritage enclave where new direction signs point visitors to all the heritage sites. You can certainly explore them comfortably now, and this website Macau Travel Tips will help you discover them in an organized fashion.
Sands Macau Casino
Author: Whhalbert (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)
If you have more time, you should also explore the northwest of Macau peninsula, where the bulk of Macau population live. I must warn you before hand that some of these places bear only block after block of flats, often nondescript blocks that bear little character. Nonetheless, it will give you a glimpse of how it is like to be in Macau, an experience that completes your trip.
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