China's Spring Festival travel rush begins with record 9 billion trips expected

BEIJING -- As Spring Festival draws near, Chinese travelers packed into cars, trains and planes on Tuesday, kicking off the landmark chunyun, the world's largest annual human migration.

Chinese authorities expect an unprecedented 9 billion inter-regional trips during this year's chunyun, or Spring Festival travel rush. The 40-day travel period began on Tuesday and will continue through Feb 22.

More electric car owners and foreign tourists are expected to join the annual travel frenzy, traditionally featuring millions of migrant workers and others living far from their hometowns who head back to reunite with family and celebrate China's most important festival.

This is the first year 22-year-old construction site technician Yang Bo has joined chunyun. He chose to drive home, setting off with his dog early on Tuesday morning.

Yang works in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, which is over 1,000 kilometers away from his hometown of Qianjiang, a city in Central China. The drive will take more than 10 hours.

To save on travel costs, Yang began searching for carpool partners online in late December and has found three co-passengers on the long journey home.

"We might even become friends along the way. Plus, one of them is bringing a pet too, so my dog won't feel lonely," he told Xinhua.