The cozy interiors of some of the bed-and-breakfast facilities in Shanghai.[Gao ErqiangI/China Daily]

B&B facilities have become an attractive lodging option for domestic and foreign young travelers in recent years, he says, because they allow them to be closer to local communities and to immerse themselves in the culture.

Covey's stay in the rustic old estate was much better than he expected, he says, and it gave him the opportunity to see at close hand what makes the city and the country tick.

"The Bund is an irresistible haunt for visitors, but that's only the glamorous face of the city, while the old neighborhoods with their decades-old bricks and tiles are where life really goes on."

On summer evenings, locals' dinner tables are usually moved out into the lanes, where residents, many in pajamas, eat and drink beer.

People, old and young, gather in the lane with their bamboo chairs, deckchairs and fans to enjoy the pleasant coolness in the open air until they return home to go to bed.

Covey joined the locals in a backyard of the houses. "They told me about the community's past and said a house in the area cost at least 20 gold bars in the old days," he says.

That kind of nightlife, very different to what foreign visitors experience in a bar in the former French Concession area, is the stuff of lifetime memories, he says.

"The commercial streets just one block or two away from the community are ever-changing but you feel as though you've stepped back in time in the shikumen community. However busy, crowded and international the outside world is, it's always peaceful and serene here, as if the old life has never faded away."