File photo shows Zhang Haiyan (left) and her daughter wait for the train to go back hometown together. (Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows a migrant worker is forced to ride a donkey home for Spring Festival after ice closed roads to his home to Baise County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows migrant workers ride motorcycles home from Rui'an in east China's Zhejiang Province to Xiushui in east China's Jiangxi Province.(Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows migrant workers sit on a rented tractor heading home to Dongmengliangzhai Village from Guantao County in Handan City, north China's Hebei Province. (Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows passengers wait to board buses to return home for Chinese New Year's family reunion in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province. (Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows passengers queue to board trains at Jiujiang Railway Station in Jiujiang, east China's Jiangxi Province. (Xinhua Photo)

File photo shows passengers queue to board a boat at a port in Weihai, east China's Shandong Province.(Xinhua Photo)

By Zhu Wenjia, Sina English

To have reunion dinner with their families on Chinese New Year's Eve, those who have worked or studied away from home scramble to leave for their hometowns by all means -- train, coach, airplane, ship, self-driving, motorcycles and even bicycles, making the largest annual human migration in the world.

Chinese Lunar New Year, or the Spring Festival, falls on Feb. 10 this year, making the holiday travel period spanning from Jan. 26 to March 6. A record 3.41 billion trips are expected to be made over this year's Lunar New Year travel rush.

People on the road towards hometown all wear a cheerful smile, whether being poor or rich, living happy or miserable. Travel back home on traditional Chinese New Year has already become Chinese people’s cultural belief that could dispel the loneliness, indistinct and anxiety of last year and render energy and courage to confront an uncharted new year.