A man has toured many places of the country in a year with travel tickets provided by aid centers.

Deng Juwu, 25, went to Shenzhen's aid center Monday, the Daily Sunshine reported. Workers at the aid center found more than 60 train and coach bus tickets on him.

Deng, from Chongqing Municipality, said he was homeless and liked traveling around.

However, the aid center said police in his hometown said the man had a wife.

Xiao Zunshi, vice chief of the aid center, said there had been people who repeatedly obtained aid to travel instead of returning home. He called for more detailed rules to ensure the aid would be given to those really in need.

Aid centers, transformed from detention houses for vagrants in 2003, are designated to provide room and board for wanderers and finance their home-bound traveling expenses.

Deng said he left his hometown penniless in February 2004 and climbed onto a train carrying coal headed for Shanghai. He could not find a job there because he had not even graduated from primary school, he said.

The man was sent to an aid center in Shanghai by police and was given a train ticket home. However, he left Chongqing again soon after. He told the newspaper he did not have any relatives there.

With 340 yuan (US$41) on him, Deng traveled to Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He then sought help from police, who led him to the city's aid center, where he stayed two days before being sent home again.

But Deng left again and began using fake names and lying to aid centers about his origin. The centers bought tickets for him and he traveled to many places by train, bus and boat.

The man said he had also been to Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Gansu, Beijing, Shandong, Fujian, Guangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan and so on, basically touring most of China except Xinjiang and Tibet.

Editor: Catherine