Beijing · Xi'an · Chengdu · Shanghai. The essential first trip to China, done privately, with your own guide and car the whole way.
If you have one trip to China in you, this is the one most travelers choose. It takes in the four places that define the country — the imperial north, the ancient capital, the panda city and the future-facing coast — and it does it without a coach, a queue or a fixed timetable.
Each city is handled by a different local guide, chosen for what you're there to do: a Great Wall historian in Beijing, an archaeology guide in Xi'an, a food obsessive in Chengdu, an architecture guide in Shanghai. The car, the driver and the itinerary stay yours from the first airport pickup to the last drop-off.
We start early on day two — Mutianyu's ramparts at 7 a.m. is a different world from the same wall at noon. Day three is the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, then an afternoon in the hutongs: a courtyard house, a rickshaw, and dinner at a family-run restaurant your guide actually eats at. Optional evening: Peking duck, carved at the table.
A 4h 30m high-speed train brings you to Xi'an. Your guide starts with the Terracotta Army — arriving late afternoon, when the tour buses have gone and the pits are quiet. Day five is the Ming city wall on two wheels, the Great Mosque and the Muslim Quarter, where the lamb skewers and flatbread tell you why this city has been trading with the world for 2,000 years.
The Giant Panda Base is best at 8 a.m., when the keepers put out bamboo and the animals are awake. The rest of Chengdu is slower: the People's Park teahouse, an ear-cleaning, a Sichuan cooking class where you learn what real mapo tofu tastes like, and an evening at a face-changing opera.
Three nights in Shanghai, plus a day trip. Walk the Bund at dusk, cross to Pudong's skyscrapers, and spend a morning in Yu Garden and the Old Town. On day eleven we take you out to a water town — canals, stone bridges, no tour groups in the early hours — and finish with a Huangpu River night cruise.
Best time to travel: Late March–May and September–early November. Winter is cold but uncrowded; summer is hot and busy.
Every included item is itemized in your itinerary before you pay anything. No hidden fees on arrival.
From $499 per person
From $399 per person
From $529 per person
Emperors, hutongs and the Great Wall
Where China began
Pandas, teahouses and real heat
The future on the Huangpu
Karst peaks and river mornings
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