Hello, I hope you can help me.
My partner and I are looking to book a tour of China for August 2012. Having spent some time looking online we have been overwhelmed by the number of tours that are on offer and I am finding it very difficult to get my head around what the best option for us is going to be. Unfortunately, the majority of the tours we have found have a lot of what we are looking for but some things that we aren’t interested in. I found your website online and we wondered if your company offered a tour that you think might suit what we’re after? I have tried to be as specific as I can below about what we are (and are not) looking for and I hope this is helpful.
Tour Type: We would much prefer a private tour but would be willing to consider group tours. For us this is an adventure rather than a holiday. Discovering the authentic China is what is important to us and ensuring we see as much as we can is more important to us than relaxing.
Days: A minimum of 14 days and a maximum of 25 days.
Things we really want to see (in no particular order):
• Beijing - Cuandixia Village
• Shaolin Temple
• Xi’An
• Hong Kong
• The Great Wall
• Shanghai
• The Giant Pandas and Chenddu
• Potala Palace, Lhasa
What we’d like to see (in order of importance):
1. Heaven Lake, Jilin Province
2. Naked Retreats, Moganshan
3. Karst Mountains at Yangshou
4. Hangzhou
5. Jiuzhaigou Valley, Sichuan
6. Tibetan Towers, Western Sichuan Province
7. Three Parallel Rivers, Nu River Valley
8. The Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam
9. Hainan Island
10. Burma Road, Yunnan
11. Gulangyu Island
12. Little Africa, Guangzhou
What we’re keen to avoid (in order of importance):
• Crusies or travel by boat (my partner gets seasick!). It’s not a massive priority but I have been told that we should see the Yangtze River. I am sure my partner could handle a day on a boat but we wouldn’t be interested in long haul cruises.
• Assuming we opt for a group tour, we would prefer to avoid anything too ‘young/boozy’. My partner and I are 28 and 25 respectively and whilst it would be great to have people on the tour that are in our age range, we wouldn’t be interested in the whole ‘backpacking/drinking/partying’ type thing.
• Poor accommodation. We are not at all interested in camping or staying in hostels.
Budget: £2000 - £2500 per person
I am also interested to know how ‘rigid’ the tours are. Is it possible, for example, for my partner to take one of the days out and make our own arrangements? Additionally, if we chose to have dinner on our own (obviously at our own cost), would this be okay?
We are keen to book this sooner rather than later and we are both looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Kind Regards
James Hill
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