Rapeseed in spring, white walls in autumn — China's most painted countryside.
3 days based in Jiangxi. Long enough to go beyond the postcards, short enough to fold into a longer visit or a first encounter. Private throughout, and paced to the travellers who come — not to the vehicle's schedule.
Everything on the ground is ours: our own guides, our own vehicles, our own crews — not a chain of subcontracted hands. The plan is written and priced line by line before you pay a deposit, and the same person answers you from the first email to the day you fly home.
And because this runs three days or more, the bed comes with the journey: 2 nights included, in places we have slept in ourselves, the same room throughout, booked by us, in your name, itemised in your quote.
Timed to the hour: the best light at the sights that deserve it, golden hour where it counts, and the ordinary streets in between.
Fewer places, longer stays, an afternoon that belongs to you. The plan is built around the pause, not around the sight list.
Your party only, your dates, your pace — one guide and one vehicle throughout, never shared with strangers.
Tickets, permits and timed entries held against your passport before you fly, then re-checked the week you travel.
“The light decides the order of the day.”
How a Huizhou merchant lived
Day 1The day starts where the county starts to understand its own money: two villages that grew rich on tea and salt and spent it on houses. Sixi and Yancun keep some eighty Ming and Qing merchant residences behind their plastered walls, each arranged around a dark, cool courtyard under a tall skylight — the sky-well that brought light, rain and luck into the middle of a house, and whose stone channels still drain the roof the way they were cut. The carving is read at eye level, lintel by lintel. The afternoon ends at Qinghua, on an eleven-bay span of Song-dynasty timber that has carried people over the river for eight hundred years and is still the shortest way across.
The road out of the mountains
Day 2The second day climbs, and changes the subject from money to rank. Likeng, an hour north, is the officials' answer to yesterday's merchants — a village that sent an improbable number of men into the imperial civil service, three of whose ministerial mansions still stand shoulder to shoulder along the stream, their stone doorways ranked like a coat of arms. Chaguan's water-gate and Hongguan's thousand-year camphor follow, the second standing over the stone causeway of the Huizhou–Raozhou post road: the route Wuyuan's tea took out of the mountains, its slabs still grooved by the barrows that ran on it. The day ends over the pass in Shicheng, a village of white walls and red maples at six hundred metres, with the night spent inside the village itself and the luggage finally put down for good.
The round village, the harvest, and a cup you made
Day 3The last morning belongs to whoever is awake for it. Shicheng's famous photograph — woodsmoke standing over red maples and white walls — happens at first light, without an alarm and without being scheduled, and the terrace above the village is ten minutes' walk for anyone who wants it. What follows is a shape rather than a list: Jujing, a village built inside a near-perfect loop of river and read properly only from the far bank; a farm courtyard where the harvest is drying because it has to, not because anyone is watching; and then the Zhangshan tea mountains at eight hundred metres, where you pick a bud and two leaves and follow it into the workshop for the firing, the rolling and the drying. You sit down at the end with a cup of your own, and the packet goes home with you. The station is ninety minutes back down the valley.
Walking distances and start times are anchors, not walls — your guide flexes each day to the weather, the crowds and your legs, and the order of sights may adjust for timed-entry slots and closures. Nothing repeats and nothing is retraced.
A private journey — your party only, your dates, your pace. Best in spring and autumn; runnable in every season with the hours re-arranged.
A private journey, priced per person on twin share at the level below. Three hotel levels and two guiding levels are available on the same days — the daily plan does not change with the bed. Tell us your dates and we will send the itemised version, usually within one working day.
Small hotels, courtyard conversions and heritage properties we have stayed in ourselves, chosen for position and quiet rather than for a lobby. All licensed to receive foreign guests.
The days do not change with the bed. Comfort is our standard level; Signature steps up to design and heritage houses; Luxury is each destination’s best address, with a view to match.
Breakfast daily, taxes and service, twin or double as you prefer, and the bags taken up while you are out. Tell us about a hard bed, a soft pillow or a room away from the street — it goes to the hotel before you arrive.
Plenty of our travellers arrive with points or a favourite address. Point us at it, we plan the days around your door, and the accommodation comes out of your quote — nothing else about the journey changes.
China’s major sites run on real-name, timed entry booked against your passport, and the best-known ones cap visitors daily and release slots only days ahead. Once your dates are fixed we book the whole sequence, hold the confirmations, and re-check every one of them the week you travel — you bring the passport and walk past the queue.
Museums and palaces close one day a week (usually Monday); if your dates land on it, we re-order the days and tell you before you book, never after.
For spring and autumn dates, 60–90 days ahead is comfortable — the best houses and the timed slots both go early. Shorter notice? Ask anyway: we hold a small allotment in most cities and can usually move quickly.
This route sits inside a family of longer and shorter versions — ask us and we will send the alternatives side by side, with the days that would come out or go in, and what each one costs.
China runs across five climate zones, so the right months depend on the route rather than the country. Spring and autumn suit almost all of our journeys; the far west and the plateau we run later in spring and earlier in autumn.
Our days are built in short legs, broken every few hundred metres by something to see and something to sit down for. Where there are steps there are landings, and the vehicle is never further than the next gate.
Water and wipes ride in the car; a flask in cold months, shade and a long lunch in hot ones. Tell us about knees, hips and small legs in advance — the days bend around the answer, not the other way round.
Stone slabs, temple steps and long village lanes — broken-in walking shoes are the single best thing in the bag.
Mornings and afternoons differ by ten degrees or more across most of the year; a layer you can stash beats a coat you must carry.
A hat, sunglasses and a compact umbrella cover almost every day of the year.
Every timed entry is matched to it by name — carry it, and leave the queueing to us.
The vehicle carries the rest and meets you at every stop — pack for the morning, not for the day.
Refills ride on board, and hot water is what the country drinks — a thermos makes you local by day two.
Alipay or WeChat Pay set up before you land; we send a two-page guide with the booking. Cards work in hotels, cash almost nowhere.
Nothing starts before nine — no dawn calls, no rushed breakfast. We book each site's quietest slot instead, and let the day run at a civilised pace.
Rapeseed in spring, white walls in autumn — China's most painted countryside.
Start planning your journey