The same country reads differently at twenty-five and seventy-five, as a couple or as three generations. We shape the journey around who is coming.
Every style comes with private guides, chosen hotels and our planning desk behind it.
Six routes we built from nothing, for one traveller at a time. Yours would begin the same way — a conversation, then a route that has never existed before.
Twelve days travelling backwards in time — from the oracle bones of Anyang to the first spade of 1926 at Xiyincun, with a specialist.
Chinese architecture with a specialist — from the Han to the Qing.
The Silk Road and the Dunhuang caves, with a specialist.
Seventeen days downstream along one river — clear at Lanzhou, yellow past the loess, roaring at Hukou, and at Kaifeng running ten metres above the streets.
Four days moving camp by packhorse through the pastures above Ringha, two days of monasteries and a Tibetan cookstove, one day at a black-pottery wheel — and not a single metre of the trail done in a vehicle.
The whole arc of the old tea and horse road — from the tea forests of Jingmai to the salt terraces of Yanjing and the teahouses of Lhasa, in twenty-three days.
Or reshape any of our 75 journeys →
Most of our work is private. A handful of journeys we can also open on fixed dates, so six to twelve travellers share the road and the cost — the same guides, the same standard.
Shanghai's lanes and Zhangjiajie's pillars — a city and a mountain range.
Water towns, gardens and a lake — the classic Jiangnan triangle read slowly: Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou in seven days.
Beijing, then the Buddhist north — 51,000 Buddhas in the cliffs and the timber halls of the Liao.
Chengdu to Lhasa by road — 2,000 kilometres of the old G318.
Eight days, three Chinas — the Ming order of Beijing, the Tang depth of Xi'an, and the China living now in Shanghai.
Lhasa, Shigatse and Everest Base Camp — the classic Tibetan journey.
Where China met the world — the whole Silk Road in one journey, Xi'an to Kashgar.
Two old towns and their markets, three nights above the flooded Hani terraces, a pottery wheel, an indigo vat and a hot spring before the train home — fixed small-group departures, never more than eight.
Shorter days, gentler roads, and the things children remember — pandas, rafts, markets and cooking. Grandparents set their own pace; nobody waits in a bus.
Every visitor sees Beijing's great imperial landmarks. But beyond the grand avenues and monumental architecture lies another city — one shaped by waterways, measured by ancient timekeepers, and lived in through narrow lanes and courtyard homes.
Twenty kilometres of karst, seen from forty centimetres above the water.
A Miao village up close: the market, the kitchen, the evening songs.
Four unhurried days on Beijing's Central Axis — the altars, the palace, a day on the Great Wall, and the lakes and towers of the north, with a seated hour every afternoon and three nights inside the old city included.
Three cities stacked on top of each other — the walled Ming county town, the creek that kept the factories, and the museum shore built on an old airport and a coal dock. One layer a day, nothing repeated.
Three days and three waters — the terraces that hold the water, the small river you pole through, and the great one you float — with the first night spent inside the terraces, after the last bus has gone.
A city stacked on two rivers — lights, bridges and a skyline you climb.
Teahouses, Sichuan opera and a morning with the pandas.
Shanghai's lanes and Zhangjiajie's pillars — a city and a mountain range.
Water towns, gardens and a lake — the classic Jiangnan triangle read slowly: Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou in seven days.
Beijing, then the Buddhist north — 51,000 Buddhas in the cliffs and the timber halls of the Liao.
Six days, two ridges and one river — the stone path between the terrace villages walked whole, and half the Li on foot.
The mountain city and the karst — night skyline, stilt houses, Wulong's sinkholes.
The political centre of China moved north over two thousand years — Chang'an, Luoyang, Datong and Beijing, walked in the order history wrote them.
Plan a journey for three generations →
A specialist travels with you — reading the buildings, the tombs and the ground itself. The same roads you see elsewhere, understood at a different depth.
Twelve days travelling backwards in time — from the oracle bones of Anyang to the first spade of 1926 at Xiyincun, with a specialist.
Chinese architecture with a specialist — from the Han to the Qing.
The Silk Road and the Dunhuang caves, with a specialist.
Whichever way you travel, you get the same planning discipline: a written day-by-day plan before anything is booked, guides selected for depth as well as English, and a planner on call throughout.
Every journey starts with a conversation. Tell us who is travelling and what draws you — we reply within one working day with first thoughts, route ideas and honest advice.