Author: karl

I’ll be honest with you: when my friend Daniel — a wheelchair user from Manchester — first asked me to help plan his three-week trip to China, I hesitated. China…

When I tell friends back home that I spent three weeks eating my way across China as a vegan, the usual reply is a raised eyebrow and “But… the meat?”…

When my wife and I first dragged our then-four-year-old across Beijing in the middle of a hot May, I was convinced we were making a mistake. Twelve days, three cities,…

The first time I tried to buy silk in Shanghai, I paid roughly twice what the bolt was worth. The shopkeeper smiled, I smiled, and we both knew I was…

I have dragged a camera bag across China for more years than I care to count, from the frozen dawn platforms of the Great Wall to the thin, luminous air…

Most first-timers to China picture the trip as temples, the Great Wall, and pandas, then an early night at the hotel. I made that mistake on my second visit, and…

When most people picture travel in China, they imagine crowded group tours, bus windows fogged with breath, and a guide’s flag waving above a sea of selfie sticks. I get…

I’ve lost count of how many blisters I’ve earned on Chinese trails. After fifteen years of dragging a pack across this country — from a hungover stumble up Huangshan at…

I have spent the better part of a decade crisscrossing China, and if there is one lesson I keep relearning, it is this: the date you land changes everything. Come…

People ask me all the time whether China is still a cheap place to travel. My honest answer, after eight years of dragging a 40-litre pack across the country: it’s…