Most people visit China to see the sights. A smaller, growing number come to leave something behind. China volunteer travel has matured well beyond the old model of short, photo-driven…
I’ve spent the better part of a decade sending travelers across China in every season, and the single question I get most is “when should I go?” The honest answer…
Last spring I took my sister on a Beijing Xi’an Chengdu itinerary and watched her go from “I just want the Wall” to “the pandas are the best thing I’ve…
When clients ask me for the single best way to see China on a limited vacation, I almost always recommend a China 12-day itinerary. It’s long enough to feel the…
After a brutal work stretch in 2023, I booked myself a four-day reset outside Tengchong, soaking in volcanic hot springs and doing absolutely nothing else. That trip became my template…
On my last trip through Shanghai and Chengdu, I realized the China craft cocktails scene had quietly grown into something world-class. I’m not talking about the sugary “Long Island” pitchers…
The best meal I ate in China last year cost RMB 23 and came from a plastic stool on a Xi’an side street at 10 p.m. Street food is where…
I first went to Xichang almost by accident — a Chengdu client wanted to escape the August heat and a local friend said, “Go to the lake.” I took the…
Most travelers blow through Zhejiang on the Hangzhou–Shanghai axis and never think about Wenzhou. I made that mistake for years. Then a client whose family comes from the Wenzhou diaspora…
When a client with celiac disease asked me to plan a two-week China trip last spring, my first instinct was to panic. China runs on wheat in the north and…