My wife and I have never been to Asia, and we're thinking about a trip to China this summer (she's a teacher, so it has to be in the summer). While all of our other travel has been more independent in nature, we both are somewhat concerned about the language/culture barrier issues and will probably want to take a tour this time.

Unfortunately, we don't really have any idea how to go about finding a good tour operator -- we're looking at the 2-week range (vacation issues on my part), and are looking at some of the Beijing/Yangtze River packages as an introduction to China. We've found lots of tours on the internet, but have no way of really evaluating them.

So, turning to the best resouce I know of, does anybody have a tour/tour operator/travel agent they can recommend? Also, any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Dan

IMO, it's best to do as much of China on your own as possible, as organized tours are expensive, constricting, involve way too many temples and GIFT SHOPS, and the large bus dynamic renders it impossible to interact with most attractions in a relaxed/natural manner.

Going at it with limited assistance from CITS really isn't that hard. For example, you don't need their help in buying your US-China tickets (and you probably don't want to fly MU anyway). Booking your own hotels should be easy, with the help of res agents from the major chains or sites like ctrip. Once your at your hotel, you can do day trips either by cab (for close by attractions) or by minibus (for places that are further out). In both cases, your concierge should be able to help. Most can also assist you with intra-China flights and trains, for which there is no reason to book far in advance (best to be flexible). The only part of your trip for which you may require more structure, is the river cruise. Fortunately, IIRC the Lonely Planet has a pretty good section on this topics. Just my two cents. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

I did China on a tour a couple of years ago. It was my first time on a group tour & I have always been anti-tour but I was very happy with this experience. I am a very seasoned traveler but I think I would have had trouble in China on my own. Very few people speak English. I think the name of the Co. Was Pacific Tours. Email me if you want the info on them. BTW, the Yangtze river portion was excellent---don't miss it.

If you've never been to Asia, I recommend you consider www.cits.net (http://www.cits.net) as a point of departure in your planning.

Also, get Lonely Planet China, ISBN 0864427557, and Read This First: Asia & India, ISBN 1864500492. The latter is somewhat dated, but not too bad.

You'll probably want to do something in between these extremes. Try to include a tour of the Three Gorges. It will be flooded by a dam project before too long.

(Get the Hep A vaccine.)
Rich

Here's a possibility for organized China tours: Jasmine's China Adventure Tours.

http://www.jasminechina.com

I must say that I haven't managed to go on one of her tours yet, for one reason or another (such as scheduling conflicts), but am eager to do so. Her tours are small (usually 12 people max) and probably not your run-of-the-mill "big bus" tour. Based on my e-mail and phone contacts with her over the last three years, she seems like a conscientious and detail-oriented person.

Kathy

We booked our China Experience tour last summer through Journeys International http://www.journeys-intl.com/ which uses Peregrine http://www.peregrine.net.au/home_peregrine.asp?str= out of Australia. We started in Kunming and end up in Beijing. We were in Dali when the IOC announced that Beijing was getting the Olympics. We had 12 in our group and only 6 for the latter half as the others finished their tour or hooked up with another group. We had a wonderful guide and still keep in touch with her and other members of our group. We decided to use a tour group due to our time constraints and language barrier even though I knew some Cantonese and Mandarin. We were right. We would have been totally lost without our guide and the prearranged accomodations. We look forward to going back but will set up a private tour with our guide who is no longer with Peregrine. Let me know if you need any more info.

Roy

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by moondog:
IMO, it's best to do as much of China on your own as possible, as organized tours are expensive, constricting, involve way too many temples and GIFT SHOPS, and the large bus dynamic renders it impossible to interact with most attractions in a relaxed/natural manner.</font>

While I agree that it is quite easy to travel independently in China, I would not necessarily recommend that to first-time visitors, especially if you are intimidated by foreign languages. The tourism infrastructure in China is quite good given the amount of local and foreign tourists flowing through the system, and the package tours are all good value. If cost is an issue, you will not be able to replicate a standard package price on your own. Even if you don't want to join all the day tours so you can look around a town by yourself, it is not hard to separate from the tour for a day or longer. Most travel agents offering tours to China go through a few wholesalers. Check out these folks: http://www.japanandorienttours.com/specials/chinaspec.html (although the site looks dated).

Good luck.