Originally Posted by
mlin32
My admittedly limited experience has been this : if you're expecting Western tour standards, be prepared to pay western prices.
I did a private tour from 成都 to 九寨沟 黄龙 with one of those larger Chinese tour companies offering private tours to western tourists, even though we're both chinese with foreign passeports. It turned out great, the company was responsive to last minute changes (we finished earlier than anticipated the last day, they swapped our train tickets no problems at all).
The risk with the local small tour companies, would be the quality of the lodging, transports, accréditations, and language if you don't speak/read the local language. Also, I didn't want an experience with the cliché shopping tours.
The thing is, I've been exploring couple cities in China, even going to the deep area of Shangri-La region in Kunming and have my own customized version of private tour there, and it went great.. I can speak and read basic Chinese (HSK-4ish equivalent), so i don't think language is going to be a problem when it comes to communicating with the local tour companies. And also since I prefer it to be one-day tour, basically I prefer to get picked up in our hotel in the morning, and then dropped off there in the evening, so there will be no issue with the lodging quality. I just want to ask whether there are lots of local tour companies there in Hohhot and what's the average price there haha.
On the other hand, usually when travelling abroad in Asian countries like Vietnam or Thailand, I always use the likes of Klook to book private tour there, but I can't find anything about Hohhot / Inner Mongolia on the website, that's why I want to get some proper research about the price and the itineraries.
Thank you for the reply though, cheers!