kim

Three well-travelled 50-somethings want to visit mainland China in the fall. Which is the best U.S. escorted tour company? Price no problem. Thx.

Eddy

Maybe you should choose a Chinese company. the best U.S. escorted tour company still need to contact them and charge you a higher price.<BR><BR>www.chinatravelhub.com

Peter N-H

Eddy is right (for now, but things are changing). Whichever company you buy from (with a few tiny specialist companies as exceptions) they have been required until this year to buy their ground handling from a Chinese company from which you could indeed buy directly. This tends sometimes to make the difference between tours of China much slighter than you would expect. <BR><BR>This year, I understand, things are changing and foreign tour companies will be able to contract their own services in China, rather than through the state monoliths, but it will be a while before the effects are felt.<BR><BR>However, for now the main reason to buy other than from a Chinese company is simply that you are far more likely to get what you pay for, and if you don't the company is very likely to compensate you, or there are systems of bonds and guarantees which will make sure you receive redress. With Chinese tour companies this is significantly less likely to happen (a polite way of saying quite unlikely), and when things don't quite live up to expectation, you'll have no come-back.<BR><BR>An important consideration when choosing between US and/or other developed nation tour companies is whether they send a Mandarin-speaking person from home, who accompanies you all the way. Having such a person can make a great difference to how smoothly things run. It tends to be the more costly companies which provide such a service, but it is worth having, not only so that problems get sorted out, but so that you get some counter-balance to the relentless hype of the local guides, frank and honest opinions, and good advice (as opposed to advice which leads to the best financial result for the local guide).<BR><BR>Peter N-H<BR>http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html<BR><BR>

Howard

Have you thought about going independently, and perhaps getting a few daytours on the spot to places where independent travel is logistically difficult. I'm not saying you necessarily should do this if you are more comfortable with a tour, but don't automaticaly rule out indie travel. <BR><BR>I just noted that you said you weree well travelled. We went there with no tour and it was great.

Susan

Hi, We went on a 22 day Panorama Trip of China with Laurus Travel. We started off with 12 people and two folks left after the 9th day as they were only taking the 12 day trip. Four people left after the 15th day as they were on the 18 day trip, which left six of us. What was great about the group size was that the tour leader was able to be flexible with the schedule and include items that were not on the tour for no additional cost. Yes, we were all in agreement on these things.<BR><BR>We chose this Canadian company after doing a lot of research and corresponding with others. To make a long story short, we chose Laurus because 1. We did not want to go on a tour group that would <BR>be large, 2. They go downstream on the Yangtze River (which makes the whole tour more expensive for the tour company in the sense that you will be visiting more places during your trip in addition to those on the cruise portion, which increases the cost to the tour company, i.e., transportation, accommodations, guides, etc.; in other words, the upstream cruise takes 5-6 days but cost the tour company the same as the 3-day downstream cruise), 3. They include items that other companies charge extra for, 4. We went to places where we had a demonstration how something was done and then they gave us about 20 minutes to look around. There was no pressure to buy during this time. The group also wanted to see a double-sided embroidery place which was not on the list and they accommodated us; I saw the women do the double-sided embroidery and it was hard to believe their abilities. 5. Most <BR>important for us is that they went to two places that were on our must do list: Dali and Lijiang. Lijiang is a UNESCO cultural city and has a culture unique to that area, as with Dali.<BR><BR>We are very delighted that we went to Yunnan Province as it is so different from the rest of China that we saw. It was rural China where we saw a daily life that focused on farming, going to market, etc. and not on going to work in a big city. And we were able to interact with minority groups. The scenery was <BR>magnificent - no tall skyscrapers. You could identify the minority groups by the clothing they wore. The houses in Dali were uniquely decorated. They were one or two stories with pagoda style roofs and <BR>a pagoda style structure over many of the windows. The houses were painted white with paintings on them which were either black on white or in color. I could not believe the variety of art we saw and that the people who owned the houses were the ones who painted them.<BR><BR>I am afraid I could go on and on about our visit to Yunnan Province. For the cost of the trip we found it a &quot;great buy&quot; and Laurus Travel has an excellent reputation. Transportation in China is expensive and we went to many more places than other tour companies, and if you look at a map you will see how <BR>far it is to go to Yunnan Province. We also went to Dazu which is also a UNESCO Heritage site. We went to a portion of the Great Wall where not too many tourists go, so therefore there were no <BR>aggressive people trying to sell us stuff. The guides we had - no problem understanding their English. <BR>I am not to sure why, but people from other tour groups joined our tour guides' presentations. They could be identified by the tags they wear.<BR><BR>Our contact person at Laurus was Julius. I found him to be knowledgeable,friendly, and very responsive. Following is their website:<BR>http://www.laurustravel.com<BR><BR>When China permits they will have an office in China.<BR>Susan<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>

TC

We traveled last September with R. Crusoe &amp; Sons out of Chicago. They are ex-A&amp;K employees who now have a grand company. Our &quot;Last Chance&quot; tour was outstanding. Small group - 20 well educated, interesting people from all over the US. We stayed in and ate in excellent facilities in each city. We were the only tour group allowed on the main floor (rather than the catwalks) in Xian at the Terra Cotta museum - also allowed to visit the workrooms where restoration of terra cotta statues takes place. Excellent English speaking tour director from Hong Kong and local guides in each city. Many little extras like post cards with local postage waiting in each hotel room for our use and professional group photos in several places (no extra charge), dinners with economist and historians, meetings with museum curators, tea in a private Hutong home, etc.<BR><BR>However, the best recommendation for this company was their care for us when we found ourselves away from home (in Shanghai) on September 11th. They put their Chicago office on full alert around the clock to contact anyone we wished and report back - they assured us that we would be taken care of and housed until such a time as we could safely return to the States - their China staff monitored broadcasts in Chinese aboard our Yangtze cruise ship, made English translations and posted the reports for us. This care and concern really set R. Crusoe head and shoulders above all others in my book. I highly recommend them. If you want more information, send me an email.

author

Anyone who pays $10 is allowed to get down to the pit to have picture taken among the terra cotta warriors. Such arrangement can be easily done through a local trave lagency in Xi'an but is hardly worth it.

TC

Snob: I saw no evidence that your $10 bribe story is true. We saw no other tourists near the soldiers and had to pass a guarded entrance to get to our position. Yes, you can have your photo made with the statues - but it is from a &quot;lower level&quot; catwalk - not within the actual excavation. R. Crusoe's local guide in Xian is the daughter of the local Minister of Antiquities. She has special privileges to enter the site and work rooms with her groups. She guided President Clinton and his group in Xian - we saw their photos with her at the museum. The terra cotta soldiers were the highlight of our three weeks in China and I'm glad we got such a wonderful close up view.

author

The museum gives out a price to the local travel agencies who then add a service fee to arrive at the $10 I paid. Check with any Xi'an travel agency to see if my story is true.

Jeremy

I've never been and am no expert. However, I did do some research a couple of years ago. If money is really no object, the Museum of Natural History in New York offers some amazing educational tours. This is serious stuff at a serious price. You're given a reading list in advance of the tour. Experts accompany you and lecture at the various sites. The price tag is steap, but if I had the money it's the kind of thing I would do. I imagine that there are other academic and museum sponsored tours that are as thorough. Does anyone know of any of these?

BLM

National Geographic also has some wonderful pricy trips. We are looking a similar less pricy trips from Laurus and Journey's International. Any one have thoughts on these? Thanks

megumi

I did a quick comparison of the two companies BLM just mentioned. I like Journey's group size better (14 vs. Laurus Travel's 20) but I think Laurus offers better value because their hotels and cruise ship are much nicer. Has anybody else booked the 18-day China Odyssey leaving October 1?<BR><BR>Megumi

BLM

Actually, Megumi, Journeys is working up a trip for just our group of 4 for about same price. But I am concerned about the accommodations - tourist class cruise?