hello world travelers!

I am traveling to Beijing, China for the first time at the end of Feb, 1st couple of weeks this March. A fairly short trip to china, but I'm really excited. Can any of you recommend a reputable Tour Company, hotels, travel advise for a good 10 day trip? Would like to see Guilin, Terra Cotta Warrior site, Great Wall. Thanks!

What kind of tour are you looking for? Group? Individual with or without guide?

In addition to the responses you will get to your question, there is much more info which you can get by typing in <b>tour companies</b> in the search box.

Thanks for responding JED. I be traveling with my sister and my daughter. (all adults) Me thinks we will need a guided tour, and due to the timeframe we are locked into, we may have to arrange an individual tour, but a small Group would be fine too. Only have approx 10 days there...so would like to see the historical sites in Bejing, and also the scenery in Guilin. Don't really know enough to articulate too many details......so any tips/advise you can give would be welcome. We are checking out a tour group called &quot;Beijing Highlights&quot; on the internet. Do you know if that is a reputable company? Any other suggestions you can share would be greatly appreciated.

marebell - There are many ways to visit China, and you first have to decide which. You can join a prepackaged tour; you can have a travel agent book the hotels and flights for you, and then get a local guide at each city; or you can get ONE tour company that arrange for everything &amp; give you a guide to accompany throughout the whole trip. But the latter will be very expensive, as you will need to pay for the transportation and hotel for that tour guide throughout your whole trip, and you will still need to pay extra for local guides because no one can know all about China thorougly. Do you think that's what you'll want?

Also, time is running out to arrange something complicated as just over a month away.

I think you should just have an agent book the hotels at Beijing, Xi'an and Guilin plus the internal flights for you, and then look for local guides once you get there. Keep in mind that February is cold in Beijing, and Feb 9 is Chinese New Year, a major major holiday when a siginificant number of Chinese are travelling from the cities back to their homelands. Plane and train tickets are very tight for about a week.

Thank you rkkwan. Sounds like really good advise...and you probably saved us a bundle. I will look into booking the Hotels and Flights thru a Travel Agent. Do you know if most of the Major Hotels have connections to Local Tour Guides once you get there? I assume that is probably the case, and I think would be easiest for us since we don't speak the language?

marebell,
If you're looking at major chain hotels, you can easily book them yourself on the hotel chain's website. The hotel will be able to arrange an English speaking local guide and/or car &amp; driver for you as well as obtain airline tickets for your next destination. The cost will be higher than if you just hire a taxi or use a local travel agent outside of the hotel, but it does offer convenience. Taxi drivers do not speak English, so you would need your destinations written in Chinese if you choose this route. Same goes for when you arrive at an airport, you'll need the name of your hotel written in Chinese. If you feel more comfortable having a private car pick you up at the airport, the hotel should be able to arrange this also, but it's likely to cost you several times the rate of a taxi (but maybe still reasonable by western standards).

Another possibility for local guides is to take a look at the ones that others on this board have used and recommend. I think there's a guide in Xian that's gotten good feedback here and you can contact him by email to set up something in advance.

The destinations you're visiting are all really well set up for tourists, so you should have no trouble finding transportation and guides. All you really need is to buy your international airline ticket to China and book your hotels. Then I would just buy your internal domestic tickets once you arrive in each city for your next destination. I think it's actually easier to do it this way. Prebooking domestic flights from abroad is not really necessary unless you're planning to travel during a very busy period like the 2-3 major weeklong holidays a year (which you are not).

Hope this helps.

all asia travel. com..........excellent, all done online.

We just spent 17 days in China and arranged it all from Canada with a travel agency in China...based out of Guilin. They were fantastic!! Prices were very very reasonable. And we arranged for English guides in each city. It was so stress-free and we could do whatever we wanted. We went to all the places you want to go, plus a few more.
www.easytourchina.com
I highly recommend them...

Good luck!!
vancouvergirl

Check out ritztours.com or chinafocustravel.com for prepackaged china tours. Recommended by Frommers Budget Travel for years.

Hi- we are using Pacific Delight Tours for our trip to China in April. My parents used them for their trip and i have hear alot of good things about them. They do private guided tours or organized ones as well. Check them out.

My wife and I used Smartours in Dec 2002 and recommend them. I like that you pay a very reasonable base price for the flights and hotels but the daily tours are optional. We prefer to do most of our own sightseeing but occaisionally joined the group. By the way, although the weather will be very cold when you're going, I think it's best for Xian. Because it was offseason we were allowed to spend much more time at the excavation site and were allowed to take photographs. Bring some black and white film and you'll get fantastic prints! Happy travels!

I used Pacific Delight in October 2003 and highly recommend them. Everything was taken care of and we had an excellent guide, Renee Ho. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.