China travel, planned by people who know the ground
We are a China travel specialist working with travellers from the UK. We plan the trip, name the hotels and stay reachable from the first email to the last day.
Who we are
CHINATOUR.uk is a China travel specialist. We have planned trips for travellers from the UK since 2004 — private itineraries, small groups and city-to-city routes by high-speed rail.
We are not a marketplace, and we do not resell other companies' packages. Every enquiry is handled by a consultant who has been to the places they are writing about, and the plan you receive is built for you rather than picked off a shelf.
How we work
Three things stay the same across every trip we plan.
- A plan before you pay. Tell us your dates, your budget and who is travelling. We send a day-by-day itinerary with named hotels and a price, free and with no obligation.
- One point of contact. The same consultant answers your questions from the first email to the last day of the trip, on email or WhatsApp.
- A human pace. Two or three sights a day, with time to sit down for lunch. We would rather you saw less and remembered it.
What we can arrange for you
Most people come to us for a whole trip. A good number come for one piece of it — a flight, or a train ticket they cannot buy from the UK. Both are welcome, and both are quoted for your own dates rather than from a list.
- Custom China travel — a day-by-day itinerary built around your dates, with named hotels and unlimited revisions before you pay anything.
- Flights to China — international tickets from Heathrow, Manchester and Dublin, including open-jaw routes and group seat holds.
- China rail tickets — high-speed rail booked with your passport, for travellers whose card the Chinese system will not take.
Why China only
China is large enough to spend a working life learning. Visas change, the high-speed rail network keeps growing, and the good hotel in a city is not always the obvious one. Doing one country properly is more use to you than doing forty countries badly.
That focus is also why we can tell you when a plan will not work. A two-week itinerary that tries to fit Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Guilin and Shanghai spends more time in stations than in the places you came to see.
The team
The team is split between the UK and China. Consultants based in the UK handle your enquiry in your own time zone; a network of local guides and drivers, all fluent in English, look after you on the ground.
Our guides are licensed to work in the provinces they cover, and we give their licence details with any written quote.
Who travels with us
Most of our guests travel from the UK. Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh are the usual departure points, and family trips in the school holidays sit alongside couples and small groups of friends travelling outside term time.
We plan trips in English for travellers from the UK, Ireland, Australia and North America.
Talk to us
If you would like to think through a trip, send us your dates and we will come back within one working day. You can also reach us through the contact page.