Bespoke private China journeys,
travel with intention

Family trip to Beijing, for the first time

A family of five wanted Beijing done properly on their first visit - not the rushed, box-ticking version everyone warns you about. We planned the whole trip end to end: a private guide who could slow down for questions and speed up when the kids' attention started to drift, a nanny who travelled with them so the youngest always had someone keeping pace, built-in rest between the big sights so nobody hit the Forbidden City running on fumes, and real time in the hutongs to wander rather than just photograph. Every evening ended around one table, comparing notes on what everyone had seen and learnt that day. This is the kind of trip that becomes a family story, not just a photo album. 

Honeymoon with a sense of discovery

A couple who'd already travelled extensively in Europe wanted their honeymoon to feel unfamiliar, comfortable, and a little exciting all at once. We threaded together a special trip through Yunnan - a private walk in the foothills of Lijiang's Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a cooking class in a Bai family courtyard home on the shores of Erhai Lake, and a few deliberately unscheduled days in Dali's old town, where the only plan was wherever the two of them wandered next. 

Business trip, extended

A consultant flying into Shanghai for a three-day conference decided two extra days were worth staying on for. We planned everything around her schedule so she had nothing to think about beyond her own work - a Saturday drive out to the canal town of Wuzhen for a slow afternoon away from meeting rooms, and a Sunday morning tea market walk through the city's older streets before she headed to the airport. Proof that a business trip doesn't have to end the moment the conference badge comes off.

Beyond the big cities

A couple from Singapore had already planned most of their China trip themselves - Beijing, Shanghai, the cities they knew how to research. What they couldn't plan was Guizhou, so they handed us that piece. We built a few days through the province's Miao and Dong villages: a long-table dinner under string lights with homemade rice wine passed down the table, a morning learning batik in a workshop that's been teaching the craft for generations, and a stop at a stilted wooden village still mostly untouched by tourism. 

Food as the main thread

A chef and his partner wanted to understand regional Chinese cooking at source - not the restaurant version, the real one. We brought in our City Fixer in Chengdu, someone who knows the city's food world the way most people know their own kitchen, to open doors a guidebook never could: market walks with the cooks who actually shop there each morning, a full day inside a Sichuan pickle cellar learning the fermentation by hand, and a final evening cooking alongside a home kitchen team using techniques passed down rather than written down. The kind of trip where the city becomes the syllabus. 

Sourcing, done properly

A UK furniture businessman wanted to find real manufacturing partners in Guangdong, not just another supplier directory. We brought in our City Fixer to open the right doors: factory visits arranged through existing relationships rather than cold calls, a translator who knew furniture and manufacturing terminology rather than general Mandarin, and the kind of on-the-ground negotiation support that turns a single visit into a working relationship rather than a one-off order.