China Ancient Town Tours, Ancient Town Tours China 2020

We believe that a quick and smart way to learn about a country’s culture and history is not only to read a history book or to make frequent visits to a museum of it, but also to visit its ancient towns and cities. Everyone knows in China there are eight Ancient Cities, which are Xi’an, Luoyang, Beijing, Kaifeng, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Anyang and Zhengzhou. Besides these large cities, from south to north, east to west of China, as gems here and there, there are also a large number of smaller towns/villages which played an important role in the history and owns lots of cultural and historical relics. The water town of Zhouzhuang near Shanghai, Hui style villages near Huangshan, Yangshuo and Daxu near Guilin, Pingyao in central Shanxi, Dali and Lijiang in northwest Yunnan, etc., each of them has different charms while all present China’s rich historical heritage.

Our China Ancient Town Tours are designed for those who have interests in learning about the ancient history of Chinese civilization. During these tours, you may stay in small guesthouses, “intrude” into an old local community, call at a local family, listen to some anecdotes from an aged man with white long beard…. Traveling with our China Ancient Town Tours, you not only sightsee, but experience China’s grass-root units and more…

Private Tours

Travel with family, friends or those who you wanna be with on your holiday, on your own departure date, in your own pace, to destinations you wanna go…

Private Tours

You can easily book a private tour with us by two ways. Everything can be customized. Travel China your way!

a.Choose a likely one from our off-the-peg tours categorized by theme, and tell us to customize it until it thoroughly meets all your requirements.

b.Fill in our “Tailor-made Tour” form, and a unique tour proposal will be created for you.

China Tour Packages

Join-in Tours

Simply adapt your time to our fixed departure dates. Meet and make new friends while touring China’s best destinations, culture and landscape in a small group.

Join-in Tours

We’ve prepared two types of join-in tours for you:

a.Long China tours you join in and follow from day 1 to the last day

b.Local one- or two-day tours in a certain city or area

Join-in China Tours

China Tours by Theme

We understand different people’s travel interests are various.

China Tours by Theme

Simply choose a tour according to your interests, needs and other relevant facts.

China Tour Packages

What customers say about us?

We’re sure that our customers’ words talk louder than our own’s. We believe that hearing directly from those who've experienced our private China tours is the best way to understand what we’re doing. It's not just about seeing the sights and the tour itself; it's about the whole process, from planning to execution. We highly value all the feedbacks and make them to encourage us to constantly improve our services.

Richard and Sylvia
British

After looking at trip advisor, we picked 3 China based travel agencies who we thought might be able to plan a tour of the area around Beijing. One agency suggested factory tours from the outset whilst another was fairly insistent that we travel overnight by train, but Monica proved to be thoughtful and flexible.
We have friends in Beijing and so started and ended our trip with them.
She suggested a day trip to the Great Wall from Beijing plus a tour of Pingyao, Xi'an and Luoyang with 3 bullet train journeys and one plane flight.
We decided not to go with a couple of her suggestions, but she was comfortable with that and re-jigged the trips to suit.
The actual guides provided are generally contractors who can work for several agencies depending on the work available. But the choice of which guides to employ still falls on the travel agency (and availability).

We were also very happy with our guides "Nelson" in Pingyao/Taiyuan, "Grace" in Xi'an and "Frank" in Luoyang as well as the drivers. They all turned up flawlessly on time for every appointment, helped us order lunch and always seemed happy.

There appear to be one or two 'scams' running with guides taking commission on purchases made. But having ordered an evening dance show + meal at our hotel "Grand New World" our guide in Xi'an certainly earned what ever commission she got by making sure that my meal contained no sugar or MSG/Soy Sauce.

Chinese drivers seem to learn to all drive at the Kamikaze school of motoring, but the drivers in Pingyao, Xi'an and Luoyang (Frank did his own driving) (also contracted but independently of the guides) did a good job of not frightening us too much.

Chinese cyclists and motor cyclists don't even follow the correct direction of flow and often drive on the wrong side of the road. Chinese drivers hoot constantly if they want to overtake and can't quite squeeze by!

Coffee in China generally doesn't seem very good (apart from at the large American chains).

The Tian yuan kui hostel in Pingyao is an interesting mixture of traditional and modern. The staff were extremely lovely and the food was tasty. The hundreds of recommendations on A3 sheets on the wall in English, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages were also testament to that.

The Grand New World hotel in Xi'an was a slice of America transported to China. Service was slightly variable. E.g. I had to go to 3 receptionists in order to find the one who was allowed to do checkouts. English from staff was variable though usually adequate.

The Peony Hotel in Luoyang was also like a slice of America. Our safe would not work as it had no batteries in it. We struggled with language problems for about half an hour to get 4 new batteries to fit into it and then to get the Chinese maintenance lady to fit them right way round.

The manager agreed a special picnic lunch for our train journey, but I ended up having to explain to francophone Chinese tour guide in French what we needed! But I guess episodes like this make a tour more interesting.

Many thanks to Monica for arranging this memorable holiday.

Date of experience: 01/09/2017-13/09/2017
Bob
Australia

My wife and I brought eight college students to China for two weeks in January. I was a little hesitant to use a Chinese tour company, but Alex Guan provided a better itinerary at a better price than anyone else. He also answered all email queries immediately. The tour went off without a hitch. Alex accompanied us to ensure everything went smoothly, and he had arranged excellent guides and drivers in every city (Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Yangshuo, Hangzhou, and Shanghai). The hotels exceeded our expectations, and the meals he had arranged were superb. On top of all that, Alex is a great guy who we all really enjoyed getting to know. I have no hesitation in whole-heartedly recommending China Expedition Tours and Alex Guan!

Date of experience: 05/01/2017-18/01/2017
Emilio Cabrera
the U.S.A

Monica:

We have fantastic vacations and I want to thank you and you staff for a wonderful service.Please give from us special thank to Karen for her out standing

service, she and the driver when over the service and provide us withextra stops that

were not included in our itinerary.

Best Regards

Emilio Cabrera

Date of experience: 30/09/2014-02/10/2014
Aurelia e Mario Bignami
Italy

Dear Mrs. Chanel,

We were really pleased with the whole trip that You organised for us.

All aspects were studied very well and we had the opportunity to see beautiful landscapes and to know and love China. All the guides were good and prepared; we remember with special affection Nancy that we had in Shangri-la and who really loved us.

Nancy anticipated of one day the visit to the Jade Mountain Snow and in this way we could see the spectacle of minorities that will not forget for life.

The visits to Guillin were exceptional and Lizzie was really good at explaining. The rice fields of Longji were an exciting experience because they are the demonstration of the secular ability of the Chinese people to adapt to the environment even in the most difficult areas.

The dinner at Your house was a demonstration of friendship that we will not forget and we wish you every luck for your Husband and for Your very good and polite daughter.

Shanghai was amazing and Luisa guided us with great advice in a huge but extraordinarily friendly and organized city.

My wife who speaks very little English has always found herself at ease; all the accommodations we tried were well above European standards and especially made us appreciate the China of small villages and ordinary people.

We gave Your references to all our friends and our 3 daughters encouraging everyone to live this experience because in fact we know little here in Europe of the reality of this great country and only through direct experience is possible to understand a civilisation that thousands of years of history and much to teach us.

We hope to come again and visit the center and north of China that surely reserve us new reasons for wonder and joy.

Dear Mrs Chanel,

Still many thanks for everything You have done for us.

Aurelia e Mario Bignami

Date of experience: 01/11/2024-14/11/2024
Marthe Druska
the U.S

Hi, Monica.Thank you for your note. My tour in Beijing was excellent - Allen (Lu You) was a fantastic tour guide and I have only good things to say about him. Our driver was also very good.

In terms of improvements - I would have liked to have spent more time at the Summer Palace and in the Hutong, but we were on a tight schedule.

I would also suggest that tourists not visit the pearl market - the atmosphere was not very pleasant. However, the tea house and silk factory that we visited were very good.

I would recommend Allen as a tour guide to other tourists and would definitely return to the sights that I saw on this trip.

Here is the picutre taken on the Great wall. Thank you again, it was a very good trip,

Marthe

Date of experience: 15/09/2017-17/09/2017
Maurice

We had a wonderful trip down the LiRiver near Guilin with China Expeditions, and had a lot of fun at the rice terraces!

Date of experience: 13/04/2018-17/04/2018

Ancient Town Tours

Create your custom China tour and explore the real China on your own terms!

Ancient Town Tours

Essence of Old Towns around Shanghai Tour, from US$656

East China Ancient Town Experience Tour, from US$1136

Yunnan & Guilin Old Town Discovery Trip

Impression of Longsheng & Yangshuo Tour

Yunnan Old Town Discovery Tour

China Ancient Town Exploration Tour, from US$2017

Splendid Ancient Town Tour, from US$1299

What type of tours should you take?

Private Tours

Private Tours

Join-in Tours

Join-in Tours

China Tours by Theme

China Tours by Theme

What customers say about us?