M18 June 2016
Just a note to say how much we enjoyed our WildChina excursion you planned for us. All the details were covered, and your team executed flawlessly. We felt that Mary and Ike in particular performed “above and beyond” in terms of their ability to tell us about the extraordinary history of your country in addition to the facts. We will enthusiastically recommend WildChina to friends and relatives who may be thinking of traveling there. It has been a pleasure to work with you and everyone on the WildChina team.
J.H.15 June 2016
We would like to thank you for the great experience we had in Tibet. The guide and driver were great and the facilities were excellent. Also, thank you so much for arranging my birthday party.
S & B10 June 2016
Many of these reviews are from people who did a LOT of homework before their trip. I had NO time for planning and on the advice of my sister who traveled with WildChina 2 years ago, I threw caution to the wind, and left our fate to WildChina. My daughter and I were not at all disappointed.
We felt so cared for by our travel coordinator Robin, and by all of our guides. We missed a domestic flight from Shanghai to Guilin (OUR fault), and Robin fixed all of it and was on the phone calling us, and our guide, at 1AM making sure all was well. I’d have been at a loss to fix the situation, even though I live just outside NYC so I know how things get done, but speak NO Chinese.
And living in NY, I told Robin we had little interest in spending too much time in big cities. We did see city highlights, including the real and the old China, eg., the French Concession in Shanghai and the hutongs of Beijing. Plus WC organized time in Guilin, Yangshou (see the show!…nationalistic but amazing theatrics), the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces from the Ming Dynasty, the Terra Cotta Warriors, and a side trip to see a friend in Chuxiong, where there are next to no tourists. ALL in 2 weeks. Without the concierge service of WC, we could NEVER have gotten to all of these places.
A special shout out to our guide Stewart from Guilin who took us to the Rice Terraces. I had told Robin that my daughter was interested in photography, and Robin arranged for Stewart for us/her. He is an superb photographer, and he was generous with his expertise to my daughter. A lovely man, a wonderful teacher.
The trip was expensive, but worth it. Unless you drive yourself, you’d be hard pressed to fit in a lot of China in a short amount of time. All was very well co-ordinated. I do wish we’d had more time to be there, and flew less. Maybe a high-speed train would have been a good alternative somewhere along the way. All in all, it was a most excellent adventure for my daughter and me.
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Lanne V.27 May 2016
I will start by saying I am very loyal to another private tour company that I have used to travel the world but they do not plan trips to China, so after extensive research I chose Wild China. Wild China did not quite hold up to my other trips but in many areas they did excel. First and without question the most important aspect of any private tour are the guides and those chosen by Wild China for our trip were terrific. Jerry in Beijing was exceptional, Moe in Guilin, Yangshou and Longsheng excellent and both Mary in Guilin and Mary and Shanghai very good. Each guide was friendly, informative and on time. Most of the lodging choices were on point, in particular the Li’an Lodge in Longsheng and the Moondance in Yangshou (thank you for talking me out of switching even though TripAdvisor reviews right before I went were horrific). Where things went slightly astray were a dead afternoon in Guilin and choices in Shanghai (a free afternoon to do the Bund & Nanjing road was worth 30 minutes of time tops). The French Concession was not anything we needed to see. I will take some of the onus on this as usually I am very thorough in my research and had I done more would have realized the line-up in Shanghai would not work for us. We also had a very aggressive 8 day itinerary and this could be some of the reason behind not seeing some more nature or villages in the two cities noted. I also am not quite sure how we did things “differently” as from what I could tell, we followed the general guidelines of things to do in each area (again time constraints could be the reason for this). Highlights were the Great Wall & toboggan ride in Beijing, TerraCotta Warriors n Xi’an, the Rice Terraces in Longsheng, Li River Cruise & Impressions Show in Yangshou and the Yu Gardens & ERA Acrobat Show in Shanghai. While the big cities do present some of the WOW moments in China; if you have more than 8 days; the countryside was our favorite overall. Again, Wild China did an excellent job but I highly recommend having a really good idea of what you want as a traveller so when the suggestions are made, you can edit and carve out a trip that suits your personality. I usually hate long reviews and apologize but finding a forum to review private tour companies can be difficult!
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Rhonda A.25 April 2016
The true quality of a travel company is often only apparent when some goes badly wrong and the traveller needs help. This is a characteristic we’ve recently seen demonstrated by Wild China – one which shows to us they are head and shoulders above the competition.
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Stuart15 April 2016
The true quality of a travel company is often only apparent when some goes badly wrong and the traveller needs help. This is a characteristic we’ve recently seen demonstrated by Wild China – one which shows to us they are head and shoulders above the competition.
Disaster struck our planned trip very recently – even though we had not set foot on an aircraft or had yet arrived in China! We planned and had paid fully for an extensive trip for myself and my wife to Xi’an followed by 12 days in Yunnan on a tailor made trip that was to take place in May this year.
The planning process was fantastic in itself with minute attention to detail expended by Veronique our Destination Expert and a former director of Wild China. We were all set to depart from London (UK) in May with our visas already in our passports (with great help from Wild China to help us obtain them). We were so looking forward to a unique holiday when my wife suddenly had an accident in the UK resulting in a badly broken ankle and an enforced 9 week period when no weight can be placed on one foot. Dreams of terra-cotta warrior tombs or hiking near in the lower reaches of Tibetan mountains were shattered.
That’s when the Wild China team came to our rescue. They were fantastic and generous in every way with the cancellation process. This was in great contrast to our experience with some of the other providers involved in parts of the international segments of the trip. It is when things go wrong that the true quality of a travel organisation REALLY matters. We now have every confidence that when we are able to rebook a replacement trip, we will be very safe in Wild China’s hands if anything were to go array before or during the trip.
We are now looking forward to planning that replacement trip with Wild China and have even greater confidence that their services at every stage equate with true value for money combined with impressive attention to detail and personalized service. We look forward to writing another very positive Trip Advisor report when we (eventually) get back from the China trip we anticipate to make once the ankle is healed.
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Stuart G.15 April 2016
– Expensive but professional,
– Really helped us a lot to build a wonderful trip in Yunnan and Sichuan which is really difficult because information are really hard to find when you want to build your trip from France (even specialist such as la maison de la chine was completely lost when we talked about Yading and some other places we wanted to visit)
– expensive, but that’s true, the drivers don’t drink and don’t smoke in the car and clearly in China with a cheap price you can quickly be with very poor services.
– All the guides were nice and tried their best, they spoke a very good English (which is a big skill there…).
– Most of the guides didn’t bring us in touristic traps were they can have retro commission
– The cars were usually in good conditions
– There were some little mistakes sometimes but to be fair, we saw that even in 5 star hotel the service was really not so good in the areas we went.
– To conclude it was expensive, but honestly we felt that it worth it, we had no major problem and without them, I don’t think that we would have been able to live such a good experience in China were it can be so difficult to travel.
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Julien V.8 April 2016
Having just returned from an 18 day tour of China, totally arranged by Jenny Zaho and staff at WildChina, I can honestly say you will NOT find a better, more professional, or flexible agent to organize your China adventure. My wife and I had a blast, covering all the important “tourist attractions”, but combining them with hiking the beautiful countryside and experiencing lovely one on one interactions with local people.
Our guides were all well spoken, well educated, able to change on the fly to accommodate a special interest, and above all else fun to be with. All our drivers were equally professional. In short WildChina from our experience is knowledgeable, professional, ethical and one of the best agents we’ve dealt with in our world travels.
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William H.29 September 2015
My family visited Beijing for four days after spending two weeks in Southeast Asia. My boys where getting tired of traveling when we arrived in Beijing. Michael our guide and Mr. Wang our driver with WildChina changed that. We had an amazing time. After meeting the family Michael immediately made plans to change up our visit to make it more meaningful and more exciting for the boys. Michael is also a culinary expert and made sure we had wonderful meals even when we were on our own for dinner. I also can’t say enough about Mr. Wang. He always had a smile on his face even in the backed up traffic of Beijing. He always seemed to anticipate where we would be and was always where we needed him to be within seconds. I can’t thank you enough for an amazing trip!
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G.A.25 August 2015
I have taken four trips to China and this is was my first time using WildChina. They planned an 17 day trip to Eastern and Western China (including Tibet). It was chock filled with standard visits to the standard tourist attractions (the Great Wall, etc.) but also filled with lots of cultural surprises (a calligraphy class in the Hutong, a Kung fu lesion near Luoyang, a dumpling class in Beijing, etc.). These excursions were some of the highlights of our trip. The guides were good, the planning of the trip was seamless. Though I have used many travel agents in my tours around the world, WildChina was among the best.
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Antionio20 August 2015
Our son is studying in Beijing this year and we went over to visit him in May for two weeks between semesters. Wild China put together a spectacular trip for us in central and Southwestern China. We had a perfect mix of biking, hiking and seeing the sites, interspersed with activities like calligraphy, batiking, a cooking class, a small rafting ride. The scenery was spectacular and so varied. We strolled though several old villages and many farmers markets. Jenny Zhao did a great job of putting everything together and was really helpful to us with a few things we needed to get to our son before and after our trip there. Our guide for five of the days was Shelley, who was terrific. Great personality, lots of good history and stories — we just loved her! We chose to do most of our meals on our own which we preferred as it didn’t tie us down. The hotels we stayed in were nicely varied from five star resorts to the funkier, old inn in the middle of an ancient village where we woke up to roosters crowing! This definitely was a trip of a lifetime — made especially nice because we got to see China through our son’s eyes and he got to see parts of China he wouldn’t have been able to without this trip.
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Susan D.25 July 2015
My husband and I are in our mid-twenties and live in Beijing. My dad and his friend, who are both 60 years old, came to visit. We used WildChina to plan our Guilin trip at the last minute because I was too busy to plan a trip– best decision ever!!
I emailed the general WildChina email and they responded within ten minutes. I gave them almost nothing to work with– our party details, dates and a location– and they emailed back with the most exciting and holistic itinerary. They let me change the itinerary however I wanted. The guide we had were super flexible and helpful. When we said goodbye to Ricky, we were so sad. We forgot we had only met him a couple days earlier because he felt so familiar.
Everything was so well done. It was like they anticipated our needs. Before we departed, at airport pick up, hotel check in, etc– they answered every question we had, always made sure we had snacks/drinks and whatever else we needed.
WildChina is awesome for people who are new to China. My husband and I both speak fluent Mandarin and can get around easily, and we would recommend WildChina to everyone! It made our trip so stress-free, so fun, and so adventurous. We didn’t have to think through any details and we got to have an amazing experience.
Before our trip, I was skeptical of spending the money on WildChina when we could figure things out on TripAdvisor before and on the ground once we got there. After this trip, I can’t believe I hesitated! I could not recommend WildChina more highly. Whether you’re new to China or a seasoned expat, young or old, Chinese or American, you should definitely talk to WildChina. I absolutely recommend that you ask them to see what your options are– you won’t regret it!
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V31 March 2015
Based on recommendation of friends, we used Wild China for a trip to Guilin/Yangshuo & Longsheng. The itinerary was custom-made (including boats, biking and hiking), our guide Michael was fantastic and all four of us feel we saw a beautiful part of China in an authentic and fun way. The interactions with Wild China before and during the trip were professional and nice. A great experience and we will use Wild China again when exploring other parts of China.
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Sabinein B.27 March 2015
Booking a tour with WildChina is like asking a distant relative to take you around the city. You are in a warm, friendly environment the entire time. You are looked after and your comfort, enjoyment, and well-being are the top concern of the tour guide. At the end of the tour you have not only learned so much about China (post past and present) you have made new friends.
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P.M.24 March 2015
We toured China for 24 days, with WildChina Travel in April 2015. It was a memorial experience to say the least, one we thourghily enjoyed. We visited Shanghai, Dali, Liajing, Shangri-la, Lhasa, Xi’an, Guilin, and finally Beijing for 3 full days. We also toured small villages by car and on foot from Guilin, notably Ping An village and the rice growing terraces. WildChina arranged everything with guides and drivers in all cities or areas, domestic flights within China, and all housing and most meals. The guides were all knowledgeable and willing to talk about everything including life in China today. We feel we learned so much about China. We spent time walking the streets and climbing the steps to see everything possible up close; no drive-by touring here. We had one problem with a hotel in Lhasa and Jenny our WildChina contact moved us to a another hotel within an hour of our “after hours” phone call for help. You can’t beat that. WildChina has our unqualified recommendation for touring China.
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Rick B.4 March 2015
We were a group of 4 family members who decided to visit China for the first time. We wanted to know our heritage and be able to find where we came from. And Wild China helped us do that to the best of their abilities. We did not only enjoy finding some very valuable information about our ancestors we actually loved our experience in all the cities that we visited. Great guides in almost all the cities, that spoke English and understood our questions and requests. Very professional planning from the beginning to the end. We highly recommend Wild China to our friends and family and we will definitely use them again in the near future. If I have to offer an advice it will be to make sure some guides of an older age are as accommodating and nice as the younger ones.
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G.22 December 2014
Almost 4 weeks on a private tour with WildChina; mostly in eastern Guizhou with a little time crossing into northwest Hunan and then to Anhui for a several days. Having been to China a few times previously, we had considered arriving and picking up local guides and drivers so to travel at our own pace. We didn’t because of time restraints but, irrespective, that would have been a mistake. From the time of planning, it was evident that every effort was being made to accommodate our preferences in travel. As it turned out, in each place, even though we certainly travelled slowly and took our time, we thought ‘maybe we could have missed out on something to come in order to spend more time where we were’. That might be thought of as a criticism but it simply reflects the quality of our travels. When the end of the holiday came, there was nothing that we would have been happy to have missed: we need to return!
On our tour, we had experiences – going places and meeting people – that we could never have found, no matter how much time we had taken. Our guides, especially Shiao and John, had sought out places and built relationships that will never make their way into guidebooks. Moreover, their pride in their regions and in their roles as guides was evident and infectious: we just wanted to spend more time with them: we were privileged. There was also room for flexibility to make changes to take in our preferences and to see events that we came upon by chance or had been scheduled after we had settled on the original itinerary.
It is customary after a review such as this to say that we will definitely be travelling with WildChina again: there, I’ve said it – and we certainly will!
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M.N.10 December 2014
I am so happy to finally have a chance to sit down and write a long overdue review lauding WildChina for our phenomenal experience with them during our 6 week trip through China. We went from the middle of August to the beginning of October and traversed through 8 provinces of China’s vast landscape. We wanted to focus our trip on the more remote side of China, the China that is on the cusp of change for we wanted to catch this slice of China before it disappears under the cloak of modernization forever. As you can imagine, to travel to that many provinces, some of them more remote and aren’t fully equipped to handle foreign travels that don’t speak a lick of Mandarin, can be a logistical nightmare. That is where WildChina truly excelled. They are one of the best travel companies we have ever worked with. It was delightful to work with everyone at WildChina, from the planning personnel, to the guides and the drivers, everyone was wonderful. We truly felt that our comfort and contentment with the trip was of paramount importance to them.
Planning Process:
At first, we were a little concerned with using a travel company and dealing with a staff that is abroad. Will language be a problem, will they understand the nuances of our desires for this trip, will there be a long lag time in communication due to the time zone differences, etc. All those little questions floated around in our minds. But any concerns we had were quickly dispelled. Everyone I was working with during the planning process was exceptional in his or her English skills. Never did I have to worry that something was getting lost in translation or that my wants/needs were not being addressed. They were very quick to respond and they were also amazingly patient ☺. When we first planned our trip, it was for 4 weeks, then it went up to 5 and then to 6 weeks. The entire process, as you can imagine, took months to plan and never did I ever feel they were impatient or anything other than completely happy to address my changes or ideas.
Our Trip:
If you’re interested, here are the places we visit on our trip: Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuzhen, Hangzhou, Guilin, Yangshuo, Longsheng (both the Dragon Back and the Jinkeng Rice Terraces), a bunch of tiny villages for the ethnic minority groups of China in Guizhou (Zhaozing, Congjiang, Rongjiang, Leishan, Kaili, Guiyang (capitol of the province), Dazhai, Jichang and a few others), we then traveled to Dali, Shaxi, Lijiang, Shangri-La, Xian, Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Zhangye, the Great Wall, and finally to Beijing.
WildChina did an amazing job of finding us the best accommodation available for each of the locations we stayed. They were also very accommodating when we wanted to book our own hotels for whichever cities or areas we liked. They gave us suggestions based upon their experience as to which hotels are good but never pressured us to go with what they suggested.
The logistics of the trip was also handled very well. There were some idiosyncrasies involved with the way certain industries operated within China, so things like that we just worked around. For example, airlines in China will only check your bag to the final destination if you are only using one airline for all legs of the trip. Due to the many places we went to and to better facilitate our schedule, WildChina booked different airlines to get us to our final destination. Each time that happened, the airlines will only check our bags to our layover point and we had to claim our luggage and recheck in our bags and get new tickets again with the connecting airline. Not a big thing unless you have a lot of luggage or if you have a tight connection. I would still suggest you ask them to book through the same airlines to help avoid this inconvenience. China does not allow you to use your cell phone in airplane mode during the entire length of the flight. So if you need something to do, I would bring an iPod, iPad or a good old fashion book because longer flights can be tedious with nothing to do.
One of our most favorite and one of the most awe inspiring experience we had from our trip (and there were many for sure) was that due to WildChina’s connections, we were able to stand on the diplomatic platform when we saw the terracotta warriors of Xian. China is a big country with many, many people. In 80 percent of the places we visited, we did not see that many people and there were no crowds, but in places like Shanghai, Xian and Beijing, you cannot help but be surrounded by thousands of tourist like yourself (mostly nationals but many foreigners as well). Oh to be on that diplomatic platform where we were the only two people (plus our guide) on the entire platform to view and take in the warriors was glorious. We walked back and forth, gazing at the sea of terracotta warriors all on our own. Not only this, but the diplomatic platform is closer to the warriors than the general public platform, so you can see their faces and expressions all the better. Contrast that with thousands of people crowding together on the further public platform and we felt like we were rock stars! It was phenomenal!!!
Food:
We are typically independent travelers as we like the freedom to do what we like when we like. We also love the freedom of being able to eat what we want to eat as we LOVE food and coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, are big foodies. When our custom itinerary included the vast majority of our meals, we were a little bit concerned that we’ll end up getting the buffet or the very non-authentic food that you hear horror stories about with tour groups. However, we were so impressed that the meals included in our trip was totally under our digression with the suggestions of the guides. Also, we were free to order whatever we like on the menu of any of the restaurant we chose! That was AMAZING – we thought for sure we would get some sort of set menu so that WildChina can regulate the cost. But to your happy surprise, we were totally free to choose anything on the menu. The guides did a great job of caring for our safety and in suggesting restaurants that will not get us sick – we did not have a single problem during the entire 6 week stay.
Guides:
Without a doubt, I have to say all the guides we had with WildChina are superb. One of the top concerns when dealing with guides is the fluency of their English and their ease of understanding not only formal academic talk, but regular everyday talking. In our experience, every guide we had was extremely fluent in English. On top of this, they are extremely concern about our comfort and enjoyment. Extremely flexible and accommodating and will bend over backwards to make sure you are happy. I cannot say a single bad thing about any of the guides we had. But even among the great guides, there were some superstars. Among those and who I would recommend without hesitation are: Ted Lu (Guizhou guide), Shelly Zhang (Yunnan guide) and Amy Pan (Gansu guide). They are our top guides for different reasons. Ted is just all around terrific. From the knowledge base, his enthusiasm and his willingness to go out of the way to make you enjoy our time, he is great at everything. We were with him for 9 days through some of the less developed, but also some of the most interesting and beautiful areas of China, the province of Guizhou. This is the province that still has some rough roads, not so great restroom facilities, and not as developed conditions for tourism. While we found the non-developed aspect of the province as one of its biggest positives, that same aspect makes it harder to the logistics of travel. However with Ted’s positivity, enthusiasm and all around great guy nature, the rougher logistics was all forgotten and all we are left with is the amazing memories we had there. Shelly Zhang is very outgoing, very personable; she loves to learn about your culture and also very accommodating. She totally went out of her way to find and call the artist of a piece we like and went on to cajole him into accepting the price we could afford to pay for it. Then she continued to go even further out of her way to help us figure out a payment system since the shop did not accept credit cards. She went so far beyond normal duties call and we were so touched. Amy Pan is one of our top guides for her kindness and compassion. I have problems with my feet and knees and Amy was always by my side helping me, holding my arm or hand for support. She is very sweet and very gentle. We all shared our stories and by the time we left each other, we feel as though we were friends. How many times can you say that???
Summary:
I would highly recommend WildChina for everyone, may they be strangers, friends or family. I have no reservation that you will have an amazing trip with them. When we first decided to use them, we thought, if WildChina is good enough for National Geographic (who also uses them), then WildChina is good for us. But now, with actual real experience, I cannot use too high of language to praise them or to recommend them.
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T.P.2 December 2014
Unforgettable. My husband and I had a 12 day trip through the mountainous ethnic regions from Guiyang to Guilin. We came back with a feeling for the culture and people of the area visited which we could never have had on our own. Our guides were knowledgeable, friendly and enjoyable to be with. It is hard to narrow down the highlights of our trip but here are a few: hiking through the ethnic mountain areas; home stays and home visits during the day in which due to the language ability of our guide we had the opportunity to interact directly with the people of the region; beautiful scenery; great food; bike ride though the stunning karst formations in Yangshuo and the Moondance hotel.
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T.2 December 2014
I can’t express how pleased we had been with the trip we took in October and the excellent service we received from planning through execution.
We worked with Jenny Zhao since Oct 2013 to plan this trip to the Silk Road to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Although I kind of knew where I wanted to go, I needed a lot of advice from Jenny to get it all planned out. I can’t praise Jenny enough for her patience and sense of humor throughout in responding to the endless inquiries I had. We had had multiple changes to locations to be visited, length of the trip, ending locations, number of people on the trip, and even a last minute time change and airport change for a flight for my daughter two days before departure. Jenny always responded to my questions promptly and if she did not have an answer for me right away, she would let me know in advance and tell me when she could get back to me. It has been a wonderful experience working with her.
The tour guides on the trip were all excellent, Jerry in Beijing, Amanda in Dunhuang, Nur in Urumqi and Abdul in Kashgar all took excellent care of us and are so knowledgeable. We felt we made new friends on our journey.
I would definitely work with WildChina and Jenny again on a future trip to China.
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S.H.1 December 2014
Our 6-person tour took about 10 months or more In the making with emails going back and forth between us and Wild China’s consultant. The planning experience has been positive and we always received prompt responses and good recommendations from our travel consultant.
My husband and I have been more than happy with the service we have received from our Wild China consultant as well as the drivers and guides. The guides in particular are knowledgeable and very helpful. The drivers were very professional and friendly as well. We felt completely safe in the vehicles we were provided with.
We would happily travel with Wild China again should the opportunity arise.
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S.30 November 2014
My husband and I were on this Wild China tour Oct 12-24, 2012. There was one another couple so it was almost like a private tour. Sherry Dou, our tour leader was awesome and caring that she made our tour more special. We went to Beijing, Xi’an, Lijiang, Shangri-La and Shanghai. In each town we had a local tour guide who was excellent. In Beijing, our tour guide was Chris Che, whom we honestly thought he was a walking encyclopedia. My husband tried to stump him but he did not succeed. Everything was perfectly planned — every meal was delicious, hotels were tops especially Banyan Tree in Lijiang. Lijiang is THE Sangri-La, one of the most beautiful place we have been to. Thank you, Wild China, for wonderful trip. We highly recommend this tour and Wild China.
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Trinity19 November 2014
Wild China is a superb travel company! I would highly recommend them to anyone traveling through China, a country where there is a massive language barrier for English speakers. They are incredibly well-organized and accommodating and the guides are all warm and knowledgeable. Our trip coordinator Su Xi was super responsive by e-mail and even by mobile for all of our questions and concerns leading up to the trip. I was traveling with my 76-year old mother, who was well taken care of by all of our guides. We were truly impressed by the level of service provided by all who worked with us.
Our trip was our first to China, a two-week private journey from Beijing to Guilin. Some highlights include an evening at the Beijing opera (in addition to the performance, the theatre itself is worth a visit,) a day trip from Shanghai through the historic gardens of Suzhou, tea-tastings in Hangzhou and Shanghai, a cooking class and cormorant fishing in Yangshou. There were so many unforgettable experiences and all were seamlessly planned and executed by Su Xi and our local guides.
A driver was provided to us throughout our journey. We were met at the airport by our guides, who even helped us check in for our flights and train trips. Everyone had an extremely positive attitude! I would definitely recommend WildChina to anyone taking a trip to China. We hope to use them again in the future!
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Rupa17 November 2014
Une découverte très intéressante au travers d’un service sur mesure, un guide “Jerry” dont l’anglais était parfait et passionné par son travail.
je conseille cette agence pour son professionnalisme, avec des propositions de qualité.
Bravo à toute l’équipe.
Marie-France
Belgique.
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Marie16 November 2014
Wildchina nous a préparé un voyage sur-mesure correspondant à toutes les attentes fixées. L’équipe a été présente tout au long du voyage et a su répondre aux demandes du Groupe. Nous recommandons l’agence sans hésiter à tous ceux qui souhaiteraient découvrir la Chine !
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Oceane A.6 November 2014
This was our second trip with Wild China. Pre trip support was excellent. Responses to changes and questions were immediate. Guides were quick, intelligent and insightful. We highly recommend Wild China and their Silk Road trip!
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Diane19 October 2014
We only had a week which is not much time for a country as vast and full of history as China, but Jenny Zhao was able to craft an experience that was just the right pace and gave us the ability to experience both the urban and natural beauty of China. These folks are top notch!
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James O.17 October 2014
WildChina helped me plan an incredible 11 day trip for my mom and I to see: Beijing (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven), Xi’an (Terracotta Warriors), Chengdu (panda breeding center), and Shanghai (Yu Garden, Pudong district, Huangpu river cruise). It was top-notch and perfectly tailored to meet our needs. If you want a 5 star experience, I highly recommend WildChina!!
Our travel consultant – Jenny Zhao – was extremely responsive to our needs. She provided great suggestions for our itinerary so that it fit our style and desired pace. She also provided helpful guidance regarding our visas. Given my busy, demanding work schedule, I had limited time to spend on planning this trip. Without Jenny’s dedicated assistance, it would not have been possible!
While we wanted some excitement, we needed to moderate our pace due to my mother’s health condition. Jenny made smart adjustments to our itinerary so that we still had a good amount of activity (including fun things like a dumpling-making class and a tai chi lesson) but also the right amount of downtime.
We really enjoyed the accommodations selected for us. They were all centrally-located with wonderful rooms and great breakfast buffets.
Our guides were amazing! Each one of them had deep knowledge of the sites we were visiting and helped us understand China’s complex history and culture (which is exactly what I wanted). They made us feel very comfortable and answered all our questions thoroughly. And they were flexible to meet our needs. Their attention to our needs – especially my mom’s – made our visit to China one of the best trips of our lives!
Everywhere we went, we had delicious food – local dishes, with lots of variety. The guides were careful to ask us about food allergies, sensitivities, etc. My mom cannot eat spicy food, and they ensured there were plenty of non-spicy options for her.
Thank you, WildChina, for the trip of a lifetime. We loved every minute of it!
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Amanda H.26 September 2014
We just returned from 2 weeks in China, and my husband and I can’t stop talking about this trip and our Wild China experience. Wild China gave us 5 experienced, very bright, flexible and creative guides to introduce us to the multitude of wonders that this country and people have to offer. Wild China worked with the 4 of us to create an itinerary that addressed our interests while also revealing the intricacies of China’s history, politics, culture, philosophies, arts, cooking and beauties. What a trip! What a country! All of our guides were perfectly suited to each area where they lived and worked. Each brought a love of their village/city and an openness to our questions and requests. They were constantly tailoring the experience in ways that addressed our areas of interests while skillfully problem solving when changes occurred. All of our guides, Abraham, Frank, Mary, Leo and Joe brought individual talents and skills that they easily shared with us. Some played music, did magic tricks, worked late at night , showed us sunrise/sunsets and never wavered in their commitment to provide us with a memorable trip. All were gems and it felt like we left friends behind when we left China. The Chinese people were warm and excited to meet us. This was a trip of a life time and we have Wild China to thank!
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Maxine S.21 September 2014
For our 25th anniversary, my wife and I went for 17 days all over China organized by WildChina. Only one word can describe that experience; Grandiose. Jenny Zhao (WildChina organizer) truly listened to our wishes and was able to exceed our expectations (which were high to start knowing my wife even being French is an Licensed accupuncturist and chinese doctor). We started from Beijing, to Leuyang, Xian, Chengdu, Su Zhu and Shanghai to only name the big ones. We had private guides and drivers in each location. Their English was perfect but more importantly their knowledge and personallity made the experience unique. As importantly, their flexibility was very impressive as any change in China is not easy. My wife and I have travelled a lot around the world and used many organizations, WildChina is the best and the attention to details and little attentions made us feel we were dealing with personal friends and not just travel agents and guides. We plan to reuse them for sure.
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Pierre B.17 September 2014
Spending 38 hours in any major city as a tourist can be daunting. Having Wild China as our guide, was the best decision to maximize our entire experience. The trip was tailored completely to what we wanted to see, and our guide and driver facilitated everything in between so we didn’t need to worry about a thing. Our guide was so knowledgable, friendly and willing to accommodate changes to the itinerary with no issue.
I’ve traveled with Wild China twice. First, when my parents visited while I was living in Shanghai, they booked WC to take us through Beijing. We had such a great experience, I decided to book with them again when my boyfriend and I traveled back to Beijing for a weekend. Both trips were equally fantastic. I cannot say enough good things about this company, how organized and professional they are, and their ability to tailor an experience so you get exactly what you want out of your trip. Awesome!
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Hilary K.15 September 2014
My husband and I are in our mid-twenties and live in Beijing. My dad and his friend, who are both 60 years old, came to visit. We used WildChina to plan our Guilin trip at the last minute because I was too busy to plan a trip– best decision ever!!
I emailed the general WildChina email and they responded within ten minutes. I gave them almost nothing to work with– our party details, dates and a location– and they emailed back with the most exciting and holistic itinerary. They let me change the itinerary however I wanted. The guide we had were super flexible and helpful. When we said goodbye to Ricky, we were so sad. We forgot we had only met him a couple days earlier because he felt so familiar.
Everything was so well done. It was like they anticipated our needs. Before we departed, at airport pick up, hotel check in, etc– they answered every question we had, always made sure we had snacks/drinks and whatever else we needed.
WildChina is awesome for people who are new to China. My husband and I both speak fluent Mandarin and can get around easily, and we would recommend WildChina to everyone! It made our trip so stress-free, so fun, and so adventurous. We didn’t have to think through any details and we got to have an amazing experience.
Before our trip, I was skeptical of spending the money on WildChina when we could figure things out on TripAdvisor before and on the ground once we got there. After this trip, I can’t believe I hesitated! I could not recommend WildChina more highly. Whether you’re new to China or a seasoned expat, young or old, Chinese or American, you should definitely talk to WildChina. I absolutely recommend that you ask them to see what your options are– you won’t regret it!
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V31 March 2015
Based on recommendation of friends, we used Wild China for a trip to Guilin/Yangshuo & Longsheng. The itinerary was custom-made (including boats, biking and hiking), our guide Michael was fantastic and all four of us feel we saw a beautiful part of China in an authentic and fun way. The interactions with Wild China before and during the trip were professional and nice. A great experience and we will use Wild China again when exploring other parts of China.
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Sabinein B.27 March 2015
Booking a tour with WildChina is like asking a distant relative to take you around the city. You are in a warm, friendly environment the entire time. You are looked after and your comfort, enjoyment, and well-being are the top concern of the tour guide. At the end of the tour you have not only learned so much about China (post past and present) you have made new friends.
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P.M.24 March 2015
We toured China for 24 days, with WildChina Travel in April 2015. It was a memorial experience to say the least, one we thourghily enjoyed. We visited Shanghai, Dali, Liajing, Shangri-la, Lhasa, Xi’an, Guilin, and finally Beijing for 3 full days. We also toured small villages by car and on foot from Guilin, notably Ping An village and the rice growing terraces. WildChina arranged everything with guides and drivers in all cities or areas, domestic flights within China, and all housing and most meals. The guides were all knowledgeable and willing to talk about everything including life in China today. We feel we learned so much about China. We spent time walking the streets and climbing the steps to see everything possible up close; no drive-by touring here. We had one problem with a hotel in Lhasa and Jenny our WildChina contact moved us to a another hotel within an hour of our “after hours” phone call for help. You can’t beat that. WildChina has our unqualified recommendation for touring China.
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Rick B.4 March 2015
We were a group of 4 family members who decided to visit China for the first time. We wanted to know our heritage and be able to find where we came from. And Wild China helped us do that to the best of their abilities. We did not only enjoy finding some very valuable information about our ancestors we actually loved our experience in all the cities that we visited. Great guides in almost all the cities, that spoke English and understood our questions and requests. Very professional planning from the beginning to the end. We highly recommend Wild China to our friends and family and we will definitely use them again in the near future. If I have to offer an advice it will be to make sure some guides of an older age are as accommodating and nice as the younger ones.
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G.22 December 2014
Almost 4 weeks on a private tour with WildChina; mostly in eastern Guizhou with a little time crossing into northwest Hunan and then to Anhui for a several days. Having been to China a few times previously, we had considered arriving and picking up local guides and drivers so to travel at our own pace. We didn’t because of time restraints but, irrespective, that would have been a mistake. From the time of planning, it was evident that every effort was being made to accommodate our preferences in travel. As it turned out, in each place, even though we certainly travelled slowly and took our time, we thought ‘maybe we could have missed out on something to come in order to spend more time where we were’. That might be thought of as a criticism but it simply reflects the quality of our travels. When the end of the holiday came, there was nothing that we would have been happy to have missed: we need to return!
On our tour, we had experiences – going places and meeting people – that we could never have found, no matter how much time we had taken. Our guides, especially Shiao and John, had sought out places and built relationships that will never make their way into guidebooks. Moreover, their pride in their regions and in their roles as guides was evident and infectious: we just wanted to spend more time with them: we were privileged. There was also room for flexibility to make changes to take in our preferences and to see events that we came upon by chance or had been scheduled after we had settled on the original itinerary.
It is customary after a review such as this to say that we will definitely be travelling with WildChina again: there, I’ve said it – and we certainly will!
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M.N.10 December 2014
I am so happy to finally have a chance to sit down and write a long overdue review lauding WildChina for our phenomenal experience with them during our 6 week trip through China. We went from the middle of August to the beginning of October and traversed through 8 provinces of China’s vast landscape. We wanted to focus our trip on the more remote side of China, the China that is on the cusp of change for we wanted to catch this slice of China before it disappears under the cloak of modernization forever. As you can imagine, to travel to that many provinces, some of them more remote and aren’t fully equipped to handle foreign travels that don’t speak a lick of Mandarin, can be a logistical nightmare. That is where WildChina truly excelled. They are one of the best travel companies we have ever worked with. It was delightful to work with everyone at WildChina, from the planning personnel, to the guides and the drivers, everyone was wonderful. We truly felt that our comfort and contentment with the trip was of paramount importance to them.
Planning Process:
At first, we were a little concerned with using a travel company and dealing with a staff that is abroad. Will language be a problem, will they understand the nuances of our desires for this trip, will there be a long lag time in communication due to the time zone differences, etc. All those little questions floated around in our minds. But any concerns we had were quickly dispelled. Everyone I was working with during the planning process was exceptional in his or her English skills. Never did I have to worry that something was getting lost in translation or that my wants/needs were not being addressed. They were very quick to respond and they were also amazingly patient ☺. When we first planned our trip, it was for 4 weeks, then it went up to 5 and then to 6 weeks. The entire process, as you can imagine, took months to plan and never did I ever feel they were impatient or anything other than completely happy to address my changes or ideas.
Our Trip:
If you’re interested, here are the places we visit on our trip: Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuzhen, Hangzhou, Guilin, Yangshuo, Longsheng (both the Dragon Back and the Jinkeng Rice Terraces), a bunch of tiny villages for the ethnic minority groups of China in Guizhou (Zhaozing, Congjiang, Rongjiang, Leishan, Kaili, Guiyang (capitol of the province), Dazhai, Jichang and a few others), we then traveled to Dali, Shaxi, Lijiang, Shangri-La, Xian, Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Zhangye, the Great Wall, and finally to Beijing.
WildChina did an amazing job of finding us the best accommodation available for each of the locations we stayed. They were also very accommodating when we wanted to book our own hotels for whichever cities or areas we liked. They gave us suggestions based upon their experience as to which hotels are good but never pressured us to go with what they suggested.
The logistics of the trip was also handled very well. There were some idiosyncrasies involved with the way certain industries operated within China, so things like that we just worked around. For example, airlines in China will only check your bag to the final destination if you are only using one airline for all legs of the trip. Due to the many places we went to and to better facilitate our schedule, WildChina booked different airlines to get us to our final destination. Each time that happened, the airlines will only check our bags to our layover point and we had to claim our luggage and recheck in our bags and get new tickets again with the connecting airline. Not a big thing unless you have a lot of luggage or if you have a tight connection. I would still suggest you ask them to book through the same airlines to help avoid this inconvenience. China does not allow you to use your cell phone in airplane mode during the entire length of the flight. So if you need something to do, I would bring an iPod, iPad or a good old fashion book because longer flights can be tedious with nothing to do.
One of our most favorite and one of the most awe inspiring experience we had from our trip (and there were many for sure) was that due to WildChina’s connections, we were able to stand on the diplomatic platform when we saw the terracotta warriors of Xian. China is a big country with many, many people. In 80 percent of the places we visited, we did not see that many people and there were no crowds, but in places like Shanghai, Xian and Beijing, you cannot help but be surrounded by thousands of tourist like yourself (mostly nationals but many foreigners as well). Oh to be on that diplomatic platform where we were the only two people (plus our guide) on the entire platform to view and take in the warriors was glorious. We walked back and forth, gazing at the sea of terracotta warriors all on our own. Not only this, but the diplomatic platform is closer to the warriors than the general public platform, so you can see their faces and expressions all the better. Contrast that with thousands of people crowding together on the further public platform and we felt like we were rock stars! It was phenomenal!!!
Food:
We are typically independent travelers as we like the freedom to do what we like when we like. We also love the freedom of being able to eat what we want to eat as we LOVE food and coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, are big foodies. When our custom itinerary included the vast majority of our meals, we were a little bit concerned that we’ll end up getting the buffet or the very non-authentic food that you hear horror stories about with tour groups. However, we were so impressed that the meals included in our trip was totally under our digression with the suggestions of the guides. Also, we were free to order whatever we like on the menu of any of the restaurant we chose! That was AMAZING – we thought for sure we would get some sort of set menu so that WildChina can regulate the cost. But to your happy surprise, we were totally free to choose anything on the menu. The guides did a great job of caring for our safety and in suggesting restaurants that will not get us sick – we did not have a single problem during the entire 6 week stay.
Guides:
Without a doubt, I have to say all the guides we had with WildChina are superb. One of the top concerns when dealing with guides is the fluency of their English and their ease of understanding not only formal academic talk, but regular everyday talking. In our experience, every guide we had was extremely fluent in English. On top of this, they are extremely concern about our comfort and enjoyment. Extremely flexible and accommodating and will bend over backwards to make sure you are happy. I cannot say a single bad thing about any of the guides we had. But even among the great guides, there were some superstars. Among those and who I would recommend without hesitation are: Ted Lu (Guizhou guide), Shelly Zhang (Yunnan guide) and Amy Pan (Gansu guide). They are our top guides for different reasons. Ted is just all around terrific. From the knowledge base, his enthusiasm and his willingness to go out of the way to make you enjoy our time, he is great at everything. We were with him for 9 days through some of the less developed, but also some of the most interesting and beautiful areas of China, the province of Guizhou. This is the province that still has some rough roads, not so great restroom facilities, and not as developed conditions for tourism. While we found the non-developed aspect of the province as one of its biggest positives, that same aspect makes it harder to the logistics of travel. However with Ted’s positivity, enthusiasm and all around great guy nature, the rougher logistics was all forgotten and all we are left with is the amazing memories we had there. Shelly Zhang is very outgoing, very personable; she loves to learn about your culture and also very accommodating. She totally went out of her way to find and call the artist of a piece we like and went on to cajole him into accepting the price we could afford to pay for it. Then she continued to go even further out of her way to help us figure out a payment system since the shop did not accept credit cards. She went so far beyond normal duties call and we were so touched. Amy Pan is one of our top guides for her kindness and compassion. I have problems with my feet and knees and Amy was always by my side helping me, holding my arm or hand for support. She is very sweet and very gentle. We all shared our stories and by the time we left each other, we feel as though we were friends. How many times can you say that???
Summary:
I would highly recommend WildChina for everyone, may they be strangers, friends or family. I have no reservation that you will have an amazing trip with them. When we first decided to use them, we thought, if WildChina is good enough for National Geographic (who also uses them), then WildChina is good for us. But now, with actual real experience, I cannot use too high of language to praise them or to recommend them.
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T.P.2 December 2014
Unforgettable. My husband and I had a 12 day trip through the mountainous ethnic regions from Guiyang to Guilin. We came back with a feeling for the culture and people of the area visited which we could never have had on our own. Our guides were knowledgeable, friendly and enjoyable to be with. It is hard to narrow down the highlights of our trip but here are a few: hiking through the ethnic mountain areas; home stays and home visits during the day in which due to the language ability of our guide we had the opportunity to interact directly with the people of the region; beautiful scenery; great food; bike ride though the stunning karst formations in Yangshuo and the Moondance hotel.
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