My parents are moving to Shanghai, China, to live at the end of May. I’ve booked flights to go out with my girlfriend, at the end of August for 19 days. The idea is to spend a few days in Shanghai and then travel round other parts of the country.

Not really having a clue to where to go, or what to do, apart from having flights booked, using a map we have started looking at potential routes and stop off’s along the way. We basically decided that travelling from Shanghai to Chengdu, then onto Xian and Beijing before finishing up in Shanghai.

Costing it up and looking at the logistics it started to become pretty expensive and we were not really sure how long to spend where. As a result we started looking at tours. The easiest website and brochure to understand came from tour operator Wendy Wu.

Wendy Wu basically, has 2 approaches, the set tour and the bespoke tours. The set tours are easy to understand where and what you will be up to. They break China down into, areas and also into, the amount of time you have to travel round. They basically had the route we were trying to follow. The added bonus was the extra activities and places to visit that we would, to have been honest, never think of doing. An example of this, is visiting nine village valley, near Chengdu. As we have accommodation and flights sorted we might look at using the bespoke tours to get round where we want to go.

The convenience of having a tour sorted for you is a big benefit; however, the value for money was also brilliant. Wendy Wu’s tours were far better value, than us sorting it ourselves.All in all, a convenient, low cost, high in local knowledge option for exploring China.