5 Days Xiamen City and Tulou Tour

This 6-Day tour of Beijing was fantastic! Our tour guide, Tom, gave us lots of great information about China's rich history as we toured Tiananmen Square, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Beijing Zoo, a tea house, a pearl factory, a silk factory, a Hutong tour (where we painted face masks in the Peking Opera style) and the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China! The toboggan ride down from the Great Wall was especially memorable! Be sure to include this exciting ride in your itinerary. We learned about the different dynasties, some of the Emperors who built or re-built the historic landmarks in Beijing and the fascinating Dragon Lady! We also saw a great Kung Fu show and, thanks to some last-minute arranging by Tom, we were also able to see an incredible acrobatics show after a delicious Peking Duck dinner. Tom even arranged for one of the locals at the Temple of Heaven to lead us through some TaiChi. This tour is worth every penny. I can't imagine trying to navigate your way around this huge city without a driver and tour guide. There is no way we could've seen even half of what we did in such a short amount of time. We didn't have to worry about driving, parking, buying tickets or standing in line. Tom and the driver took care of all of those time-consuming details for us. Tom taught us so much with his stories and commentary along the tour and he also went way above and beyond by recruiting the help of one of his friends to help us package up all our purchases and ensuring they would fit on the train and plane on our way home! If you are planning a visit to Beijing, make the most of your time and sign up for this tour. You will see more, learn more and have more fun! Be sure to ask for Tom.

After much research we decided to go with Top China Travel for our 15 day trip to China. We worked with Janet and what a wonderful help she was. Janet answered our multitude of questions with patience. She offered helpful suggestions, helped us with our tour on the spot when a plane flight was cancelled, booked us outstanding hotels, and we had excellent service. They even called us and wondered if everything was going well in China. From the moment we touched down in China, our tour guides and drivers were right there for us showing us sights, answering questions, changing plans if we wanted to see other things, and helped us above and beyond what we expected. We went to Beijing, Xian, Xining, Lhasa, Chongqing, on a Yangtze River Cruise, visited Yichang and Shanghai. Quite the amazing trip. I would highly recommend Top China Travel for your travel needs to China. They were also reasonably priced. Thanks Top China Travel and Janet. What a trip!

We had little time to plan this trip to China and decided a private tour was best for the short time we had available. We really enjoyed the tour 4.5 days in Beijing and 1.5 days in Shanghai. We saw all the highlights, but more importantly our guides talked to us about the people, the culture, the society, etc. We felt very immersed in what we were learning and seeing for those days. The guides were flexible, changing the schedule to accomodate visiting the Great Wall of China on a sunny day. Our hotels were all very nice, and we enjoyed having a driver drop us off right at the entrance to the places we were visiting and picking us up right when we were done. It enabled us to see quite alot in a short amount of time. We enjoyed the one on one contact with our guides (Cathy in Beijing and Sophie in Shanghai.)

TCT, and our dedicated agent Maggie, performed A+ service in the planning & execution of our 21 day, door to door excursion of China, Tibet and Hong Kong. All drivers and guides excelled in there individual skills, knowledge and were personable. Absolutely no complaints from us and we consider ourselves to be very well traveled to the more exotic spots of the globe. The Gordons, Richmond Hill, ON CANADA.

Rebecca from Top China Travel organized the trip for 4 for 2 weeks. We had a private driver and tour guide in each city. We were met and escorted everywhere from pickup to drop off at train stations or airports. The guides were excellent and generally spoke English well. they were enthusiastic and helpful. We often had them ordering our meals because of language issues. The tour in each city was very good. Unfortunately as someone else has indicated the Oct 1 week is very busy and so you have to time where you go to try to avoid the unbelievable crowds. The travel arrangements whether by train or air were perfect with no hassles or problems. we were always met punctually and there were never any surprises. Meals were excellent in the absolutely amazing hotels which were 5* plus. Getting used to the Chinese food was challenging and so it did take a bit of effort to figure out what our stomachs could handle but we did prefer the local restaurants as opposed to sticking with western food. Our favourite site was Guilin. The landscape and scenery spectacular plus the opportunity to hike and cycle refreshing after the big cities. One must see Shanghai and the warriors but be aware that there are crowds and a lot of traffic so getting anywhere is often longer than expected. Overall I would do the trip again and 2 weeks was certainly a good length of time. The organization and attention to detail was excellent

We booked our trip with Top China Travel a private tour and was amazing experience. We were 4 people , just ladies. It was very well organized, our Spanish guides in the different cities very good especially Leon in Xian, the best. They were very knowledgeable and took care of us. Every time we went to another city, they didn't leave us until the check-in at the different airports. Our agent Raylene did an excellent job, organizing our trip, she was on top of everything. Thanks Raylene for our unforgettable vacation.

Gulin is a magical place, words are not enough to describe the beauty of it. Also, our trip to China was wonderful. Bonnie Luo organized an 11 day Tour and it exceeded our expectations. We want to go back with our children. Excellent experience for our first time in China. Thanks Bonnie and thanks Top China Travel and all the peolple that work there!!

Very satisfied with my recent Beijing>XIAN> Shanghai tour with Top China Travel. I wanted to have the services of a tour to navigate China given the language and short visit. From the inception Joyce my tour coordinator was very helpful and responded promptly to my many questions and clarifications. All aspects of the tour and options were very well explained and communicated. Guides were very knowledgeable and communicated with no issues in English. They were prompt, informative, helpful and Jolly which made the experience more pleasant. All aspects of the trips including internal train and flights were well planned and orchestrated so there was never any concerns and confusion at the sites and going on to the next destination. Guides were also helpful in suggesting venues for Dinner and currency exchanges, souvenir shops etc. Special call out to Ocean in Beijing who really goes all out to ensure you have an enjoyable and positive experience. Being an avid traveller, I can certainly recommend Top China Travel.

In september 2016 we (2 couples from Finland) started to plan for a real encounter with Asia. Quite soon the project grew and we decided to ask for help. Top China Travel made it easy for us in China. We gave rough guidelines and Janet made a proposal based on that. After some iteration (we did not want everything) we ended up in a plan. The plan was good, if not excellent, and the price within our budget. Deal! In april we spent three incredible weeks in China. Now we are back home and have digested the whole thing. We are very happy. Janet and her guides made it so easy for us and everything worked perfect. This is incredble, because we traveled around a lot. By train, car, air...tickets, time schedules, hotels...perfect! Thank you. In really recommend. John

From the 1st point of contact till the end Joyce was great and helped plan a perfect trip which I was for a short time in Beijing. I was traveling alone and was recommended to join a small group of fellow travelers which was perfect. Great tour guide with a clean bus. Pick up on time and overall a great experience.

We wanted to do a short tour while stopping in Chengdu before flying to Kunming. We had used TCT very successfully before for a tour of Yunnan so they were our natural choice. As before the service we received was excellent. Daniel Mo, who was our email contact at the company was prompt and very efficient in his dealings. David our guide was knowledgeable and spoke very good English. The Old Chengdu Club hotel was excellent and our driver very steady! Trip arrangements were immaculate and the day trip to the Bifeng Panda reserve a sheer delight. I can happily recommend TCT

I went to China on July (2017) and had a great experience with TCT. Our organizer was Janet and she was really helpful during our stay in China. They helped us with the itinerary and it was valuable choice to do the tour with an organizer in order to know more places. We had a great time during the 21 days we stayed in China and all the small problems we had, Janet took care of it. Felt really secure and look foward to have another experience with TCT!

We generally do not use tours when we travel. In fact, I normally don't enjoy tours at all. However, given the language challenges in China, we looked at several options and eventually settled on Top China Travel. We used TCT in Beijing, Shanghai and Long Ji area. All I can say is that I was blown away by the professionalism and service of each individual guide within each city. Our guide in Beijing was extremely knowledgeable and really gave us an amazing tour of the city. In Shanghai, our children left our IPad on the plane, and the guide volunteered to go get it for us (the airport is 40 min outside of the city). The third and final guide also went far and above what was expected. She stayed with us until the end of each day and we could tell that she really had a passion for sharing the Chinese culture with us. Each city guide provided unique personalities and service and each was in it's own right amazing. Quite honestly, we were initially reluctant to use a Chinese tour operator, but we are so very glad we did. I feel like we lived in China during our two week trip, as opposed to just visiting. This experience was directly related to the exceptional service provided by TCT. I highly recommend this group!

Me, my brother, and mother just got back from our 3.5 week trip all around China with TCT. From the moment we landed in Beijing we had an experienced and friendly guide waiting for us at the airport (Felix who was GREAT!). All of our guides throughout the cities we went to were very knowledgeable, had stellar English, and were very friendly. The drivers of our personal van were also very nice and did their job very well. The trip was planned with great detail and thought by Janet- we got to see so much in our 3.5 weeks there from The Forbidden City in Beijing, The Great Wall, Pandas and Hot Pot in Chengdu, Shanghai, Rice Patties in Chengdu, The Terracotta Warrios in Xian and so much more! We highly recommended top China Travel and loved the personal touch they added to our wonderful trip. Many thanks, Catherine, Dragana, and Paul

Enjoyable busy day!7 am start covering Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City early on amidst tight crowds followed by an unexpected stop at Pharmacy institute where we were able for a small “tip” enjoy a short foot massage and consultation with a Chinese medicine expert. Unfortunately this turned into an embarrassing pressure sell of his prescribed medicines which left us underwhelmed!Lunch was acceptable followed by a wiz around the Temple of Heaven. On the way to our final destination the Summer Palace we had another unexpected stop and “selling” opportunity at a pearl factory (store actually). Guide had his own sense of humour and opinions which were often unintelligible or off the wall and his English Weaker than other “English” speaking guides that we have experienced in China.All that said, we had a good day out in some very worthwhile places to visit and felt it value for money. Our favorite was the relative peace of the Summer Palace surroundings and in particular watching the old guys flying kites at heights I could not imagine possible.