I have a UK passport and enter China visa-free. Can I still get a Tibet permit?

We do not have a confirmed answer yet, and that is exactly why this route is not on sale. A Tibet travel permit is issued separately from your entry to China, it is applied for by an agency on your behalf, and its pre-review needs at least 15 days before departure. What we have not yet confirmed in writing is whether a passport with no Chinese visa page in it can be processed the same way. We are not going to take your deposit on a guess. What you can do now is tell us your dates: the day we have a written answer, and a departure calendar to go with it, we write to you first.

Can I do this trip in October, November or December 2026?

Not the full 18 days, and we would rather say that than sell you a shortened version quietly. The plateau section is arranged from April to October only, and the river ships end their 2026 season on November 27 and December 7. Because this is an 18-day plan, a departure after mid-October crosses into November on the plateau. Put the two windows together and nothing in October to December fits end to end. As designed, this journey sells from April to October. If your dates are fixed in that quarter, the three-city classic run at the front of this plan does work then, and we will price that instead rather than bend this one.

Is 3,650 meters going to make me ill? 3,650

Some guests feel it and some do not, and nobody can tell you in advance which one you are. What the plan does about it: the ascent happens in one flight on day 8, and the whole of day 9 carries nothing at all. Every day after that carries a single item rather than three. The highest point of the route is the city you sleep in rather than a mountain pass, and the descent is by river over three nights instead of a second flight. What the plan does not yet have: a contracted oxygen-equipped hotel, which is what the section was designed around, and a finished pre-travel questionnaire on heart and lung history. Until both exist we do not describe an altitude safeguard as if it were in place. If you have a heart or lung history, talk to your doctor before you talk to us.

Why come down by boat instead of just flying to Shanghai?

Because the plateau needs digesting, and a second flight does not digest anything. Three nights on the river are the recovery leg of this route: you lose the last of the altitude slowly, you unpack once, and the country goes past at walking pace after two weeks of trains and flights. It is also the reason the plateau section can carry four nights instead of two: the days that follow it ask nothing of you. The honest part: those three nights are not sourced yet. The cabins are not contracted, the cabin grade is not set, and the two full days on board are carried by the ship operator's own program rather than by ours. None of it is in the price today.

What is actually confirmed and priced today?

Eleven named items, all of them in the four sourced cities. In Beijing: the Forbidden City with its timed reservation, Jingshan Park, Mutianyu Great Wall with the uphill lift and the hutong and lakeside walk. In Xi'an: the Terracotta Army and the city wall with the bicycle. In Chengdu: the panda base in the morning and the tea seat with refills. In Shanghai: Yu Garden, the river ferry and the Bund in the evening. That list is closed: nothing outside it is inside the price. Hotels, transfers, the vehicle and guide days are settled in writing for your order, one by one. Cabin classes, the two arranged lunches and insurance are settled the same way, and no order is taken without them in writing. Days 8 to 16 are not sourced at all, and none of it is sold to you.

Thin Air, Then Sea Level

Overview

The country stands on end, and this plan walks it that way. Beijing at forty-four metres, Xi'an at four hundred, Chengdu at five hundred, then one flight to 3,650, where the first day is a rest day because the air slows you down whether you agree with it or not. What goes up comes down, and here the descent is by water: three nights on the Yangtze with the river doing the work while you do none of it. Shanghai hands you back to sea level with two weeks of country behind you. You'll come home noticing your own breathing on the stairs.

— LyrikTrip travel designers

Every LyrikTrip journey begins with a conversation. Tell us who is coming, your dates, and anything about heart or lung history that a plateau section needs to know. First reply within four hours; a clear written answer within one business day. On this route that answer will tell you plainly where the Tibet permit, the Lhasa sourcing and the departure calendar stand, before you are asked for anything at all. When we cannot yet sell you something, we say which one it is and what has to happen first.

Why you'll love this trip

Up the plateau, down the river. The Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors, pandas and three nights on the Yangtze, with English-speaking guides city by city.
18 days from the Forbidden City to the Bund. Cross the whole arc of China.

Climb the hill behind the palace and look back down at the golden roofs you spent the morning walking through: the whole Forbidden City lies flat below you, and the axis it sits on runs straight out of the frame, north and south.
Ride the cable car up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu and arrive on the ridge with your legs unused: the watchtowers step away along the spine of the hills in both directions, and you get the wall on the morning you were meant to get it, not after an hour of stairs.
Give the buried army of the first emperor a whole day instead of a stop: an estimated eight thousand figures, no two faces alike, and by the second pit hall you can tell a general from a crossbowman by his armour and the knot of his hair.
Cycle along the top of Xi'an's ancient city wall, where the parapet runs level above the traffic: for an hour, the city belongs to whoever is pedalling on the ramparts, and you come off it knowing exactly how vast the walled city once was.
Get to the panda base in the morning, during the hours when the animals are actually active, and stay long enough to watch one climb down from a platform and then think better of it.
Settle into a bamboo chair in a Chengdu park with a gaiwan before you and let the afternoon drift by: refills come as long as you stay, and nothing is scheduled afterwards.
Finish at sea level on the Shanghai waterfront after dark, having crossed the river on the boat the city commutes by: the old bank buildings on one bank, the towers on the other and 3,650 m two weeks behind you.

Things to do

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Itinerary

Arrivals

Beijing · Day 1 - Day 3

Day 1 · Land, and do nothing

Your driver meets the flight, whatever hour it lands. Nothing on this route asks anything of you today.

Airport pickup The pickup on arrival day and the drop-off on the last day are stated in writing in your quote as inside or outside that order's price, because we do not list them as included until the ground contract says so.

Beijing at forty-four meters The city sits low and flat and the first drive in shows it: ring roads, poplars, lit shopfronts. Eighteen days from now you will have been 3,600 metres above this road and come back down by river.

Evening Nothing is scheduled. Dinner near the hotel is recommended and booked for you when you want it, on your own account.

Day 2 · One line through the palace, then the hill behind it

The palace first, on one axis, then the one hill that shows you what you just walked through. This is the day the scale of the place lands.

The Forbidden City Your timed slot is booked ahead by us, so you walk in on schedule. Inside you follow one line: the ceremonial halls where the court did its business, the living quarters behind them, the imperial garden at the end, then out through the north gate. Stand in the middle of the main courtyard and look back through the gates you came in by: they line up, one inside another, all the way out to the street.

Jingshan Park The north gate puts you at the foot of a hill made from the earth of the palace moat. One steady climb, and from the pavilion on top the whole palace lies flat below you: acres of gold roof in rows, and the city's central axis running straight through the middle of it and out of sight both ways. Photograph it from here rather than from inside: this is the frame that holds all of it.

Pace The palace is large and guests often find it tiring, so the route stops at the seats we know about and the hill comes after the flat walking, not before.

Day 3 · The wall, without the climb

A cable car does the ascent, so the ridge arrives with your legs unused. One thing today, and the whole day for it.

Drive out to Mutianyu The drive north out of Beijing takes a good part of the morning, which is why nothing else is scheduled today; the vehicle stays with you all day.

Cable car up You step off onto a restored stretch of wall with watchtowers running away along the ridge in both directions. Your guide points out the pass below and why the towers stand exactly where they stand: line of sight, one tower to the next, a signal moving faster than a horse. Look along the ridge with the towers stepping down it. That is the fifteen seconds worth filming.

Farmhouse lunch below the wall Northern home cooking at a farmhouse restaurant near the foot of the wall, made with what grows nearby. Lunch is arranged today rather than left to chance, because the wall is an hour from anywhere. Its pricing basis is not settled yet, so your quote states in writing whether this lunch sits inside your price.

Coming down The toboggan on its metal track through the trees is the way most guests come off the wall. It is not included in the price and is paid at the top by whoever wants it; the cable car brings everyone else down the way they came up.

High-speed rail

Xi'an · Day 4 - Day 5

Day 4 · A lane in the morning, a train in the afternoon

Old Beijing on foot while the neighbourhood is doing its errands, then 1,200 km of North China Plain at 300 km/h. Today the country starts changing under you.

Old Beijing hutong and Shichahai lakeside walk Gray brick lanes, doorway stones, bicycles leaned on walls and the lakes at the end of them. This is the ordinary version of the city, the one that is nobody's monument. Stand at the water for a minute: rowing boats, someone practicing an instrument badly, and the palace roofline you stood over yesterday just visible past the trees.

High-speed rail to Xi'an The afternoon train crosses the North China Plain in a few hours, flat and worked to the horizon in every direction. The cabin class for your order is stated in writing in your quote, because it is not fixed across all orders and we would rather write it down than let you assume the top one.

Arriving Xi'an sits about four hundred metres up, and it is the first of three steps the plan takes upward. Nothing is scheduled after check-in.

Day 5 · Eight thousand faces

The buried army gets the whole day, not a stop between two other things. By the afternoon you are reading ranks off armour.

The Terracotta Army An estimated eight thousand figures standing in formation where a farm well hit the first of them in 1974. You walk the pit halls in order, and your guide gives you the reading key early: armor plating, the knot of the hair, the set of the hands. After that you do the sorting yourself, and it changes what you are looking at: not a crowd, a chain of command.

The paint In the newer excavated areas, some pieces still bear traces of their original colour. The army left the ground painted; almost all of it vanished within the first minutes of exposure to the air.

Shaanxi noodle lunch Hand-pulled noodles and the local wheat cooking, eaten near the site after the pit halls rather than squeezed in before them. The pricing basis for this lunch is not settled yet, so your quote states in writing whether it sits inside your price.

Pace Peak-season crowds here are heavy, and the common mistake is trying to see this site in a morning. Departures with the Xi'an day inside the October 1 to 7 holiday week are not offered at all.

High-speed rail

Chengdu · Day 6 - Day 7

Day 6 · On the wall, then through the mountains

An hour of pedalling on a fourteenth-century parapet, then a train that tunnels the mountain range dividing northern China from southern. Today you cross a watershed, literally.

Xi'an City Wall with rampart cycling Up the gate ramp, hire a bike, and ride the top of the wall with the parapet at your elbow and the traffic below it. The old city is on one side and the new one on the other, and the ride tells you the size of the walled city better than any map: it takes real pedaling to get around it.

High-speed rail to Chengdu The afternoon train runs south into the Qinling range and spends much of the way inside it, tunnel after tunnel, before coming out into the Sichuan basin. Green, hazy, wet air: another country's worth of difference in three hours. The cabin class for your order is stated in writing in your quote.

Arriving Chengdu sits at about five hundred metres above sea level, on the second of the three steps, and is the last night before the itinerary leaves the lowlands.

Day 7 · Pandas early, then nowhere to be

The morning is spent where the animals are actually awake. The afternoon is spent in a chair. This is the last easy day before the plan goes up.

Chengdu Panda Base You are there in the morning, the hours when the pandas are generally moving: eating, climbing down off platforms, dropping back to sleep in the fork of a tree. Flat shaded paths, about three hours. Get to an enclosure early and wait rather than walking the whole park: the animal comes to the fence on its own schedule, not yours.

Gaiwan tea in People's Park Bamboo chairs under the trees, a gaiwan each, and a man with a long-spouted kettle who tops it up as long as you sit there. Cards at the next table, an ear cleaner two tables over working with a tuning fork. Three hours are set aside for it because the sitting is the content. An hour in, you'll notice you haven't looked at your phone and nobody has asked what happens next.

Tonight Pack for altitude before you sleep. Tomorrow the plan gains three thousand metres in one flight, and the day after that is deliberately empty.

Flight

Lhasa · Day 8 - Day 11

Day 8 · Five hundred metres to three thousand six hundred and fifty

One flight, one whole day, nothing else on it. The plan gains its altitude in a single move and then stops moving.

Fly from Chengdu to Lhasa The day carries no sightseeing at either end. The flight sector, its cabin class and its schedule are not settled for this route, and the three domestic sectors on the plan are quoted only once they have been checked against the current season's timetable.

Landing high The plateau starts before the wheels are down, brown and folded and very large, with the river valleys threading through it. The airport sits an hour or so from the city and the drive in is flat.

The rest of the day Check in, drink water, walk slowly, eat lightly, sleep early. That is the entire program, and it is the program on purpose.

Not sourced The Lhasa ground operation, the oxygen-equipped hotel this section is designed around, and the Tibet permit channel are all unsigned. The altitude safeguard rests on that hotel, so the safeguard is not in place either, and we say so rather than implying it.

Day 9 · The day with nothing in it

An acclimatisation day, and the only real work is breathing. The plan builds this day in first and everything else fits around it.

Why the day exists At about 3,650 m the body needs a night and a day before it does anything demanding, and no schedule can negotiate with that. So the day is empty on paper: no sites, no drive, no start time.

What it looks like A slow walk of a few blocks, tea somewhere with a view of the street, back to the room, sleep in the afternoon, out again when the light goes long across the roofs. Stairs are the giveaway: one flight and you stop to breathe.

The pace from here For the rest of this section the plan carries one thing per day, not three, which is the difference between this and a shorter Tibet itinerary. By evening you'll notice you've stopped hurrying, and that it wasn't a decision you made.

Day 10 · The palace above the city

One building, one morning, and the rest of the day left alone. At this altitude the plan carries a single item a day.

The Potala Palace The palace stands on the ridge above Lhasa and is visible from most of the city, which is the point of where it was put. Entry runs on a strictly timed slot of about an hour, walking up through the White Palace and the Red Palace. The climb to the entrance is the hardest physical thing in this section: stairs, at 3,650 m, which is why it comes on the second full day rather than the first.

Afternoon Nothing further is scheduled. Two full days of this section carry one item each, and the empty half-days are the reason the section works at all.

Not sourced We hold no pricing basis of our own for this site, and the entry slots on this route are not contracted. It is not in the price and it is not sold to you.

Day 11 · The temple people walk around

A working pilgrimage site in the morning, a monastery courtyard in the afternoon. Today is about what people do here, not what was built here.

Jokhang Temple and the Barkhor Pilgrims circumambulate the temple, many of them in full prostration. The street that encircles it turns clockwise all day with them: prayer wheels on one side, shops on the other, moving in the same direction as everyone else. You walk the circuit at their pace, which is not fast, and the altitude agrees with that.

Sera Monastery debate The monastery's afternoon debating session is in the plan. We hold no verified operating detail for it in our records at present, so we describe it no further here and we name nothing about it that we cannot confirm.

Not sourced Neither item carries a pricing basis of our own, and neither is in the price.

Flight

Chongqing · Day 12 - Day 14

Day 12 · Down three thousand metres before dinner

The plan gives back its altitude in one flight, and the body notices within the hour. Tonight you sleep at 260 m.

Fly Lhasa to Chongqing The descent is the fast half of the arc by design: up slowly over four days, down in a single afternoon. This sector has to line up with the ship's sailing day for the same departure, which is one of the reasons this route has no departure calendar yet.

Breathing at 260 m 260 The first thing most guests report is sleeping properly again. The second is the humidity: Chongqing sits in a river valley and the air arrives wet.

Evening A monorail line here runs straight through the middle of a nineteen-storey residential tower, with a station inside the building. It sits in the plan for the evening. It is inside the unsourced stretch, carries no price and is not sold as an add-on.

Day 13 · A vertical city, then a ship

A morning in a city built on slopes, then you board and stop packing for three nights. The moving part of the trip ends today.

Chongqing in the morning The city stacks itself on the hills between two rivers, and the ground floor of one building is the eighth floor of the next. The morning routing through it is in the plan, and we hold no verified operating detail for that routing in our records, so it is described no further and named as unsourced.

Embarkation You board in the afternoon and the ship sails downstream. Cabin inventory is not contracted and the cabin grade is not set on this route, so no cabin is described to you here and none is priced.

The rest of the descent From here to Shanghai the plan loses its last 260 metres over four days, most of them without you doing anything.

Day 14 · A day of gorges and a lock

The river narrows, the walls rise on both sides, and the ship spends part of the day being lifted inside a concrete chamber. Nothing today requires you to be anywhere.

On the water The gorges arrive as walls, not views: the river bends and the sky becomes a strip. Deck chairs, tea, and the country going past at walking pace after two weeks of trains and flights.

Through the locks The ship enters a chamber, the gates close behind it, and a wall of water lifts several thousand tonnes of vessel while you stand at the rail watching the waterline climb the concrete. It takes hours and it is worth staying up for.

The on-board programme The day's programme on board is the ship operator's own, and we do not write our own version of it. Somewhere in this day you'll realise you have not thought about the altitude, or your inbox, since breakfast.

Not sourced The river section carries no landed sourcing of ours, and the two full days on board hold no content of ours.

Yangtze cruise

Yichang · Day 15

Day 15 · The slowest day of the eighteen

Sailing, with a shore stop run by the ship. The recovery leg does its work here.

Sailing The river widens after the gorges and the banks flatten into terraces, towns and cranes. This is the part of China nobody photographs and everybody lives on.

Shore visit A shore stop sits in the day, organised by the ship operator to its own schedule. We name it as theirs rather than as ours.

What the day is for This is the fourth of the plan's easy days and the reason the Lhasa section can run four nights instead of two. Coming down by water rather than by a second flight is the whole argument of this itinerary.

Flight

Shanghai · Day 16 - Day 18

Day 16 · Off the river, into the last city

Disembark in the morning, fly in the afternoon, and land at sea level. The arc closes tonight.

Disembark at Yichang The ship arrives in the morning and the transfer to the airport runs from the dock. This is the last time your bags move before Shanghai.

Fly to Shanghai This sector is on the plan and its schedule has not been checked against the current season's timetable, so it is quoted only after that check. Nothing is scheduled on arrival.

Sea level Eight days ago you were 3,650 metres above this hotel lobby. Tonight the air does not ask anything of you at all.

Day 17 · A garden, a commuter boat, two skylines

A classical garden in the morning, the working ferry in the afternoon, the waterfront after dark. The last full day answers the first one.

Yu Garden and the old city Pavilions, rockeries, ponds and paths that never run straight, set in the oldest quarter of Shanghai. Flat the whole way, about two hours, and the lanes around it are free to wander. After eighteen days of scale, a garden designed to be viewed from six paces is a welcome change of pace.

Huangpu River ferry You cross the river on the boat the city commutes by, at the rail with scooters and people going to work, for the price of a bus ticket. A few minutes, and the far bank arrives fast.

The Bund in the evening The old bank and trading buildings line one bank of the river, while the towers occupy the other, and they stand roughly a century apart, facing each other directly. Your guide accompanies you on this stretch: the riverfront attracts practised approaches from strangers offering tea or English practice.

Day 18 · Home

Breakfast, then the airport. The plan ends the way it started: a driver, and no hurry.

Airport drop-off The drop-off on the last day is stated in writing in your quote as inside or outside that order's price, on the same basis as the arrival pickup.

What goes home with you The order of it. Forty-four metres, four hundred, five hundred. Three thousand six hundred and fifty, and then a river all the way back to the sea.

Departures

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Included / Excluded

What's Included

The Forbidden CityAdmission, plus the timed reservation booked by us with the details on your confirmation. This day is never set on a Monday, the palace's closing day
Jingshan ParkAdmission. The hilltop pavilion looks down the palace roofline and the central axis
Mutianyu Great WallAdmission, plus the uphill cable car or open chairlift section, so the ascent does not rest on walking. The toboggan descent is not included in the price
Old Beijing hutong and Shichahai lakeside walkThe guided walk through courtyard lanes and lakeside streets. No admission charge applies to this walk
The Terracotta ArmyAdmission to the pit halls. Departures with the Xi'an day inside the October 1 to 7 holiday week are removed from our calendar
Xi'an City Wall with rampart cyclingAdmission, plus bicycle hire for the rampart cycling section
Chengdu Panda Base, morning visitAdmission, morning entry when the animals are generally more active
Gaiwan tea sitting, People's ParkOne gaiwan tea seat per guest, refills included, sit for as long as you like. Ear cleaning and other in-park stall services are not included in the price.
Yu Garden and the old cityAdmission to Yu Garden. The surrounding old-city walk is free of charge.
Huangpu River ferryThe public ferry crossing fare
The Bund in the eveningThe evening walk along the Bund waterfront. No admission charge applies.

Not Included

International flightsFlights into Beijing and out of Shanghai
Visas and the Tibet permitVisa fees and processing for guests who require a Chinese visa. The Tibet travel permit fee and its handling charge are likewise excluded from the price until the permit sourcing is confirmed.
Days 8 to 16The Lhasa section, the Chongqing day and the three nights on the Yangtze carry no landed sourcing and are outside the price in full
Toboggan descent at MutianyuPayable on site by guests who choose it
In-park stall servicesEar cleaning, shoe shining and similar services in People's Park
In-venue transport not named aboveShuttle carts and in-park transport at every site on this route
Meals other than those namedLunches and dinners not named above: recommended and booked by your guide, at your own expense
GratuitiesGratuities for guides, drivers and ship crew
Single or extra room differenceCharged per order once the room grade is chosen
Personal spendingLaundry, minibar, telecommunications, personal shopping
Optional add-onsNone are offered on this route at present. Any future optional item is priced separately when you choose it, is never bundled into the base plan and is never listed as a highlight

Special Notes

Several things on this route follow a permit office, a season or a sailing calendar rather than our preferences. Here they are, told straight.

Bookings are not open — we take no orders and no deposits. Four things have to close first: a departure calendar that satisfies every date constraint at once; the Lhasa sourcing, including the oxygen-equipped hotel; a definite answer on the Tibet permit for visa-free arrivals; and contracted cabin inventory on the river with a sailing date that lines up with the Lhasa flight. Tell us your dates and we will write to you when it opens.
The permit question, first — every guest on this route needs a Tibet travel permit in addition to their entry route. Whether a guest who enters China visa-free, holding a passport with no Chinese visa page, can obtain that permit is not settled in our records. All six visa-free markets ride on it. We are not selling this route on the assumption that the answer is yes.
Permit lead time — The permit pre-review requires at least 15 days before departure, so orders within 15 days of departure are not accepted in any market. Note that our approved payment terms set the balance at 14 days before departure, one day later than the permit deadline. The two do not align; the permit deadline takes precedence, and how payment is scheduled against it is determined before bookings open.
The October to December 2026 season — the Lhasa section is arranged from April to October only, and the river ships end their 2026 season on November 27 and December 7. On an 18-day plan, any departure after mid-October crosses into November. Those two windows together leave effectively no departure date in October to December 2026 on which the whole 18 days runs inside every window, so this route is not sold for that season. As designed it sells in the April to October window.
Altitude and what is not yet in place — the plan gains 3,150 metres in one flight on day 8 and then holds a rest day with nothing on it, one item per day after that and a descent by river rather than a second flight. That is the design. What is not in place is the equipment side: the oxygen-equipped hotel this section rests on is not contracted, so we do not describe an altitude safeguard as if it existed. A pre-travel questionnaire on heart and lung history is being written and is not finished.
Departure dates — four constraints have to be computed together rather than one at a time, and until that is done there is no departure calendar. Day 2 is never a Monday, when the palace closes. The Xi'an day never falls in the October 1 to 7 holiday week. The Lhasa section runs April to October. The embarkation day is fixed by the ship's own sailing days, checked sailing by sailing against the operator's current calendar rather than extrapolated from a weekly pattern.
Transport not yet verified — the cabin class on both high-speed rail sectors and on all three domestic flight sectors is not set, and the three flight sectors have not been checked against the current season's timetable. Each is stated in writing in your quote, and none is quoted before it is verified. A blank cabin class reads as the highest grade, so it is never left blank.
Passports — the UK, most of Europe and Canada enter visa-free for stays days, and Australian and New Zealand passports have the same 30 days. We check the 18 days plus any further days in China against that window order by order, which leaves 12 days of headroom at most. The current policy runs through December 31, 2026. Departures on or before December 14, 2026 finish inside the window, and later ones are quoted only after an official renewal. US passports are not on that list and this plan is longer than the ten-day visa-free transit policy allows, so a US guest would need a Chinese tourist or business visa plus the permit. Whether US guests belong to this route at all is under commercial review, and no US order is taken meanwhile.
Entering on the transit policy — guests who entered China under the ten-day visa-free transit policy cannot take this trip. Eighteen days exceeds that policy's permitted stay and its permitted areas do not include Tibet. We say so before payment, and we do not look for workarounds.
Confirmation and changes — The confirmation-time commitment and the change and refund terms are being settled with our ground partners and the ship operator. Until they are, each quote states in writing its own confirmation deadline and its change and refund conditions. Structurally this route holds three domestic flights, two rail sectors, a fixed-date sailing and a permit with a 15-day pre-review. A date change touches all four at once, and the sailing day is the least movable of them.

Is Eighteen Days Your Length?

Fewer than eighteen days?

The arc comes apart at one joint. Beijing, Xi'an and Chengdu stand on their own as a shorter classic run. The plateau section needs its four nights and its rest day, so it is the piece that cannot be trimmed, only removed. The river descent can be replaced by a flight, at the cost of the recovery leg that makes the plateau section work. Tell us your dates and who is coming, and we cut whole pieces rather than compressing the pace.

Good to Know

Group: Private, just your party. From 1 guest. No fixed maximum party size.
Pace: Seven stops in 18 days: Beijing 3 nights, Xi'an 2, Chengdu 2, Lhasa 4, Chongqing 1, three nights aboard ship, Shanghai 2. Four easy days, one of them with nothing scheduled at all
Effort: Moderate city walking. One high-altitude section at about 3,650 m for four nights, with a rest day on arrival and one item per day after it. The steepest thing in that section is a flight of stairs. Every ascent elsewhere on the route has a lift or a bicycle
Ports: Arrival in Beijing, departure from Shanghai; airport pickup on day one and drop-off on day eighteen are confirmed in writing per booking.
Visas: UK, most European and Canadian passports enter visa-free for days, checked order by order. Australian and New Zealand passports have the same 30 days. Every guest also needs a Tibet travel permit. US passports need a Chinese visa, and US orders are not being taken at present
Language: English-speaking local guides in the cities. Which days include a guide, and at what licensing standard, is specified in writing per booking.
Payment: When this route opens for booking: From 1 guest. A 10% deposit (minimum $399) locks your dates. The balance is due 14 days before departure. "Or similar" never means a quiet downgrade
Season: The plateau section runs from April to October, and the river ships end their 2026 season on 27 November and 7 December. There is no sellable departure in October to December 2026 for the full 18 days.

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Beijing · Day 1 - Day 3Collapse

Day 1 · Land, and do nothing

Day 2 · One line through the palace, then the hill behind it

Day 3 · The wall, without the climb

Xi'an · Day 4 - Day 5Collapse

Day 4 · A lane in the morning, a train in the afternoon

Day 5 · Eight thousand faces

Chengdu · Day 6 - Day 7Collapse

Day 6 · On the wall, then through the mountains

Day 7 · Pandas early, then nowhere to be

Lhasa · Day 8 - Day 11Collapse

Day 8 · Five hundred metres to three thousand six hundred and fifty

Day 9 · The day with nothing in it

Day 10 · The palace above the city

Day 11 · The temple people walk around

Chongqing · Day 12 - Day 14Collapse

Day 12 · Down three thousand metres before dinner

Day 13 · A vertical city, then a ship

Day 14 · A day of gorges and a lock

Yichang · Day 15Collapse

Day 15 · The slowest day of the eighteen

Shanghai · Day 16 - Day 18Collapse

Day 16 · Off the river, into the last city

Day 17 · A garden, a commuter boat, two skylines

Day 18 · Home

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Jason Hu

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Beijing · Day 1 - Day 3

Xi'an · Day 4 - Day 5

Chengdu · Day 6 - Day 7

Lhasa · Day 8 - Day 11

Chongqing · Day 12 - Day 14

Yichang · Day 15

Shanghai · Day 16 - Day 18