116°E, the meridian Beijing sits on

For travel advisors

One Sixteen East

116°E · the meridian Beijing sits on

Private China trips, planned one family at a time

We build the route, book the people and places, and confirm how you get into the country before anything else is arranged.

Book a call See the trips

A quiet stretch of the Great Wall at sunrise with mist in the valleys — Before it opensThe Great Wall at dawnA quieter stretch, an hour before the coaches arrive.

Hands pouring a Chinese gongfu tea ceremony, steam rising from the cups — A room with six seatsTea with the growerNot a demonstration. The person who picked the leaves, pouring them.

A head spa treatment, warm water running through hair over a ceramic basin — The afternoon offA head spaNinety minutes, and the reason people book a second one before they fly home.

In short

One Sixteen East plans private trips to China for travellers from the United States and other countries that are not on China’s visa-free list. We handle the entry route, the itinerary, the hotels, the guides and drivers, and the bookings that sell out. One person runs your trip from planning through to the flight home.

01 · What we do

A restored siheyuan courtyard house in the Beijing hutongs at first light — A restored courtyard house in the Dongcheng hutongs, before the city wakes.

Every trip is built from scratch

There is no departure list and no set itinerary with your name typed into it. We start from your dates and your interests, and we settle your entry route first, so a trip never falls apart over paperwork three weeks before you fly.

01

We plan the trip

You tell us your dates, who is coming and what you want to see. We build the route, book the hotels, guides and drivers, and hold the tickets that have to be bought at a fixed hour.

02

We open doors you cannot book

A workshop with no shopfront. A kitchen before service. A garden before the gates open. These come from people we know and have checked, not from a booking site.

03

We sort out how you get in

Americans are not on China’s visa-free list. We work out whether you need a visa or can use the 240-hour transit rule, and we do that before we plan a single day.

How entry works

02 · Trips

Two examples, to show the shape

These are not packages you book. They are two trips we have built before, shown so you can judge the scale. Yours can be longer, shorter, or somewhere else entirely.

$350–500

The Entry and Routing Plan

A written plan for getting your passport into China: which route works, what documents you need, and when to file them. Yours to keep, whether or not we plan the trip.

from $9,000 per person

The Meridian

Ten days in China, then a second country on the way home. Two or three places properly, with the onward flight built into the plan rather than bolted on.

from $14,000 per person

The Long Way Round

Two to three weeks. More provinces, slower days, and room to reach somewhere that takes a full day to get to.

Prices are per person and cover arrangements on the ground. Flights are quoted separately. Nothing is charged until terms are signed.

03 · What you actually do

The days people talk about afterwards

All experiences

A stone soaking pool in a Chinese bathhouse and spa, lit from below through steam

Spa and bathhouse days

Head spas, foot treatments, sound baths, and the twenty-four hour bathhouses. Usually the day people ask to repeat.

A private dining room in a Shanghai lane house set for a regional Chinese menu

Eating properly

Regional kitchens, private dining rooms, a market at six in the morning, and tea with the person who grew it.

A companion guide walking two children down a Beijing hutong lane in the morning

Help with the children

Companion guides who mind, play with and tutor your children, so you can have an afternoon to yourselves.

The waiting area of a private health screening centre in China, empty and calm

04 · Health check-ups

A full physical, done in one morning

A full-panel check-up in China takes a single morning instead of a season of separate appointments. Scans, bloods, ultrasound and the clinical examinations, finished before lunch, with one written report at the end.

Panels can be built around a specific concern, and specialist treatment is arranged for people who have already chosen their care with their own doctors. We give no medical advice.

What a panel covers

05 · What is included

What the fee covers

01

The plan

A day-by-day route built for your dates, not a fixed departure.

02

Bookings

Hotels, guides, drivers, restaurants and tickets, all held in your name.

03

People on the ground

A guide who knows the timing of each place, and a driver who knows the traffic.

04

One person on call

The same person for the whole trip, reachable in your hours and theirs.

05

Entry and paperwork

Your visa or transit route confirmed in writing before anything is booked.

06

After you get home

What we learned about how you travel, kept for the next trip.

06 · Guides

China travel guides, written when something changes

October 2026 · What to do

The overrated tourist attractions in China we still book

Most of the overrated tourist attractions in China are not overrated places. They are good places reached the wrong way, and the fix is usually a different entrance forty minutes down the road.

September 2026 · What to do

Yangshuo is a tourist trap for one week of the year

The Yangshuo tourist trap reputation is accurate for about one week in twelve months and wrong for the rest. In the national holiday week at the start of October the whole country travels at once and the parks fill to their limit.

September 2026 · What to do

The second tier cities in China worth changing a trip for

The second tier cities in China worth a place on a first trip are the ones that do something the first tier cannot do at all. Not the same thing more quietly, and not the same thing for less.

07 · The entry rules

China changes its entry rules without warning

The transit window moved from 144 hours to 240 in December 2024, and most guides online still print the old number. We email when a rule actually changes and what it means for a US passport. Nothing else.

Karst mountains along the Li River near Guilin at dusk, a bamboo raft on the water

Tell us where you want to go

Thirty minutes on the phone, free, and no sales pitch. You will finish the call knowing what is possible in the time you have, roughly what it costs, and what your passport needs.