Booking information

1. Enquiry. Tell us which Journey and date interest you, and who is travelling. This is free and commits you to nothing.

2. We reconfirm the arrangements. We check your date, party size and room arrangements with the local partners involved in your Journey.

3. Provisional quote. Where it helps, we send an indicative price and outline first, so you can decide whether to go further. A provisional quote carries an expiry date and does not hold anything for you.

4. Written booking offer. The complete document: final price, inclusions and exclusions, payment dates, cancellation terms, and anything specific to your booking. You receive it before you are asked to pay, in a form you can keep.

5. Your decision. If you decide to proceed, you accept the offer and make the payment set out in it.

6. Booking Confirmation. Once the required payment has been received and the arrangements have been reconfirmed, we send you a written Booking Confirmation setting out the confirmed arrangements.

• the Journey, your exact dates, your party size and the room arrangements;
• what is included and what is not;
• the total price and the currency;
• the payment amounts and the dates they are due;
• the cancellation terms that apply to your booking;
• what happens if you want to change your dates or who is travelling;
• who to contact, and how support works while you are travelling.

Anything specific to your booking that differs from the usual arrangements is set out there too.

The prices shown on our Journey pages are "from" prices, based on six guests sharing twin rooms.

The final price depends on how many of you are travelling and how the rooms are arranged. Smaller parties are quoted separately, and the per-person price for a smaller party is usually higher. Your booking offer shows one total for your actual party.

These are two separate documents. A payment receipt records that we have received a payment from you, and how much. A written Booking Confirmation sets out the confirmed arrangements for your Journey, including anything still to be paid.

If you have made a payment and have not yet received your Booking Confirmation, contact us and we will confirm the status of your booking.

The cancellation terms for your booking, including any amounts that would not be refunded and the deadlines that affect them, are set out in your written booking offer before you are asked to pay.

If you would like to move your dates, ask us. Asking does not cancel your booking: we check what is possible, tell you what it would cost, and make the change only once you have agreed to it. The same applies if you need to pass your booking to someone else.

Journeys involve hotels, hosts, boats, workshops and public sites, so some adjustment is occasionally necessary. Small changes to the order of a day, and the alternatives we arrange for weather or local operating conditions, are described on each Journey page. If a significant change or cancellation affects a confirmed Journey, we will contact you promptly, explain the options available for your booking and any refund rights that apply.

We recommend arranging suitable personal travel insurance when you make a financial commitment to a trip, including cover for medical costs, cancellation and cutting a trip short. It is not included in our prices.

Visas, entry requirements and international flights are arranged by you. Our China visa guide explains what to check and where to check it.

This page describes China Journeys.

Cultural Experiences are shorter, usually a single day, and their arrangements are confirmed for each experience and date. Private China Planning is a different service, designed around your own dates and route, with its scope, any planning fee and its terms agreed separately before paid work begins.

Their terms are assessed separately, and we do not apply one product's terms to another.

This page describes our process. The terms that apply to your booking are the ones sent to you in writing with your booking offer, and you have them before you commit. Nothing here removes rights you have under the consumer law that applies to you.

If you would like to know how any of this would work for your trip, ask before you commit. Email [email protected] or send an enquiry.

See also our Website Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.