It’s always been a dream of mine to see the fabled Terracotta Warriors in the legendary city of Xi’an. On this trip to China, I’ll be able to make that a reality as the family starts in Shanghai before hopping up to Luoyang and then Xi’an. Every time I go to China, there are a lot of twists, turns and surprises so make sure you follow along the live blog episodes throughout the 2 week journey from big city lights to mountain tops, temples, and Ming-era glory.
In this post also get an inside look into the planning for this trip and what the full itinerary is going to look like.
Read more about travel in China
- 144 Hour In-Transit Visa for China
- Essential China Travel Tips
- 2 Day Xi’an Itinerary
- See all of our China articles
How can you save money on travel?
- Hottest deals – Bookmark the travel deals page.
- Car rentals – stop getting ripped off and learn about car rental coupon codes.
- Hotels – Use corporate codes or get Genius 2 tier with Booking.
- Flights – Have you ever heard of the “Everywhere” feature?
- Insurance – Make sure you’re covered and learn more about where to buy the best travel insurance.
Read all the episodes of our trip
Throughout the two week trip, I’ll be compiling a few live blogging posts about my experiences and journey up to Xi’an.
- Episode 1: Back to Shanghai we go!
- Episode 2: Shaolin Temple – Birthplace of Kung Fu
- Episode 3: Yuntai Mountain Geo Park
- Episode 4: Luoyang – Peony, Temples and Grottoes
- Episode 5: Xi’an – Terracotta Warriors Museum
- Episode 6: Mount Hua and Plank Walk
- Episode 7: Xi’an – 2 Day Itinerary in the City
- Episode 8: Xi’an – Tomb of Emperor Jingdi and Yuan Jia Cun
Planning the road to the terminus of the Silk Road
I’m always a bit apprehensive about travelling in China because I always come out of it with mixed feelings. On one hand, the landscape, culture, history and food is one of a kind but in a lot of ways tourism in China is still in its developing phases and there are many places that are still very raw. It’s hard to describe but for those that have been to China, you will know what I mean. You really have to go into China with a different set of expectations and go in with an open mind to accept whatever comes your way.
So with this being a family trip I had to find a fine balance between being guided and having the freedom to explore on our own. The one thing I told my parents up front was that I absolutely did not want to do a Chinese bus tour. Sure they’re incredibly cheap but I just can’t stand the shopping stops, cheap food and ridiculously short photo stops. That is why we planned this trip on our own, identifying all the major spots we wanted to hit up but do it with the help of local private drivers.
Here’s a look at all the spots we’ll be going to on this trip:
Map
14 Day Itinerary
[Day 1 – 5] Accilimate in Shanghai
- Spend time exploring Shanghai
- Take advantage of the affordable tailors
- Check out the Shanghai markets
- Eat good food
[Day 6] Kung Fu Mecca (with Lisa)
- Flight from Shanghai to Luoyang
- Shaolin Temple
- Stay in Dengfeng
[Day 7] Yuntai Mountain (with Lisa)
[Day 8] Impressive Grottos (with Lisa)
- White Horse Temple
- Peony Garden (we’re there just in time for the Peony Festival in Luoyang)
- Longmen Grottoes
- Bullet train to Xi’an
[Day 9] Terracotta Warriors (with Michael)
- Terracotta Warriors & Emperor Chin Shi Huang’s Tomb
- Banpo Neolithic Village
- Big Wild Goose Pagoda
[Day 10] Mount Hua
- Plank Walk
[Day 11] Exploring Xi’an on our own
- Walk to East Gate from the hotel
- Explore East Gate
- Bike the City Wall from 10:45AM – 1:30 PM
- Lunch at a local noodle shop
- Roam around Shuyuanmen Cultural Street
- Small Wild Goose Pagoda
- Big Wild Goose Pagoda markets
- Dinner at a Chinese fast food restaurant
- Watch musical fountain show at Big Wild Goose Pagoda
[Day 12] Exploring Xi’an on our own
- Shaanxi Museum
- Big Wild Goose Pagoda
- Muslim Quarter
- Lunch in the Muslim Quarter
- Bell Tower
- Dinner at a dumpling restaurant
- South Gate
[Day 13] Countryside of Xi’an (with Michael)
- Tomb of Emperor Jingdi
- Yuan Jia Cun Village
- Overnight train back to Shanghai
[Day 14] Back Home
Local guides in China
This was probably one of the hardest things when planning the trip. There really is no central resource to find good reputable English speaking guides. In the end I relied purely on the TripAdvisor forums to see what others had posted about good guides.
Here’s how to search for a guide on TripAdvisor:
- Go to Tripadvisor.com
- Search for the city of interest
- Click on Forum
- Do a search for the term “guide”
- “Sort by Date”
- Start reading
Here are the two guides we’ve selected for our trip.
Luoyang Guide
Name: Lisa
E-mail: [email protected]
Price: 3600 RMB total
- Guide 400 RMB x 3 days = 1200 RMB
- Van 2200 RMB
- Accommodation for driver and guide for one night 150 RMB x 2 persons = 300 RMB
- 100 RMB discount (she would not negotiate any lower)
TripAdvisor forum thread: Lisa, An Excellent Tour Guide for Luoyang and Shaolin (I’ll be honest I looked pretty hard to find alternatives but Lisa’s really done an excellent job at being pretty much the only player in town. Did she wipe out the competition some how? :O)
Pre-trip feedback: Compared to Michael, Lisa was a little slower to respond and not as easy to communicate with. We were also a bit puzzled by the need to pay for both a guide and a van but after doing some research it looks like that’s how most guides are in Luoyang. Guides just do the talking but not the driving. Strange that it varies so much from city to city. In the end, we were able to negotiate something that worked for us but as you can see her prices are a lot higher than Michael in Xi’an.
Post-trip feedback: As our first guide of the trip, I thought Lisa was pretty good throughout the trip. She was quite knowledgeable about everywhere we went to and was incredibly accommodating in terms of our (really my) pace and what we wanted to see. Typically before getting to each place she’d give us a detailed rundown of the history of the location and from there she’d answer any questions that we had.
Driver wise, he was quiet throughout but he efficiently got us from place to place, dropping us as close to the entrance as possible and picking us up on time. One of the nice things was that our van was stocked with water although they had this strange tasting soda water that I just couldn’t get used to. There was also never any expectation to pay for dinner as it felt like they much preferred eating on their own but we did end up treating them to a few meals.
Now where Lisa could’ve improved I thought was that often times while at a certain site, she wasn’t that great with being proactive about continuing the conversation about where we were at and diving a little deeper. There was less from Lisa in terms of anecdotes and I even caught her a few times taking photos of info plaques to presumably memorize for later. There were also a few times where there was definitely a small gap in English. A lot of times I’d say something and she’d just look puzzled and that resulted in my parents jumping in to translate to English. That’s not to say her English was bad but overall her command of the language was mainly just around her talking points along the tour.
Overall, I’d definitely recommend Lisa to anyone heading down to Luoyang and is looking for a private guide.
Photos of Lisa:
Xi’an Guide
Name: Michael Yang
E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]
Phone number: 13991917258
Price: 1950 RMB total
- Day 1 (Terracotta Warriors day) 450 RMB
- Day 2 (Hua Shan mountain day) 800 RMB
- Day 3 (Explore country side and Yuanjia Cun) 700 RMB
TripAdvisor forum thread: Tour guide Michael Yang (there are more if you search)
Pre-trip feedback: Michael’s been really easy to communicate with via e-mail to coordinate everything. His e-mails are clear. What I love about Michael is that he understands that we don’t want to go to any tourist traps, shopping spots and how we want to eat at local authentic restaurants. His pricing structure was also made a lot of sense for us as it seems that he is both the driver and the guide.
Post-trip feedback: I thought Lisa was awesome until we got Michael in Xi’an. For one, it just made that much more sense that he was driver and guide. That meant we didn’t have to pay extra like we did in Luoyang. Michael’s command of English was also way better. We later found out that he actually taught English at a university in the city. What really set Michael apart from Lisa was the fact that he was constantly aware of giving us the best experience throughout which was most prominent when we were at the Terracotta Warriors and he made sure we stayed away from the big hoards of tour groups and gave us proactive tips on not buying the warriors at the “official store”.
Comparing to Lisa, Michael was just a lot better at thoroughly explaining everything to us and in English all the way through. I loved how he’d throw in anecdotes and fun stories in there too that really provided us better context of what we were seeing and experiencing. Overall he just seemed that much more confident and knowledgable about EVERYTHING.
His style was definitely different as well. Where Lisa was very laid back and relaxed, Michael was much more up tempo and more regimented in terms of really guiding us through each spot of a site step by step. While strange at first, I ended up loving the fact that he’d always go “Hey William! Come over here.” and pull us aside to a specific area to give us an explanation and point out things that we’d never even notice.
Oh yeah and his car was stocked with regular water. That was incredibly helpful because we could just drink from his stash and even after the day was over he’d give us a bunch to take back to the hotel.
There’s nothing more that I can say other than, Michael’s your guy in Xi’an. He’s a fine gentleman and really knows how to provide quality guide service to his customers. He books up quickly so I would recommend reaching out to him as soon as you have details locked down.
Photos of Michael:
Voice recording of Michael: While I didn’t get to do this for Lisa, this little excerpt of his explanation inside the Terracotta Warriors museum gives you an idea of his excellent English. (Sorry if the player widget below is a little wonky)
Glimpse of what’s to come
Here’s a little photo journey through some of crazy wicked cool things we’ll be seeing on this trip.
Tips and lessons learned
- HOTELS – When booking hotels in China, it’s totally different than how it is in North America. Agoda and Ctrip reign supreme. I loved how with Agoda specifically that I could pay with Paypal. Keep in mind that there are additional service fees tacked on at the top at the end so to know the real price, always go to the final page.
- FLIGHTS – Ctrip was the easiest for us to book flights within China.
- TRAIN – We ended up getting our private guides to buy our train tickets but a great resource to figure out train schedules is Travel China Guide.
- GUIDES – How did we find the guides we used? TripAdvisor ended up being the best resource for local guides in both Luoyang and Xi’an. Yes, guides can buy train tickets for you in advance which is a good idea especially if travelling around when any China holidays are. All they need is a scan of your passport.
What you should read next
Dara says
so helpful. Do you know if Michael is still is doing tours in Xian. I am going in May and would love to use him. Any suggestions re: Hong Kong or Beijing? We have a guide in Beijing and were just going to wing it in Hong Kong. Will be in Shanghai visiting a friend for the last 7 days of trip. Would welcome any recommendations.
Will Tang says
Hey! Yes as far as I know Michael is still running private trips in Xi’an but I know he’s quite high in demand so if you know your dates, I would try to lock him in as soon as you can. It sounds like you got things covered in Beijing. For HK you really don’t need a guide but I highly recommend that you check out my food guide as I always go wild with all the amazing restaurants that they have there. I also love getting out of the city as well so places like Sai Kung, Lamma Island and Cheung Chau are always favs. I have diary posts for those as well if you want to do a quick search. For Shanghai, did you check out my recent post about the neighbourhoods to stay in?
SOFIA says
HI!! Love your posts about China, they are super usefull. I’m going next week and just sent an email to michael for Xi’an tour.
Thank you!
Check how everything goes in @Travelistainstyle
Will Tang says
Thanks Sofia! You’re going to have a good time there. Michael was an awesome guide. I hope he’s available. I know that he gets booked up pretty quickly!
Adrianne Coleman says
hi there. what a helpful post. Wondering how you got to Yuntai mountain from Luoyang. It looks like it is very far from Luoyang.
Will Tang says
Hi Adrianne, this was possible through our private guide. Our private guide included a driver and van so they were able to drive us there. We connected things from Luoyang -> Shaolin (overnight in Dengfeng) -> Yuntai Mountain (overnight in Luoyang) before we took the bullet train over to Xi’an. Hope that helps!
Annika says
This is awesome as I am going to go to Xi’an in April. How fit do you recon one has to be to climb Mount Hua and are there less thrilling routes that still give you a great view than the one you did?? I stopped breathing there while I watched ;)
Will Tang says
Hey Annika! You’re going to have a great time :) You honestly don’t have to be too fit to do the plank walk or the rest of the mountain. The gondola takes you straight up and my parents were totally fine getting around the very well groomed trails. Plank walk is definitely mostly mind over matter. It is not steep at all. If you’re not looking to do plank walk, there is essentially a circuit route that takes you around to the different peaks and they all provide incredible vistas.
David says
Over crowded! It should be something everyone see’s but there’s just way to many people. Hard to get good shots and when we were there we had a guy put his cell phone right in front of our camera to get his shot.
Will Tang says
Ah is that what happened to you when you went? Yeah it’s definitely tough. The great thing about our guide was that he literally created space for us and created a bubble. I don’t know how he did it but magically we walked straight to the railing and we were able to shoot there for a good 15 minutes as he explained the background story to us.
Alouise says
I’ve never traveled to China, but it looks like an amazing experience. The Terracotta Warriors I’ve heard of, but I had no idea the Longmen Grottoes even existed. I would have never thought to book a private guide for a trip, but it looks like it would be well worth the cost for a trip like this.
Will Tang says
Thanks Alouise! Yeah there is an incredible amount to see in China that I think most of us in don’t think about. It was only until I started researching before going that even I learned about Luoyang and the Longmen Grottoes!
Norman says
you got quite an itinerary planned there!
Personally speaking china is one of the countries that really can’t convince me. They sure have wonderful cultural asset (just look at your pictures) – but the experience as a whole is somewhat lacking. Good hotels are very, very scarce – and so are good restaurants.
And to be frank – some of the cultural heritage sites couldn’t convince me either (but maybe my expectations were set to high!).
Naturally traveling there is also harder for western tourists (i remember the last time i tried to change money on a bank there took me 1 and a half hours, lol). I only speak japanese but that still helps – you can actually read some signs and menus.
Maybe that really puts my bad, if you want to call it that, experience in a nutshell – it is really hard to get intimate with the country. I guess when you finally manage to it will offer you all its 4years of history wealth!
Will Tang says
Hey Norman,
Yeah China is definitely a place that you have to go into with a certain set of expectations. For first-timers it’s always going to be a shock. There’s just no way around it.
I think what gets me the most is the etiquette and manners. You can hardly blame them because it’s been engrained in the culture for decades but it is definitely frustrating when it comes to queues and service. And then there’s the bathrooms you have to deal with which I know is always a big shock for those coming from a western culture.
Not knowing the language is also a big barrier. Thankfully I can speak Mandarin (just enough to get by) but for those that don’t, most people in China don’t speak English. That being said, the key is just to travel smart and my biggest tip is to get a guide. A guide pretty much solves a lot of the problems for you. They handle everything from helping you out with food, buying tickets and explaining everything to you in your native language. For our trip to China this time around it really helped us get super intimate into the amazing culture and history of the area of Xi’an.
Eating Adventures says
Hi Will,
Another good place to find guides is Synotrip, which is what we normally use. It goes without saying, but always use a licensed guide as some of the most popular are actually illegal guides. China has strict regulations and education requirements to obtain a guide license for the protection of tourists. English speaking guides have to undergo a separate english test.
Eating Adventures Food Tours
Steph of Big World Small Pockets says
Great tips on finding guides in China and how best to do it. I never even knew about the trip advisor forums, so thats a great tip, thanks. Love that you are taking the trip with your parents too. I really enjoyed recently being in Australia with mine – you have to compromise a bit more, especially if you’re used to roughing it alone, but its worth it for the set of memories and different experiences you’ll no doubt gain!
Will Tang says
Hey Steph, TripAdvisor Forums are a goldmine of information actually! Similar to the Lonely Planet Thorntree forum, there are people asking common questions so its really easy to find answers to questions like finding a good guide.
https://goingawesomeplaces.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php#comments-form
Yeah travel with the parents is definitely a little different but still fun. I’m actually kind of glad I’m not sure roughing out this time and not having to stress too much about how to get from place to place!
Katrina the Two Week Traveler says
I definitley understand what you’re talking about regarding travel to China. People are surprised when I say I can’t wait to go back because it is such a stressful place to travel but the country is amazing. The Terracotta Army disappointed me though :-/