TripAdvisor Reviews

Roger with China Travel Guide was an excellent guide! His knowledge and stories of Xi'an history and culture prepared us to experience everything we saw with greater depth and appreciation. He led us at a comfortable pace as we visited the Terracotta Army (including meeting the farmer who discovered the army and is now Honorary Curator), the Pagodas, City Wall and Muslim Bazaar. His recommendations for restaurants were fantastic and we especially enjoyed the musical dinner presentation complete with extraordinary dumplings! Less

Roger was our guide in Xian for 2 1/2 days. He is a fount of historical knowledge, and started in with stories of Qin and Tang dynasty emperors and empresses that interlaced with museum exhibits, terra cotta warrior visit, and temple visits. If he recommends the theatre, GO! It's spectacular and encapsulates what you have seen in Xi'an. Roger's lunch recommendations were spot on too. I highly recommend him and TravelChinaGuide.



Xi'an was one stop in a multicity tour of china (Shanghai, Lijiang, Chengdu, Beijing). Travel China Guide did all the arrangements except one city where we had business, and all the guides and itineraries were great. When I was planning the trip, I sent out emails to 5 or six different guide companies, with desired itinerary starting in Shanghai and ending in Beijing (constrained by our business stop). A few companies didn't even respond. All the others except TravelChinaGuide were happy to have us do a trip in the more usual Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu direction. I appreciate TravelChinaGuide for having the flexibility to accommodate our schedule, rather than trying to plug us into the more usual, set ininerary.



Our guides in Chengdu (Rebecca - her restaurant recommendations were spot on) and Shanghai (Sophie) were wonderful.



As far as TravelChinaGuide, I was apprehensive when I was booking, since I feared they weren't "real." They say on their website that they are members of several different travel associations (and that they were reviewed by NYT), but confirming that was difficult since they have had multiple names over their decades of doing business, including Warrior Travel, and, originally Xi'an Marco Polo Travel International. The travel associations had them as members up to 2019 as XI'an Marco Polo (then probably dropped due to covid), and NYT as warrior travel. Finally based on Trip Advisor reviews as recently as a month prior to my booking, I took the faith leap and booked. These guys are real. Bookings were solid, tour guides always on time and reliable.



A note about China internet and payment. I was able to get onto WeChat once we met our first guide and he could scan my personal QR code. I could not get it to work in advance of going to China. I also never could get WeChat pay to work. It was pulling teeth to find in the app where to add a card, and then it required identity authentication by photos of your passport and of yourself. Despite 10X tries or more, it kept rejecting my pictures. We managed to pay by cash and in some places by credit card, though one card kept getting rejected - the card company says it never made it through to them, the problem was the machine or internet on China's side. I would think China needs to work on this if they want tourism income.



As far as internet, I was able to access Google, YouTube, GooglePlay etc as long as I stayed on my cell provider roaming internet. The minute I signed into the hotel or local internet, it was all blocked. Go figure. Don't know how long that will last... Less