Small company,
on the ground, on the record.

Private China Journeys is a small destination company based in China, run day to day by its founder — one person, reading every email, planning every route. We design and run private, tailor-made journeys for European travellers, and we work B2B with European tour operators and travel advisors at confidential net rates — and host a seven-day partner fam trip each year so operators can see the product before they sell it.

Why we exist

European travellers are curious about China again — visa-free entry, high-speed trains, mobile payments — but what stops them is never money or distance. It’s the fog: unfamiliar systems, a language wall, and the fear of having no one to call. We exist to remove the fog, with private guides, honest information and a 24/7 English line — no shopping stops, no scripts, no conveyor belts.

Who is behind this

This site is run by its founder, a travel operator based in China with operator-level experience on the ground here — the kind built by meeting trains, re-routing around weather, and standing in hotel lobbies arguing for a better room, not by managing a spreadsheet from abroad.

Why only European travellers? Because doing one market properly beats doing five badly. The questions Europeans ask — data privacy, payment safety, what happens if something goes wrong, whether the price is the real price — are the questions this company was built to answer in writing, before you ever email us.

And why publish prices at all? Because in this industry the price is usually the last thing you’re told and the first thing that changes. We put the cost breakdown on the page so you can check our arithmetic before you trust anything else we say.

How we verify what we publish

Our practical guides carry dates on purpose. Policy content (visa-free rules, payment practices, connectivity) is checked against official sources and our own on-the-ground use, and re-dated when anything changes. If a page looks older than it should, write to us — that’s a bug, and we fix those fast.

Why the site looks like this

Everything on this site is dated, priced or footnoted on purpose. The itinerary pages show full cost breakdowns because a price you can’t take apart is a price you can’t check. The sample itinerary shows a real day-by-day plan because “tailor-made” means nothing until you’ve seen the tailoring.

The visa-free banner at the top of every page carries an expiry date — 31 December 2026 — because it has one in real life. Policy changes; a banner without a date is a promise we can’t keep. We’d rather show you the seam than pretend the seam isn’t there.

How we operate

Your booking documents identify the contracting party and the relevant local operators and permissions. We are putting payment controls and suitable travel cover in place; the arrangements applicable to your journey are confirmed individually. Read our client-funds and travel-cover information for payment, refund, insurance and additional-expense rules. Guides must be licensed and paid properly. Our rule is no shopping stops, no shop recommendations and no retail conflicts of interest, for every assigned guide, driver and other staff member. We investigate reports; a verified breach means immediate removal and replacement, with no future PCJ engagement. Read our no-shopping promise and direct reporting process.

What we don’t do yet

We’re young, and we’d rather you know exactly what that means. There are no third-party reviews of us yet — no Trustpilot page, no testimonials wall — because we won’t publish quotes we can’t point back to a real traveller. Planning enquiries remain welcome. We do not request or accept bookings or deposits from EU-resident travellers until applicable contracting and insolvency-protection requirements are satisfied. Customers receive the relevant identities, protection confirmations and booking terms privately; confidential commercial bank agreements are not posted in full. Existing contracts and accrued rights remain unaffected.

What we can offer instead is everything above: prices with the maths showing, policies with dates on them, and a person who replies within one working day. If that’s not enough yet, come back when the reviews exist — we intend to earn them slowly.

Talk to us

Travellers: hello@privatechinajourneys.com · Travel professionals: partners@privatechinajourneys.com. A person replies within one working day — usually much faster.