East Wind Adventures

East Wind Adventures staff members are travel consultants working in conjunction with the best tour operators in China. Together we design great tours! We are experts in the art of travel: our knowledge and experience are your tools as we work together to craft a travel program that takes your dreams and wraps them around an itinerary.

Are you looking for a good contact for your tours? Let us make an introduction! We can provide a service as simple as suggesting a good fit for your travel needs or as complex as handling your group's bookings and insurance. We are based in California and are licensed as insurance providers and sellers of travel. The organizations to which we belong and participate keep us connected and current. Those of us in the States travel to China frequently to research potential locations, and while we arrange custom trips by request, we also offer a select few trips ourselves each year. In China and beyond, our tour managers handle logistics and bookings right up until the last minute and provide the staff to make your stay an enjoyable one.

Do you want to golf in Beijing? Enjoy architecture? Want to escape the behemoth megahotels for an intimate resort or bouique hotel? Are you ready for a spa retreat in Bali? Planning a once-in-a-lifetime experience? You can count on us!

No matter how small, an EWA representative accompanies each trip we run, and we keep these trips small and intimate for maximum flexibility. East Wind Adventures pays a generous 15% commission to travel agents offering our tours. Please contact us at (888) 309-5151 for more information.

China is an extremely diverse country, geographically, socially, even culturally. It’s possible to spend a week in Shanghai playing racquetball, shopping at designer boutiques, dining in French restaurants, strolling through art galleries, playing golf and forget that you’re far from Kansas indeed. On the other hand, even in the financial heart of Shanghai one is never far from the soul of China: handmade noodles, Buddhist monks chanting at dawn in a neighborhood temple, street-sweeping elderly women clearing the sidewalks for another day. Karaoke. Bicycles. So you’re going to China, and you’d like to customize your trip. Your best bet is to talk to a travel consultant with a specialty in the region (like East Wind Adventures, for example!). Consulting fees for helping you to design a dream vacation range from a flat fee ($250 is a common charge) to a commission-based charge (12% to 15% of your tour value is typical). But if you’re determined to go it alone, make a list to use as the basis for your research. Start with your interests, and branch out into areas you’re unfamiliar with but curious about. Don’t rule anything out! If you’re fascinated by architecture, Hong Kong will dazzle you with both ancient and modern styles. China’s booming space program has launched an interest in astronomy, rockets and space camps. Civil engineering buffs can compare ancient techniques of road building, water diversion and bridge building to modern techniques, and even tour a hydroelectric plant. Manufacturing interests are often willing to host visitors for a short tour of a facility, and several of China’s distilleries have begun promoting their spirits by offering tours. The next step is to find a competent guide and tour manager. Spare no expense and take no chances here: a badly-run tour will become a travel nightmare to wow your friends with, but won’t live up to your expectations of a dream vacation! China’s tourism industry has undergone some deregulation, and private travel agencies have sprung up like weeds. Many are weeds. But several of the best and the brightest who bolted from the government-run agencies now work long hours in their own businesses to help plan a custom trip. East Wind Adventures works with a few of these worthy entrepreneurs. You should expect a prompt response and a curiosity about your interests if you inquire about a customized tour, not a rehash of a “standard” tour. Here’s a list of questions suggested by David Huang in planning a private motorcycle tour:

The weaving of key areas of interest into a fixed time frame is an art, and the process can take several weeks in a complicated itinerary. Your vacation should be peppered with “WOW!” experiences, but not a steady onslaught of them. There should be some flexibility to pursue a spur-of-the-moment opportunity, and a good guide should have an undisclosed pleasant surprise up his or her sleeve if events fall into place. Finally, custom-designed vacations are often costly and seldom refundable. The cost of trip cancellation insurance is minute compared to a custom-crafted itinerary. Do look over travel insurance options, and know the limits of the coverage. Do not pick this detail to avoid as a cost-cutting measure: stuff happens.

East Wind Adventures is a member of PATA, the International Ecotourism Society and the Adventure Travel Society.

Ideal times vary region by region: do you know when you will be traveling? Are you experienced in traveling mountain roads?

Do you mind long, bumpy stretches of dirt road, or would you rather travel on paved roads?

Do you prefer a warmer, tropical environment, or an alpine environment? (In the southwest, you can have both!)

Are you especially interested in China's 50 ethnic minorities, visiting their villages, etc?

Would you like to include visits to temples (the Southwest has many Taoist and Buddhist temples from the three main branches of Buddhism, Tibetan, Mahayana and Hinayana)?

Would you like to include time for hiking, river floats, etc or focus on the scenery from the road?

Do you enjoy birding and wildlife, botany, or other interests in the natural sciences?

What class of hotel do you prefer?

Do you have any diet or health restrictions?