Private & custom independent travel
LocalKey designs custom independent China travel. We book the flights, hotels, trains, and transfers, then you travel either with an app roadbook and a WhatsApp or WeChat group, or with a private car and optional guide.
Travel style
Custom independent travel: self-guided with a roadbook, or private car and optional guide
Best for
Travelers who want their own dates and pace — not a group departure
Support
Bookings arranged, app roadbook, and a WhatsApp or WeChat group while you travel
Budget
Flexible. Hotel and train choices set the cost; we quote after the brief
Product logic
This is not a group tour and not a fixed first-timer package. It is custom independent travel: the same route can be self-guided or run with a private car, built around your dates, hotels, and constraints.
Use cases
The same city list can become a family trip, a photography trip, a business extension, or a private cultural route. The design work is in the differences.
Pacing, hotel room logic, food tolerance, guide tone, and enough downtime for the trip to hold together.
A route that respects meeting timing, airport reality, restaurant privacy, and useful evenings rather than filler time.
Yunnan, Chongqing, Silk Road, gardens, and city light planned around season, transfer buffers, permissions, and composition.
Chinese diaspora return trips, heritage towns, family-history limits, local coordination, and careful expectations.
Privacy, hotel quality, food, transfer comfort, and enough unprogrammed time for the trip to feel personal.
Tibet, Xinjiang, hiking, Yunnan, and mountain routes where altitude, permits, weather, and transfers need early control.
Service levels
These levels apply when you travel with a private car. Self-guided is quoted from the hotels and trains you choose. In both lanes, we put budget where it changes the trip, not where it merely sounds expensive.
A private route with selected hotels, key guide days, transport, tickets, dining notes, and LocalKey support.
Better hotels, stronger guide matching, more private transfers, richer restaurant planning, and tighter daily flow.
Premium hotels, private guide coverage, special-request handling, higher-touch transfers, and refined pacing.
What is included
Inclusions depend on the lane. Self-guided covers bookings, the app roadbook, and WhatsApp or WeChat support. Private car adds the vehicle and optional guide. The proposal stays explicit about what is confirmed and what still needs a supplier.
One sample · two ways
Same days and cities. You choose how to travel them: self-guided with bookings, an app roadbook, and a WhatsApp or WeChat group — or the same route with a private car and optional guide.
A calm first China route built around Shanghai arrival, one clean Suzhou day, and enough space to make payments, trains, restaurants, and jet lag behave. This is a starting shape, not a boxed product. Hotel and train choices set the cost.
Day 1
Arrive without making the first day heroic
Shanghai
Day 2
Modern Shanghai, paced correctly
Shanghai
Day 3
French Concession food, design, and walking room
Shanghai
Day 4
Suzhou without overloading the garden list
Suzhou
Day 5
Leave room for the thing you actually liked
Shanghai
Self-guided
Price: enquire. It depends on the hotels and trains you choose.
Private car
From $1,800 / person on the private-car version of this sample. Final cost still follows hotels and confirmed services.
Enquire about this route
Tell us which lane you want, your dates, and the hotel level you have in mind. The first reply comes from a person.
Sample routes
From $1,800 / person
A calm first China route built around Shanghai arrival, one clean Suzhou day, and enough space to make payments, trains, restaurants, and jet lag behave.
See itinerary
From $3,200 / person
The classic route, edited hard: Beijing for imperial scale, Xi'an by high-speed rail, then Shanghai as the modern finish.
See itinerary
From $2,400 / person
A Yangtze Delta route for travelers who want modern Shanghai, tea-country breathing room, and Suzhou composition without rushing.
See itinerary
From $2,800 / person
A Sichuan route for travelers who want food, teahouses, pandas, temple culture, and the Leshan-Emei UNESCO pairing without turning the week into a transfer sprint.
See itinerary
Design path
The process is built to surface constraints early, avoid vague promises, and turn a complicated China idea into a route that can actually operate.
Step 1
You send dates, people, budget, interests, constraints, and anything that cannot go wrong.
Step 2
We test the route idea, comfort level, guide needs, and the trade-offs that matter.
Step 3
We build the city order, hotels, guide days, transport, meals, support level, and proposal assumptions.
Step 4
Once approved, deposit starts confirmation; final documents and support contacts follow before travel.
Why LocalKey tailor-made
A private trip can become overbuilt quickly. LocalKey keeps the plan focused on the decisions that change comfort, access, context, and reliability.
A strong private trip still needs discipline: fewer weak transfers, better hotel geography, and clear guide purpose.
We spend comfort budget where it protects energy, privacy, food, transfer quality, or access.
Special requests are marked as requests until confirmed. We will not sell access that has not been secured.
Payments, rail timing, museum rules, domestic flights, crowd pressure, and meal planning all shape the route.
Trip brief
Dates, budget, travelers, cities, food limits, business add-ons, family context, special requests, and the parts you do not want to solve alone. The first reply comes from a person.
Important
Supplier-only access, special permits, and private venues are treated as requests until confirmed. We will separate what is confirmed from what is still being checked.
START A CONVERSATION
Tell us how much time you have, who you are travelling with, and what first caught your curiosity.