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Rooted in Hangzhou. Inspired by Jiangnan. Thoughtfully planned East China journeys with genuine local hospitality.
Discover East China Tours is a Hangzhou-based travel specialist offering private and small-group journeys for international travelers. Our local team’s operating experience in East China dates to 2008. We focus on Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuzhen, Mount Huangshan, Jingdezhen and the surrounding region, bringing local knowledge to the route, pace and experiences of each trip.
| About our team | What to know |
|---|---|
| Home base | Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China |
| Local operating roots | East China travel experience dating to 2008 |
| Regional focus | Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui, with routes extending to Jingdezhen |
| Travel style | Private, tailor-made and small-group journeys; ask about availability for your dates |
| Our philosophy | Focus, depth and quality |
| Shopping policy | No compulsory shopping stops |
Our story began in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in 2008. Our local team focused on East China, developing first-hand knowledge of its cities, water towns, mountains, hotels, restaurants and transport connections.
That experience shapes how we plan journeys today. A good itinerary needs a natural rhythm, time to enjoy each place and experiences that explain the culture behind the sights. We focus on the part of China we know best.
We specialize in East China and continue to deepen our knowledge of the region.
We connect travelers with local history, culture, food, landscapes and everyday life.
Thoughtful planning, reliable local partners and attentive service matter more than simply adding more stops.
Our team developed a series of journeys around “Reading Jiangnan” — 品读江南: travel that helps you understand a place, rather than simply pass through it.
For us, that means noticing the details: a quiet morning beside West Lake, Longjing tea in the hills outside Hangzhou, an old stone bridge in a water town or a courtyard within a Suzhou garden. Food, crafts and conversations can reveal as much about a destination as its best-known landmarks.
Our itineraries continue to evolve, but this experience-led philosophy remains at the heart of Discover East China Tours.
Regional knowledge helps us turn separate destinations into one coherent journey. We plan around the experience on the ground, including transfers, hotel locations and enough time at each stop.
Browse our East China destinations to find the places that suit your interests.
Tell us your dates, interests and preferred pace. Our Hangzhou-based team can help connect them into a personal itinerary.
Good travel depends on details that visitors may never see.
Which hotel is best located for a particular itinerary?
How much time should you really allow at a garden or museum?
Which route avoids unnecessary backtracking?
When is it worth staying overnight in a water town?
Which local experience adds something meaningful to the journey — and which one simply fills time?
These are the decisions that shape a trip.
Over the years, our team has worked directly with a wide range of hotels, restaurants, local guides, attractions and travel partners throughout East China.
Historical company records include long-term cooperation with major hotels in Hangzhou and Shanghai, accommodation inside traditional water towns, countryside retreats and locally developed dining and cultural experiences.
That local operating experience allows us to design tours around how a journey actually works on the ground, not just how it looks on paper.
We have always believed that travelers should be able to experience a destination rather than simply photograph it.
Over the years, our team has developed and operated experiences including boat journeys on West Lake, cycling in Hangzhou, stays inside water towns, countryside accommodation, tea-area dining and locally designed food experiences.
Some of these ideas were considered innovative when they were first introduced into our East China products. Historical company materials, for example, document early use of private West Lake boat experiences and cycling as part of Hangzhou itineraries.
Our products continue to change as the region changes.
But the principle remains the same:
Every experience should add meaning to the journey.
A great itinerary is important.
A great local guide can make it unforgettable.
Our operating team has a long history of working with professional guides across East China. By 2019, historical company records listed a substantial team of full-time guides with experience ranging from new professionals to guides with more than 15 years in the industry.
Members of the guiding team have also received professional recognition, including a third-place award in a national tour guide competition.
For Discover East China Tours, a guide should be more than someone who tells you dates and facts.
We value people who can explain a place clearly, notice what travelers are interested in, adjust the pace when needed and turn local history into stories that make sense.
We want our guides to be local storytellers.
Before Discover East China Tours began focusing on international private and small-group travel, our local team had already accumulated extensive experience handling leisure groups, corporate programs, government and university delegations, conferences and large-scale events.
Historical records include the reception of a 5,000-person corporate conference group, demonstrating the coordination and ground-handling experience developed by the team over many years.
Company records also show that approximately 40,000 travelers were served in 2019.
Today, our focus is different.
Rather than pursuing volume, Discover East China Tours applies that operational experience to smaller, more personal journeys for international travelers.
Your holiday should be about the places you came to experience.
We do not build compulsory shopping stops into our itineraries.
We believe smaller groups allow more flexibility, better communication and a more relaxed way to explore East China.
Seeing more is not always experiencing more.
We try to balance major sights with local experiences, travel time and enough space to enjoy each destination.
Our journeys are designed around years of experience operating in East China.
We understand how the destinations connect, how long journeys really take and where small adjustments can make a large difference.
Different travelers want different things from China.
Hotels, activities, pace and routing can be adjusted to suit couples, families, friends, older travelers and private groups.
Discover East China Tours is a Hangzhou-based East China travel specialist offering private and small-group journeys for international travelers.
Our core destinations include:
Our strongest itineraries connect several of these destinations into journeys of approximately 4 to 9 days, while shorter city stays and customized routes are also available.
East China is more than the place where we operate.
It is the region we have spent years learning, exploring and sharing with travelers.
Whether you are walking through Shanghai’s historic streets, drinking Longjing tea above West Lake, exploring a classical garden in Suzhou, waking beside a canal in a water town, discovering porcelain workshops in Jingdezhen or watching the clouds move across Mount Huangshan, we want you to leave with more than a collection of photographs.
We want you to understand a little more about the places you visited — and remember the people, stories and moments that brought them to life.
Authentic East China journeys, designed locally and delivered personally.