Licensed guides

A real person, vetted — booked before you fly.

Every guide we match is licensed, English-speaking and insured. The tour is delivered by a licensed Chinese travel agency; you pay a deposit by foreign card before you fly. No street cash. No grey-market "companions".

Request a guide →
Limited beta — tell the desk your city and dates, we'll take it from there.

How it works

01

Tell us your trip

City, dates, language, what you want out of it — museums, food, the parts of town tourists miss.

02

We match a licensed guide

Credentials verified against the national guide registry; English-speaking; insured through a licensed agency.

03

Book before you fly

Deposit by foreign card. You land with a real person confirmed — not a stranger from a chat app.

Why licensed-only (told straight)

Mainland China licenses tour guides; paid guiding without one is illegal, and enforcement on the "companion" grey market is tightening. Cheap unlicensed guides from social apps put your trip — and them — at risk: no insurance, no recourse, no access to sites that check credentials. We only match licensed guides working under licensed agencies. If we can't verify a credential, we don't list it. That also means our supply is deliberately small while we vet partners — quality over volume.

Straight answers

Why does the guide have to be licensed?

Because unlicensed paid guiding is illegal in mainland China, and the grey market is being squeezed. Licensed + insured + agency-backed is the only setup where someone is accountable to you.

How does payment work?

Deposit by foreign card before you fly; the rest per the agency's terms. You never hand cash to a stranger or wire money over a chat app.

Can a guide get me into sold-out attractions?

Often, yes — licensed guides can bring visitors into reservation-required sites and know the real on-the-ground rules (they're part of how our Reservation Radar stays field-checked). What they can't do is conjure tickets the official channel doesn't have. Anyone promising that is reselling or scamming.