China tour, Shanghai to Beijing

A key feature of our Responsible Travel approach is to use public transport wherever practicable. This trip exemplifies this, with open-plan overnight trains between cities and local buses to tourist sights such at the Terracotta Warriors. It's disappointing to see lines of air conditioned private coaches in the car parks when there are regular and comfortable public buses available, which we can travel on with the locals!

One of the great advantages of taking the overnight trains, apart from the convenience of being delivered to the next city with the comfort of your own bunk in environmentally friendly mass transit, is the incredible local interaction opportunity. With no doors to hide behind, barriers (including the usual 'language barrier' excuse) are quickly stripped away, and before you know it you can find yourself involved in a game of cards, sharing a beer with a friendly local or giving an impromptu English lesson to a couple of students. There is hardly a better way to pass the time than getting to know how the people really live by spending time with them. Often the trains are full of business people going to another city for work reasons, or families returning home after a long time away. Every time it's different. In the same way that we are fascinated by their individual stories, a group of travellers can pique their curiosity, and the questions go both ways. Trying to explain to a local why we would rather take an overnight train than fly when we are on holidays is easy to translate but often hard to understand!

In Xitang, a small Ming dynasty town, we use a very traditional and local family owned guesthouse. Our travellers experience a taste of old China and the family gains our business, keeping the financial benefits in local hands. It's important to note that even in the big cities where we must stay in tourist designated hotels, we split our trips across a range of hotels, to spread the business around and not create an unfair monopoly for one accommodation provider.

Finally no meals are included on this trip - the leader simply finds somewhere to eat when the group is hungry! This helps us spread the business around as widely as possible.