Tibet & China mountain biking holiday

country:	China, Tibet
trip type:	Adventurous mountain biking holidays
departures:	2008: 30 Aug, 16 Sep 2009: 29 Aug, 19 Sep
price:	From €2270 (17 days) excluding flights. Includes transport, all meals (excluding 2 lunches & 2 dinners), group entrance fees, group leaders and bilingual local guide, accommodation, and activities per detailed itinerary (on request). Bike hire available

Adventurous mountain biking

China holidays

Tibet holidays

the amazing things you'll be doing

This 17-day bike tour begins and ends in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and one of the major cultural centres of China.

At 500m elevation, Chengdu is located in the Sichuan basin, sometimes referred to as the "Heavenly Kingdom", surrounded by soaring mountains to the northwest and the Sichuan Basin to the east.

Sichuan, meaning "Four Rivers" refers to four of the more than 80 huge rivers flowing across the province, is a land of dramatic mountainous terrain, fast rivers and the foreboding Tibetan plateau.

Sichuan is the largest and arguably the most interesting province in the southwest with a population displaying as much diversity as the landscape, from the densest rural population in the world to the remote, dramatic and sparsely populated Tibetan plateau.

Stunning scenery, colourful culture, world renowned cuisine and history all combine to create one of the most diverse, interesting and memorable biking destinations on the planet.

trip profile

17 Days Adventure Biking, Chengdu to Chengdu.

14 days biking, 60% paved roads and 40% unpaved roads. Some off road biking experience is preferred. From 30km to 130km per day.
100% vehicle supported.
Group size minimum 6, maximum 10 plus our leaders and local staff.
Accommodation is twin share in local hotels and guesthouses. (Upgrades to single rooms are available at some locations at your own expense).
Food includes 3 meals per day from dinner on Day-1 to breakfast Day-17. This excludes 2 lunches and 2 evening meals which are at your own expense to give you more opportunity to explore and experience local cuisine.
Local bilingual guide/interpreter.

how this holiday makes a difference

It is important to us that when we travel to different parts of our amazing planet that our exchange is always a mutual one and that we make a positive contribution to people and places that we visit along the way.

These days ‘responsible travel' and ‘sustainability' are hot topics. Responsible travel is not about donating large sums of money to charity (at least not without thoroughly researching the long-term intentions or effects of the charity). We believe responsible travel is about taking time to think about how our actions can benefit or how they impact the people, communities, economies, environments and eco-systems we visit, and then use this to make a difference (or sometimes more appropriately - how we can NOT make a difference). We are constantly considering our actions and how we and the people who travel with us can improve our impact on the places we visit.

Here are just some of the ways that we ‘make a difference’:

Social integration with the local people is a central part of our trips. Simply travelling by bike is a great start – a great way for our bikers and local people to meet and start a conversation.
We always buy locally grown food and shop in small local markets; we support local businesses by staying in locally owned hotels, eating in local restaurants and taking our bikers to local operations and sanctuaries.
Educate our bikers – about the effects of buying products that come from endangered species, or products that are destructive to wildlife or the environment.
Waste/rubbish management – when we travel we should treat our surrounding as we would treat our home (or better!). We do our best to avoid ‘single use packaging’ only using reusable or recyclable packaging. We recycle what can be, and manage any rubbish in the best possible way.
We have an environmentally conscious office – To avoid paper waste we aim to use as much computer technology as possible in our office. And when we do print we use paper from recycled sources!
We are currently working on a project where we calculate the environmental cost of each of our biker’s air travel to China. We then transfer this cost into trees and plant the trees in a local reforestation project during our biking journey. In addition to this for every trip we lead we will plant sufficient trees to offset the CO2 emissions of our support vehicle. We plan to initiate this project in 2009.
As China is a new destination for us in 2008 and we will be looking for a community or environmental project for our trip to support.

Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people.

We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel.

'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left).

We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays.

We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism.

This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards.