China tours for older travellers

The constraint is rarely distance. It is steps, queues and altitude — three things a well-built itinerary can design around.

The real constraints

• Steps without handrails — temples, city walls, cave sites.
• Standing queues — museums, stations, cable cars.
• Altitude — Lhasa 3,650 m, Shangri-La 3,200 m, parts of Jiuzhaigou above 3,000 m.
• Heat and sun — the Great Wall and the Terracotta pits have almost no shade.
• Toilets — squat versus seated, and how far the next one is.

What we change, specifically

• One major site per day, with the afternoon genuinely free.
• Private vehicle door to door — no metro stairs, no taxi negotiations.
• Hotels with lifts, walk-in showers and a handrail; we check, rather than assume.
• Front-row seats booked on high-speed trains.
• Airport and station assistance requested in advance where it exists.
• A named contact on the ground for the whole trip, not a call centre.

Altitude: the honest version

Lhasa sits at 3,650 m. Most people are fine with a slow first day and no alcohol; some are not, and no itinerary can promise otherwise. We do not sell Tibet as a two-day add-on to a ten-day trip — it needs two acclimatisation days minimum, and a medical conversation before booking.

Health and insurance

Carry prescriptions in their original packaging with a doctor’s letter; some common medicines are controlled in China. Travel insurance should cover medical evacuation, not just treatment. We can name the hospitals we would use in each city.

What to skip

The Zhangjiajie glass bridge, the Huangshan steps, the wild Great Wall, and any plan with two internal flights in three days. All of them are excellent — none of them are worth a fall.