And we’ve signed off on our China 2026 itinerary! Or at least, we’d still be able to make minor tweaks and adjustments as long as they don’t incur significant cost changes.
Our flights were booked a month ago, and we’ll be flying via Scoot on a short flight to Nanning, where we’ll be picked up by our driver for the 3+ hour drive westwards. Our departing flight home will be with Chinese airline West Air. No, I haven’t flown with them before, but Chinese international flights are generally safe. The only difficulty, flights-wise, so far is that I was unable to do seat selections for the return flight. Our ever-ready-to-help Windhorse Tour planner was able to call the airline on her end and assist with that, though.
There are actually several flights departing daily from Chongqing back to Singapore, but the West Air one was the only one we could find that was departing fairly late in the day – which affords us more time to spend in Chongqing. Yes, maximizing our vacation period again, since we’re only doing a 16-day trip this time.
Here’s what the 90%-finalized itinerary looks like so far:
The bits that we’re still working on:
Working out what to do on Days 15 and 16. Windhorse Tour will bring us around to the harder-to-reach places on Day 14 before returning us to our Chongqing hotel. I’m assuming the two ladies at home won’t be pleased with anything less than a day of retail therapy, so my job was to find the two of them suitable shopping districts and malls in the city!
Finding a suitable place to stay for the last leg in Chongqing, since our private tour with Windhorse ends on Day 14. Interestingly, compared to Chengdu, there seem to be fewer service apartments for families within our preferred areas of the city and budget in Chongqing. There is no shortage of traditional hotels though, so there’s that safety net as we continue to look for suitable apartments for the two nights we’d be staying in the city at the tail end of the trip.
That’s about the only things we’ve really got left outstanding, itinerary-wise. After finalizing our general travel plan, the places we want to go, and how much time we’d like to spend in each region, we subsequently sent everything to Windhorse Tour for them to work out the fine details. It really struck me how much more relaxed this trip has been, planning-wise, compared to last year’s Yunnan-Western Sichuan trip – specifically because of the seven-day stretch we were planning on our own.
I reckon our next post will be a few months from now and just before departure. So, more to come at a much later point!