Destinations: Beijing, Xian, Luoyang, Nanjing, Shanghai
China History Study Tour for High School: From Dynasties to Modernity
Designed with history teachers, this 12-day programme follows China's story chronologically across five cities: the dynastic narrative of Beijing, the imperial grandeur of Xi'an, the arrival of Buddhism at Luoyang, the Ming heritage and modern turning points of Nanjing, and the treaty-port world of Shanghai. Each stop pairs site visits with document study and a running "evidence file" - photographs, sketches and notes that students compile into a graded source-analysis project. For AP, IB and GCSE cohorts, this is the most academically structured tour on the list.
Optional Extensions
Inter-city travel: high-speed rail throughout; teachers receive a full source pack before departure.
Day 1 - Beijing Arrival: Airport transfer; welcome dinner; programme briefing and distribution of the evidence-file pack and source documents.
Day 2 - Beijing (dynastic narrative): Forbidden City study with a focus on governance and ceremony; National Museum dynastic galleries with a source-analysis exercise; evening seminar on the mandate of heaven.
Day 3 - Beijing (frontier and ritual): Great Wall at Mutianyu; Temple of Heaven and the rituals of state; hutong evening and courtyard visit; journal session.
Day 4 - Beijing to Xi'an: High-speed rail south (about 5 hours); arrival and City Wall walk at dusk; brief on Qin unification.
Day 5 - Xi'an (Qin): Terracotta Army with document study (the Shiji account of the First Emperor); Shaanxi History Museum; seminar on empire and its costs.
Day 6 - Xi'an (Tang): Great Wild Goose Pagoda and the Silk Road; afternoon calligraphy or hanfu session as "cultural practice"; farewell to Xi'an.
Day 7 - Luoyang (Buddhism): Rail to Luoyang; Longmen Grottoes full study - the Vairocana Buddha, the iconography, and how Buddhism became Chinese; White Horse Temple, the first monastery (67 CE); rail onward to Nanjing in the evening.
Day 8 - Nanjing (Ming): Ming City Wall and the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum; Nanjing Museum's Ming galleries; evening walk in the 1912 district and the Republic-era streets.
Day 9 - Nanjing (modern): Site visit to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (with teachers' prior approval and preparation materials); afternoon discussion on historiography and memory.
Day 10 - Shanghai (treaty port): Rail to Shanghai; Bund architecture walk - the concessions in stone; Nanjing Road; briefing on treaty-port history.
Day 11 - Shanghai (contemporary): Shanghai Museum; Pudong skyline; final seminar and evidence-file presentations; farewell dinner.
Day 12 - Departure: Airport transfer from Shanghai.
