About This Project

I grew up moving between different parts of China.

I was born in a small city in Sichuan that even many Chinese people may not know. Before I turned 18, my family moved often because of my parents' work, and I lived and studied in places like Sichuan, Chongqing, Wuhan, and Sanya.

Because of that, I never really had one single hometown in the traditional sense. I did not grow up with the same group of childhood friends from kindergarten to high school. Instead, my memories of China were scattered across different cities, train rides, school routes, food stalls, old neighborhoods, and family trips.

When I was young, I also traveled with my parents to many parts of China — Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Nanjing, Kunming, Changsha, Guiyang, Haikou, and more. But at that age, those places existed mostly as fragments: a street corner, a hotel room, a meal, an old photo, or a story my parents later told me.

My father used to say that he was not highly educated and had not “read ten thousand books,” but he had “traveled ten thousand miles.” I did not fully understand that sentence as a child, but it stayed with me. Looking back, I think that idea quietly planted something in me — a desire to move, observe, and understand the world through travel.

After high school, I moved to the United States with my mother.

At that time, I did not know much about America beyond basketball and the NBA. The biggest shock was language. I lost the familiar environment I had known for most of my life, and for a while I became quiet and withdrawn.

But I slowly found my way through exploring.

One of my happiest memories from that time was riding my bicycle around unfamiliar neighborhoods, beaches, parks, and quiet streets. I watched people play volleyball by the beach, shoot basketball in city parks, throw frisbees on the grass, and take care of the flowers in front of their homes. People smiled and said hello. Little by little, the unfamiliar became familiar.

Years later, before transferring from community college to university, I had a long break of almost four months. That was when the idea of a solo road trip across America came to me.

I had learned that road trips were a big part of American travel culture. At the time, this kind of travel was not as common in China as it was in the United States. I invited two Chinese college friends to join me, but they were not comfortable with the idea. So I decided to go alone.

With only about a week of preparation and a rough direction in mind, I drove into the American Midwest and across the national parks.

Over two months, I drove more than 10,000 miles and visited over 20 national parks.

That trip changed the way I saw travel.

It was exciting, lonely, exhausting, beautiful, free, and unforgettable all at once. It taught me that travel is not only about checking off famous places. It is also about uncertainty, silence, movement, and the small moments that stay with you long after the trip is over.

During my years in the United States, I also noticed how little many people around me actually knew about China.

For many Americans I met, China was something they understood mostly through outdated images, headlines, or stereotypes. I remember once seeing an old documentary about China from the 1970s or 1980s playing in a restaurant, and people around me seemed to think that was still what China looked like. But by then, China had already changed dramatically.

That gap between perception and reality stayed with me.

Starting a few years after I moved to the U.S., I began returning to China regularly. At first, I mostly went back to Sichuan and Wuhan. Later, I started traveling to more places in China again. As I revisited cities and regions from my childhood, many old memory fragments suddenly came back.

In recent years, I have traveled more frequently between the United States and China. I began seeing China not only as someone from there, but also almost like a foreign traveler trying to understand it again.

Places like Sichuan, Chongqing, Wuhan, Yunnan, Dali, Tengchong, Baoshan, and Luzhou became more than destinations to me. They became anchors.

I walked old school routes, revisited food stalls and restaurants from memory, and returned to streets that once felt completely ordinary. Some things had changed. Some things had not. Time had pushed everything forward, but certain places still felt like they had been quietly waiting for me to come back.

That feeling is hard to explain, but it shaped the way I travel.

I care about food, history, culture, landscapes, and the everyday details of a place. I am interested not only in the famous attractions, but also in the neighborhoods, local habits, small restaurants, transportation systems, and ordinary streets that reveal how people actually live.

I am also lucky to share this love of travel with my wife.

We met online, and she is from Xuzhou, Jiangsu. Like me, she loves exploring places that are quieter, less developed, and closer to nature. She is especially drawn to the mountains of Guizhou, Yunnan, and western Sichuan — places with fresh air, slower rhythms, and landscapes that feel untouched.

That part of her also connects deeply with my own love for national parks, camping, hiking, and being outdoors. Over time, I have come to believe that travel is not only about seeing new places. Sometimes, being in nature is a form of emotional healing. It gives you space to slow down, breathe, and feel grounded again.

At the same time, I understand why traveling in China can feel overwhelming for international visitors.

A few years ago, even for me, traveling in China without a Chinese ID, Chinese phone number, or local payment setup could be inconvenient. Mobile payments, ride-hailing, delivery apps, train booking systems, and other digital tools developed very quickly in China. They made daily life much easier for locals, but they also created a new learning curve for foreign visitors.

For travelers from the United States or Europe, where credit cards and cash are still common in everyday life, arriving in a country where so much happens through QR codes and apps can feel confusing at first.

That is one of the reasons I started this project.

I want to help independent travelers prepare for China in a practical way — how to pay, which apps to use, how to move between cities, what to expect, and how to avoid unnecessary stress.

But beyond the practical side, I also want to help people see a broader version of China.

China is not only Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Guilin, or Zhangjiajie. Those places are worth visiting, but they are only the beginning. There are countless other cities, food cultures, landscapes, histories, and local experiences that most international travelers never hear about.

I do not see myself as a traditional travel agency.

I am a traveler, a cultural bridge, and someone who understands both sides of the experience.

My goal is simple: to help people travel through China with more confidence, more curiosity, and a more honest understanding of the country.

If this website can help even one traveler feel less confused, discover a place they would not have found otherwise, or leave China with a more real and memorable experience, then it is worth building.