China

China is not a destination, it is twenty of them wearing one name. The Great Wall snaking over ridgelines at dawn, before the buses arrive, with mist in the valleys and the watchtowers to yourself. The Terracotta Army standing in silent thousands. Shanghai's skyline doing its nightly electric performance while old men fly kites on the Bund. Then the quieter chapters we love planning: the karst peaks and bamboo rafts of Guilin, giant pandas in Chengdu, mountain monasteries where the loudspeaker is a bell. Trains here are a pleasure in themselves, whisking you between worlds at three hundred kilometres an hour. Food alone justifies the flight, changing completely every few hundred kilometres. Give China two weeks and it will give you a lifetime of stories.