Jon Zhou

We hired Jon to plan and lead two of us for eight days in Yunnan. He did an outstanding job, and we recommend him very highly. We are active, experienced travelers in our seventies, who have traveled in China for half a century. We like Chinese culture, food, history, hiking, and economics. We do not like long drives. We made our preferences clear to Jon and his wife Cherry, who also helps with the business. They put together, and Jon led, an excellent tour that began in Dali and progressed to Shangri-La, Lijiang, and Kunming. The drivers and vehicles were also first-rate. We did a mix of typical and very unusual activities. He set up a memorable hike on Cangshan Mountain, a visit to Lake Erhai, Tiger Leaping Gorge, several ancient towns, and the famous Songzanlin lamastery because nobody skips these sites when visiting Yunnan. But he also arranged a stop at Zhouzheng near Xizhou for Naxi indigo, a memorable stay with a family in Shaxi, and time with an extraordinary Tibetan artist to do some basic but very interesting painting. He took us to the rarely visited 100 chicken temple outside Shangri-La and to an extraordinary tea-tasting near Black Dragon Pond in Lijiang. Also, he took us to an amazing silk embroidery school and a Naxi homestay. There is no way we would have found these places without Jon's help -- and we saw no other visitors, foreign or Chinese, at most of them. The point is not that Jon has a solid bag of tricks, although he does. It is that he tailors a trip to your specific interests in a way that few guides do. We experienced other guides during our time in Yunnan -- none compared with Jon. His English is very strong. We would and hopefully will work with him again in the near future.