China Travel Abroad Program
Students hold up homemade kites in the wind at sunset.

China: The Yangtze River (4-week Sample Itinerary)

The following is a sample itinerary based on past courses; actual itineraries may vary.
  • WEEK 1
    We begin our journey with a few days of Orientation and getting to know one another in the city of Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, where the Yangtze River originates. In this historically Tibetan area, we begin to explore all of the issues we'll dig into on this program: river ecology and water resources, environmental issues in China, ethnic diversity, and economic development. After covering basics of health and safety and beginning to define ourselves as a group, we begin home-stays with Tibetan host families in a village near the town of Tongren, helping with chores like taking care of yaks and pigs, and exploring the nearby mountains and temples on foot. After saying goodbye to our families and stuffing ourselves with a few more bites of whole made toasted barley meal and yak butter tea, we depart for southern Qinghai. In southern Qinghai, we explore the Three Rivers Nature Reserve - the area where the Yangtze River, the Mekong River and the Salween River all originate.
  • WEEK 2
    From Qinghai, we travel south, by train, to the capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu. Chengdu lies on a tributary to the Yangtze and in the middle of the Yangtze River Basin, China's most important agricultural region. We spend a couple of days in family homes in a small village outside Chengdu where an organization that our Course Director Ming has worked with is sponsoring ecological farming in an effort to reduce river pollution. Here we have a chance to sample one of the key ingredients in Sichuan Cuisine, a paste of fermented broad beans and chilis that this county is famous for. As we head onward, we stop in People's Park, in the heart of Chengdu . What's so special about People's Park, you wonder? That's what we're going to discover. From Chengdu, we jump on a high-speed train east across the Yangtze River Basin to the booming "Mountain City" of Chongqing. Here we explore the incredibly rapid pace of development and urbanization in the Yangtze River's busiest inland port. We meet migrants from the countryside who've come to the city for work, learn about Chongqing's history as a wartime capital and the site of a long string of key events in China's politics. To decompress from the hectic pace, fiery food, and dense neighborhoods of the city, we head into the mountains south of the river to explore historic Buddhist and Taoist monasteries that overlook the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers.
  • WEEK 3
    In Chongqing we board a boat and, for the first time, employ the powerful current of the Yangtze as our means of transportation! We head east through the Three Gorges, inspiration for countless Chinese poets and painters and site of many famous battles in ancient China, when the Three Kingdoms vied for control. We pass through the world's largest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam, learning about the changes in the area resulting from the dam's construction, which required the relocation of about 1.4 million people. In the city of Wuhan, where Mao Zedong famously swam across the Yangtze, we disembark and continue our journey by land to the city of Nanjing. Nanjing is also rich in history, both as one of China's ancient capitals (and one of the few cities in China with its city walls still intact) and modern. as the site of some of the worst atrocities of World War Two during the Japanese invasion. From Nanjing we continue east into one of China's most prosperous areas. The region known as "Jiangnan" was rich in resources and culture historically and is among the most economically developed parts of China today. Here we explore neighborhoods of traditional houses where canals still serve as streets and some of the most active centers of trade and production in the world today.
  • WEEK 4
    When we begin to smell the salt of the East China Sea, we know our travels along Asia's longest river are reaching their natural conclusion. We travel to where the river meets the sea and explore the city that stretches across the entire region - Shanghai, the world's busiest port. We learn about the history of China's most "international" city and how life and business here are connected to the river. We walk through town to witness some of Shanghai's diverse array of architecture, from European-style buildings a century old to brand new sky scrapers with wildly experimental designs. Finally, we retreat to a quieter suburb where we spend our last few days together in "transference" reflecting on the Yangtze, everything we've experienced along the way, and preparing for our return home.