This past week, China Daily reported that Beijing’s rescue team, “Luye,” responded to four emergency calls during the week-long October Holiday alone – all from travelers who needed assistance in remote areas outside of the city proper.

As, according to the article, this and similar teams received only 9 similar calls for all of 2009, what is causing this rising trend in travel emergencies?

Luye head Lu Zhonghong attributed the increase to lesser-known spots preferred by travelers and lack of know-how, saying, ”Most people who get into trouble those days are travelers without professional knowledge and the equipment they need to hike.” Though “people increasingly prefer to travel in undeveloped areas and in the mountains around the city,”  he said “it can be very dangerous to climb such peaks, especially when people are not familiar with the terrain.”

We’re strong proponents of off-the-beaten-path travel in China – but, safety is also our first priority. Here are our tips for experiencing China’s unique sites without ending up lost, injured, or worse:

1) Choose your destination wisely: Adventure is one thing; danger is another. Research destinations carefully, because someone’s definition of “difficult” might be your idea of certainly unsafe. Consult travel operators, travel review websites, and other travelers.

2) Explore with an expert: Just because you’re a good adventurer doesn’t necessarily mean you can navigate unknown terrain without a local guide. Do your research and make sure that you are traveling with a well-trained, experienced guide who can knows the area, terrain, and routes like the back of his or her hand. (We know plenty – just ask.)

3) Off-road during the off-peak: Holiday periods in China are notorious for logistical issues that may cause delays and cancellations. If you are traveling remotely during a Golden Week or other popular travel period, emergency services may not be able to act as swiftly on your behalf. Choose a time to adventure when rescue teams, hospitals, and police will be less busy.

4) Have connections handy: If you’ve traveled China extensively or live in the country, you might not want a guide to take you beyond the tourist hubs. In that case, make sure that you have plenty of local contacts whom you can call or find in the event of an emergency. Information for friends’ families, local hotel / lodge owners, and regional emergency hotlines should be on hand at all times.

5) And, of course, do not travel alone.

When I first came to the Adventure Travel World Summit in Quebec last year, I didn’t know anyone. I was one of two people from China, and I didn’t know the other. So I had no idea what to expect. I was feeling a bit like an outsider.

Then I went on the beautiful adventure day hike, donning my comfy Eddie Bauer down jacket. On the hike, I met two of my best friends since, Judith Fein and Andy Levine (@Duvine). We shared the joys and pains of running your own business, and shared tips on how to crack the Travel + Leisure A List. I was feeling like, “hey, I like this. This is a bunch of hiker/business people that I could hang out with.” Sort of like my own tribe.

Over the next few days, I met more people and shed tears over other people’s travel stories. Most importantly, I fell in love with adventure travel business again.

I don’t know about you, but for me, when back at home base, I often get bogged down by the mundane details of a cancelled flight, a 3am client phone call or the balancing act of figuring out staff year end bonuses. The business often becomes just another business, with the glamour and fun of adventure already having worn off.  It’s at times like these that I asked myself why I was in this business. It’s a lot of work and it doesn’t pay much. I could have been a venture capitalist in a different life.

Then I come to an event like this one, and realize that I just love connecting with people. I love the great outdoors and enjoy sharing with others what I love. How lucky am I to be able to make a profession out of a passion? And, even better, there are a lot of us like minded people here. We are the lucky bunch, and we just love what we do!

So, when Shannon invited me to join the ATTA advisory board, I was delighted. Now I have more excuses to go on adventures and connect with like-minded people. Just like last night, I met Frank Murphy from Tahiti. How often do you get to meet someone from Tahiti? Not to mention someone with an Irish last name (@tahitimurphy)?

The theme of this year’s Summit is Share & Inspire. I want to remind us all that sharing and inspiring is a two-way street. Everyone has a story to tell, and a simple story may inspire another person in a way you didn’t expect. So, I want to encourage all of you to extend your hand and meet the one next to you. Share your story and enjoy the conference. And who knows, next year, you may be on stage doing what Praveen and I are doing right now.

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Learn more about the 2010 Adventure Travel World Summit, held in Scotland, and read more of Mei’s blog entries on the WildChina blog.

We at WildChina are thrilled to announce that founder Mei Zhang has been named by Condé Nast Traveler‘s Wendy Perrin as a Top Travel Specialist for 2010.

For the past 11 years, Perrin has hand-selected a group of elite travel specialists around the globe for her famous list. According to the Perrin’s introduction to the awards, specialists are chosen for offering “the best blend of expertise, access, and good value” all over the world.

Perrin praises Mei’s expertise in creating unique niche journeys in China, saying,

Zhang wants to show you the “authentic China,” beyond anything you’ll find in guidebooks, and—as a Yunnan Province native, Harvard MBA, and former consultant for the Nature Conservancy—she has a vast network of in-country experts in nearly every field that can make this happen… and get you farther off the beaten path than anyone else.

Mei is proud to be a featured travel specialist for the elite international list this year. She says of the distinction,

It’s such a tremendous honor. It was 10 years ago, almost exactly to the day, that I started WildChina. I still go back to Yunnan constantly, searching for those villages, the hidden Daoist temple, the corner noodle shop that smells like my childhood. One would have thought these would be hard to find, given the fast speed of change in China. But, truth be told, it’s not difficult. The idyllic culture of rural China is still there: the villagers still invite me to their homes for tea, the Nature Reserve chief still rolls up his pant legs to accompany me on hikes through the old forest.  It’s those moments that I cherish and long to share with my guests, and I can, thanks to tremendous support from the WildChina team in Beijing.

Mei is incredibly happy to share such passion with this year’s other distinguished leaders in tourism.

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Learn more about Mei’s fellow Travel Specialists across the globe and see why they are experts in their region of travel.

It is one thing to visit a remote Chinese village – but have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and participate in one?

I often think back to my study abroad experiences in China. While studying at Hangzhou’s Zhejiang University of Technology (through the C.V. Starr – Middlebury program), I loved taking trips with my Chinese roommate, both with school and on our own, meeting local people in various provinces and sampling all things cultural that my semester in China could offer me. (After such a great experience, it’s no surprise that I moved back.)

So, when my colleague Summer, who works in WildChina’s Educational Travel department, recently shared with me a few stories of student homestays in Miao minority villages in Guizhou province, my interest was immediately piqued. The trips’ unique combination of cultural interaction, adventure and service made me wish I were still that student on her abroad program trips.

The coolest part about these trips is that they were both centered rural village homestays – an integral part, in my opinion, of academic travel in China for both high school and college students alike. Doing so offers students a chance to personally encounter and understand daily life for rural minority peoples in China.

The beginning of the students’ homestay was one I didn’t expect: to arrive at these communities, Summer told me, students hiked 1-2 hours from Kaili, a larger town in Guizhou.  With a larger group of students, it’s not always easy to motivate everyone to trek on foot to a new destination. But, the old adage “when in Rome” applies here – it’s all part of the rural experience. I think it is a special, and important, part of the program.

Other highlights I found from my conversation with Summer were Miao fish hotpot, service activities at local schools, and learning to play the lusheng.

But, what really impressed me was the inclusion of household chores in these homestays. This may seem incredibly mundane, but to explain myself, a quick anecdote about my horse-crazed sister. Growing up, she rode at a barn that required riders to do everything from tacking up, feeding the horses, and cleaning stalls to tidying up the barn, fundraising at events, and running a rider-created committee to work on barn improvement. She has always had a closer relationship to and greater understanding of horses and riding than anyone I have ever known.

It’s the same with chores in these Miao villages: there is so much value to being a part of a daily system that sustains a traditional Chinese community. It makes a student’s experience in the community that much more integrated and personal. In the spirit of my own positive personal experience with Chinese community members during study abroad, I think Summer was right to make this a core part of the academic homestay experience.

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Make your school trip experience in China memorable, too – take a look at our customizable educational travel programs.