Shanghai: Tea Hills, Poetry Trail & Lonely Tree Day Trip

Escape Shanghai for a serene, photogenic day in the tea-covered hills of Shengzhou on this fully private tour, designed for slow travel and authentic flavors rather than strenuous hiking. Your English-speaking guide and private driver collect you from your hotel and drive out to a corner of Zhejiang few foreign visitors ever see.

First stop is the celebrated 'Lonely Tree', a single tree standing against the sky amid endless rows of tea, where almost any photo looks like a film still. You'll pause here to enjoy the view and a relaxed lunch surrounded by greenery. From there you'll explore a charming old village, with its ancestral hall and antique opera stage, before following the famous Tang Poetry Trail, a thousand-year-old stone path so beautiful that poets like Li Bai and Du Fu once lingered here and immortalized it in verse.

Walking at an easy pace, you'll reach gentle high ground with sweeping views of the winding Shan River, rolling bamboo seas and curls of woodsmoke rising from farmhouses below. Your guide brings the landscape and its poetry to life, and there's no rush, the whole day is about quiet beauty and good company. For anyone who prefers not to climb, an easy alternative keeps the day completely relaxed.

The tour ends in a village ringed by tea fields, where you'll sample Shengzhou's beloved snacks, tofu buns, stir-fried rice cakes and more, and even take a portion of rice cakes home. Being private, the day bends around your interests before your car returns you to Shanghai.

A gentle private day from Shanghai into Shengzhou's tea country. Photograph the famous 'Lonely Tree', walk a thousand-year Tang Poetry trail and taste local snacks with your own guide and car.