Giant panda at a Chengdu panda base
Chengdu, Sichuan — opening soon

A slower way to see the city than the guidebook allows.

We're building day trips and private drivers for travelers who'd rather sit with one good teahouse for an hour than tick off ten stops in a hurry.

Get notified when we launch

The pandas

Ten minutes from downtown, the world's largest panda research base — still worth the early alarm.

The bamboo

Groves that shade the teahouses of Wangjiang Park and line the path out to Qingcheng Mountain.

The Thatched Cottage

Du Fu wrote some of his best-known poems from a reed hut here in the 8th century — now a quiet garden museum.

Why we're building this

Built by two people who actually live here

Chengdu rewards slowness — a teahouse table held for an entire afternoon, a mountain trail that empties out once the cable car crowd goes home, a noodle stall three streets over from the famous one, with no line. Most tours move too fast to notice any of that.

Chengdu Unlocked is a small, local operation. We're not a travel agency with a script; we're planning trips the way we'd plan one for a friend flying in — fewer stops, chosen on purpose, with room to linger.

What's coming

Two ways to get around, both launching soon

Day tours

Half- and full-day routes built around a handful of good stops instead of a dozen rushed ones — misty mornings on Qingcheng Mountain, a Sichuan opera face-changing show, or a breakfast crawl through a wet market that hasn't made it onto any list yet.

In development

Private car & driver

A driver who knows the roads out of town and isn't in a hurry — for the travel days when public transit or a ride-hailing app in a language you don't read feels like more trouble than it's worth.

In development

"We'd rather show you the one teahouse we'd take a friend to than the ten every tour bus stops at."

— Chengdu Unlocked

Be the first to know

Tours and private car bookings aren't live yet. Reach out and we'll let you know the moment they are — and answer any questions about visiting Chengdu in the meantime.

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