North-west Yunnan has enchanted travellers and explorers for centuries –from Marco Polo in the thirteenth century to Joseph Rock and fellow botanist Frank Kingdon Ward in the early years of the twentieth.

Today, this region’s incredible diversity of plant and animal life, and the large number of ethnic minorities that make this area their home, make this part of Yunnan Province a wonderful and colorful region of China to explore.

The "Yunnan through a Lens: Tea Horse Trails" journey will be a driving holiday with a difference, as you will be joined by Hong Kong-based professional photographer, Ron Yue. Ron will be on-hand to coach you through a series of formal lectures and workshops as you travel along a route specifically designed with budding travel photographers in mind.

Travel to tiny rural backwaters to shoot photographs of local people in traditional dress, drive through beautiful mountainous regions and discover how to make your landscape photographs come to life, and wander cobbled streets in well-preserved old towns and feel as though you and your camera are traveling back in time.

For those with more time, it is also possible to extend your journey with Ron, by continuing north from Lijiang to Shangri-La, at the eastern edge of the Himalayas, an ethnically Tibetan region. Your photographic journey will be enjoyed in style and comfort. All along this exciting route you will enjoy the best accommodation available – staying in some of Asia’s loveliest hotels – and travel through an area steeped in the cultures of many different ethnic minorities and through some of the region’s most stunningly beautiful countryside.