Best decision!
I was trying to plan everything by myself and although I identified the "main" places to visit in each city (Beijing and Xian), I wasn't sure on how to plan for logistics such as transportation. As we had only around 6 days to visit two very important cities, we had almost no room for mistakes on transportation/planning. I searched for tours online and found China Culture Tour to be the best rated on TripAdvisor in terms of quality and service. I sent an email to check it out and received a wonderful response from Lydia Huang. She was very flexible and fast in answering our emails despite the time difference. The schedule she designed for us also hit all the main attractions I had researched before and with someone explaining the history behind every place, we understood this country and its people better. Both our guides, Amy in Xian and Sunny in Beijing, were amazing and spoke English perfectly. Amy was incredibly kind and friendly. We felt so welcomed and comfortable with her. As for Sunny, she was just awesome in every level as well. She gladly accompanied us to a place that was not on our schedule but that we really wanted to visit. Also, her knowledge and passion for the history of her country were very inspiring. We learned a lot from her! She even shared one of her copies of The Last Emperor with us. Amy and Sunny's company and guidance were the main reasons why this journey was a complete success and why we would recommend China Culture Tours to everybody! Overall, my husband and I had an awesome experience. It really helps a lot to have a driver and a car around to go to the next place as soon as you are done with another. I think this was the key as to why we were able to go to almost all the main tourist locations in the cities we visited. Also, our tour guides chose amazing places for lunch! Other friends were travelling on their own and they didn't had the same experience we had. They weren't able to hit all the main attractions, did not know the history behind the places, got food poisoning and had no special experiences such as the calligraphy or the dumpling class. If you are going to China just invest in doing it the right way, with China Culture Tours!