Welcome to Shepherd Planet - your specialist travel company.
My name is Aku, guide and co-founder of Shepherd Planet. Growing up as a member of the Black Yi minority, I worked as a shepherd in Yunnan's mountainious areas. Day after day, I explored undiscovered worlds and dreamed of a future where I could lead others into these wild and untamed realms.
Yi woman (photo by Thomas Koller)
Since Shepherd Planet was founded in 2004 we've taken people from Canada, USA, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany to some of the most exotic and remote areas in the provinces Yunnan and Sichuan of China.
If you are looking for a conventional industrialized China travel experience where you travel in a (often big) group with an English/ French/German etc. speaking Han chinese guide running in front with a flag, then you should look for another travel company. But for traveling with the minority nationality peoples of China to remote areas of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, then you have found your right travel companion.
We are in constant dialogue with many interesting people from various ethnic groups and we are almost always in the process of developing new treks, tours and hikes in various parts of the southern Himalayan mountain range.
Our website now contains even more choices of genuine Shepherd Treks and Tours to previous unvisited villages and mountain slopes and we have an updated photo gallery and soon a video gallery too.
On one of the new treks we will visit the Lisu minority and stay overnight in our custom built Shepherd sheds and in a Lisu family's home. The Lisu Trek.
Our company was established out of love for the ethnic peoples and nature of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet.
We look forward to showing you around in this other world.
Aku
You can read more about us here and our Vision & Policy here.