Extend your experience with these add-on itineraries-or modify them to tailor make your own itinerary.
Even today, local people have a healthy respect for Western China's harsh and inhospitable Taklamakan Desert. Back in the first centuries before and after the birth of Christ, it took an intrepid and determined merchant indeed to make the trip from Europe…through the Middle East…and on from desert oasis to oasis into "Seres": the Land of Silk we now know as China.
For hundreds of years, traders' caravans crossed Central Asia toward China, carrying gold, ivory, glass and precious stones to barter for jade, ceramics, furs and the gleaming silk textiles so coveted that their purchase almost bankrupted Rome's imperial treasury. The Silk Road became a conduit for less tangible exports too: Christianity, Buddhism and Islam travelled this path, as did new languages and styles in art.
The lure of the Silk Road continues to draw the adventurous to China's far-flung west, and this Marco Polo Invitational travels the legendary Northern Route favored by most traders. Beginning in Shanghai and crossing a vast inland sea of desert and mountains to end in distant Kashgar, it remains one of Asia's most remarkable journeys: a magical adventure in the footsteps of the traders, pilgrims and adventurers of the past.
Japanese culture presents many facets. The delicate, reverent image of women poised in silk kimonos. Temples peeking serenely through a morning mist. The scorched shell of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The gleaming, high-tech towers of 21st-century Tokyo that mark the nation as a leader in global business. Each reflects an aspect of Japan; together, they make for a fascinating culture to explore.
