Booking terms

Who you are contracting with

Not Your Parents' Tour ("NYPT") is a trading name of Alpaca Kit Technologies, a company incorporated in Hong Kong with its registered office at Unit 1603, 16/F, The L. Plaza, 367–375 Queen's Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong.

In these terms, "we" and "us" mean that company, and "you" means the person making the booking and every traveler it covers. If you book for other people you confirm that you have their authority to accept these terms — including the assumption of risk, the release and the insurance requirement below — on their behalf, that you will pass on everything we send you, and that you are responsible for their payments and their conduct.

The fastest way to reach a human is hello@notyourparentstour.com. We read every message.

Our role: we sell the trip, a licensed operator runs it

We design, market and sell the trips on this site, and we take your booking and your payment as booking agent for a licensed Chinese operating partner that runs each trip. We do not publish which partner operates a departure, and the operating partner for a departure may change before it runs — for example if a partner can no longer deliver the itinerary as sold, or we appoint another licensed partner. A change of operating partner is not a cancellation of your trip, does not change what you have booked or paid, and does not entitle you to a refund.

The operating partner — together with the hotels, transport providers, guides, restaurants, attractions and other suppliers it engages — provides the travel services in your trip and is responsible for them. We do not own, operate, manage, control or supervise any hotel, vehicle, train, airline, guide, activity or other service, and we are not a party to the operating partner's arrangements with its suppliers.

Money you pay through this site is collected by us on the operating partner's behalf and passed on to it under our agreement with it, less our fee. Your booking confirmation is issued by us as the operating partner's agent. Nothing in the way we present the trip — our brand, our itinerary writing, our group chat, or our being your point of contact — makes us the operator of the trip or responsible for how the services are performed.

We remain your point of contact before, during and after the trip, and we will always help you get a problem in front of the operating partner. That is customer service, not an assumption of responsibility for the services themselves.

Accepting these terms

You accept these terms by ticking two boxes at checkout before you pay: one accepting the payment and cancellation policy, and a separate one acknowledging our role as booking agent, the assumption of risk, release and indemnity, the travel insurance requirement, and your authority for any other travelers on the booking. We show you the full policy on that same screen, and we record the moment you accepted along with the version of the terms you were shown.

We may update these terms as the trips evolve. The version that applies to your booking is the one you accepted when you paid, and we keep a copy — a later change here does not quietly rewrite the deal you agreed to.

The cancellation and refunds page, the trip page for the departure you book, and the operating partner's own conditions for the services all form part of these terms.

How booking works

A booking starts when you pay a deposit, which holds your seat on a specific departure. Your seat is held for 30 minutes while you complete payment; if payment does not complete in that window the seat goes back into the pool.

Your booking is confirmed when we have received your deposit and sent you a confirmation email with your booking reference. Until that email lands, nothing is confirmed.

The balance is due on the date shown on your booking and in your confirmation email. We email you well ahead of it with a link to pay. If you book on or after the balance due date, checkout collects the full trip price in one payment instead of a deposit. If the balance is not paid by the due date, the operating partner may release your seat, and the deposit is not refunded.

Departures run with a minimum crew of 9 and never exceed 20 people. If a departure does not reach its minimum, it may be cancelled and we will tell you in writing — see "If the departure is cancelled" below.

Prices and what is included

Prices are per person based on double occupancy, quoted and charged in US dollars (USD), before any applicable taxes. If your card is issued in another currency — Canadian or Australian dollars, pounds sterling or anything else — your card issuer converts the charge at its own rate and may add a foreign-transaction fee; any local-currency figure shown on the site is an estimate for orientation only. The price is fixed at the moment you pay your deposit and we will not increase it afterwards.

What is and is not included is listed on each trip page. Airfare to and from China, visas, travel insurance, any meal not listed on the trip page, optional activities, tips and personal spending are not included. Please do not book flights until we have confirmed in writing that your departure is running — we do not reimburse a flight in any circumstance.

Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.

We do not currently sell any departure before its full price is final. If we ever did, the trip page and the checkout would say so, and the deposit for that departure would be refundable if you rejected the final price in writing within seven days of receiving it. That is the only exception to the no-refund rule below.

If you cancel: no refunds

Every payment you make through this site — the deposit, the balance and any payment made in full — is non-refundable from the moment it is paid. This applies whatever the reason you cancel or cannot travel, including a change of plans, illness or injury, a family emergency, a visa or entry refusal, a missed or cancelled flight, a passport problem, a government travel advisory, or any event outside your control.

It also applies if you do not show up, if you leave the trip early or are removed from it, and to any part of the itinerary you do not use, for whatever reason. We pay the operating partner as your booking progresses, and the money is committed to hotels, rail, flights and the ground crew long before departure.

To cancel, email us from the address you booked with. Your cancellation takes effect on the date we receive it, we confirm it in writing the same or next business day, and your seat is released. Travel insurance with cancellation cover is what protects the money you have paid — we will supply whatever paperwork your insurer needs.

If you want to move to another departure or change a traveler's name, we will always ask the operating partner. It decides, subject to seats, and any cost it charges is passed on to you. A transfer is not a refund and does not create a right to one.

If the departure is cancelled

If we or the operating partner cancel your departure for any reason — including not reaching the minimum crew size — you get a full refund of every payment you made through this site, deposit included. Refunds go back to the card you paid with and we start them within five business days of the decision.

That refund is the limit of what we owe you in this situation. We cannot reimburse flights, visa fees, insurance or other costs you arranged separately, which is exactly why we ask you to wait for written confirmation before booking any of it.

A change to the itinerary — a hotel swapped for one of the same class, a day's running order rearranged, a route adjusted around weather, closures or an official instruction — is not a cancellation and does not trigger a refund. See "Changes to the trip".

Changes to the trip

The operating partner may change the itinerary before or during the trip where it judges it necessary for safety, weather, road or rail conditions, site closures, official instructions, supplier availability or other operational reasons — a hotel swapped for one of the same class, a day's running order rearranged, an activity replaced or dropped. We tell you as soon as we know, and where a like-for-like substitute exists it is provided.

Changes of this kind are not cancellations and do not entitle you to a refund or compensation from us. Optional activities and free time are your own choice and your own responsibility.

Passports, visas, health and fitness

You are responsible for holding a passport valid for your travel dates and for meeting the entry requirements for China. We publish visa guidance in good faith and keep it current, but entry policy changes and only the Chinese National Immigration Administration or your nearest consulate can tell you what applies to your passport. A refused visa, a refused entry or a change in entry policy is not grounds for a refund.

Our trips are for travelers aged 22 to 35. By booking you confirm that you, and every traveler you book for, will be at least 22 and no older than 35 on the departure date. We collect each traveler's date of birth after booking, and a traveler outside that range may be refused participation with no refund — so check before you pay a deposit.

You confirm that you are, and every traveler you book for is, in good health and physically able to complete the itinerary as described — including long days on foot and, on the flagship, a full mountain hiking day with hours of stairs and ridgelines. Tell us in writing about any medical condition, medication, allergy, dietary requirement, pregnancy, disability or accessibility need that could affect your trip or the group — by email before you book if it could affect whether you can take part, and in any case in your traveler details after booking — so the operating partner can say honestly whether it can accommodate it. Health information reaches the operating partner only with your consent and only for that purpose. It may ask for a doctor's confirmation that you are fit to travel.

If a condition is not disclosed and it affects your trip, or the operating partner reasonably decides you cannot safely take part, you may be refused participation or asked to leave the trip. No refund is payable and any onward costs are yours.

You are responsible for your own belongings, for following the safety instructions of guides and staff, for the laws and customs of the places you visit, and for the decisions you make in free time — including where you go, what you eat and drink, and how much.

Travel insurance is required

Adequate travel insurance is a condition of travelling with us, for every traveler on the booking. It is not included in the trip price and we do not sell, arrange or advise on it.

At a minimum your policy must cover emergency medical treatment, emergency evacuation and repatriation — we recommend cover of at least US$200,000 for those — and cancellation and curtailment for the full amount of your non-refundable payments. It should also cover personal accident and death, baggage and personal effects, and every activity in the itinerary, including hiking. Buy it when you pay your deposit: cancellation cover only protects you from the day the policy starts.

We ask for your policy number and your insurer's 24-hour emergency line in your traveler details before departure. If you cannot show adequate insurance, you may be refused participation on departure day or removed from the trip, with no refund.

Medical treatment in China is paid for up front, and an emergency evacuation can cost tens of thousands of US dollars or more. Neither we nor the operating partner will pay medical, evacuation, repatriation or other costs on your behalf, and if either of us does so in an emergency you will reimburse the amount in full.

Assumption of risk

Travel, and travel in China in particular, involves risks that neither we nor the operating partner can remove. They include, without limitation: illness, injury or death; long days on foot and a genuine mountain hike on steep stairs, exposed ridgelines and uneven paths; high-speed rail, domestic flights, road travel and heavy traffic; variable and sometimes poor air quality; food and water; limited English-language medical care and hospitals that require payment up front; site closures and itinerary changes; theft and crime; weather and natural events; epidemics; political events, government action, and restrictions on communication and the internet; and decisions by immigration authorities.

You acknowledge that you have read the itinerary and the fitness notes for your trip, that you have considered the current travel advice published by your own government for China, and that you are choosing to travel with full knowledge of these risks.

You voluntarily assume all of these risks, known and unknown, for yourself and for every traveler you book for — including the risk of negligence on the part of the operating partner, its suppliers and other travelers — and you accept full responsibility for any loss, injury, damage or expense that results.

Optional activities — the plank walk on Mount Hua, a bike ride on a city wall, shows, nights out, anything you arrange in free time — are your own choice, are not part of the trip we sell, and are entirely at your own risk.

Release and indemnity

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release and discharge Alpaca Kit Technologies, its directors, officers, employees, contractors and agents (together "the released parties") from all claims, demands, causes of action and liability of any kind — including for negligence — arising out of or connected with your booking or your trip, including the acts or omissions of the operating partner and its suppliers, the risks described above, and any injury, illness, death, loss, damage, delay, inconvenience or expense that results.

You agree to indemnify the released parties against any loss, cost, damage or claim (including reasonable legal costs) that arises from your breach of these terms, your conduct, your failure to hold the required insurance, or any claim brought by or on behalf of a traveler you booked for.

Nothing in this section or these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded; and nothing removes rights that the consumer law of the country where you live gives you and does not allow to be excluded. Where a law limits how far a release can go, this release applies to the maximum extent that law allows.

Travelling with a group

These are small groups, which is the entire point and also the reason conduct matters more than it would on a coach tour. We ask you to respect your fellow travelers, the guides and crew, the operating partner and its suppliers, and the places you visit, and to follow reasonable safety instructions.

If, in the reasonable opinion of a guide, the operating partner or us, someone's behaviour, health or fitness puts them or others at risk, breaks the law, or makes the trip untenable for the group, that person may be refused participation or removed from the trip. In that situation there is no refund, any onward costs — including getting home — are theirs, and neither we nor the operating partner has any further responsibility to them.

Limits on our liability

Because we sell the trip as booking agent and do not operate it, we are not liable for the acts, omissions, negligence, breaches or misconduct of the operating partner or of any hotel, carrier, guide, restaurant, attraction or other supplier, nor for any injury, illness, death, loss, damage, delay, inconvenience or expense caused by them or by the travel services they provide. A claim about those services is a claim against the provider of the service.

We are not liable for events outside our reasonable control or the operating partner's — natural disasters, extreme weather, epidemics, war, terrorism or civil unrest, strikes, border, airspace or transport closures, government action, site closures, or failures of suppliers. Where one of these affects your trip, the itinerary may be changed, and "If the departure is cancelled" applies only if the departure is actually cancelled.

We are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, loss of enjoyment or lost earnings, or for flights, visas, insurance or anything else you purchase separately, whatever the cause.

Our own responsibility is limited to taking reasonable care in taking your booking, passing your payment and your information to the operating partner, and keeping you informed. If we are found liable to you for anything despite the sections above, our total liability for all claims connected with a booking is limited to the amount you paid us for that booking.

These limits apply to the fullest extent permitted by law. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing removes rights that the consumer law of the country where you live gives you and does not allow to be excluded.

The operating partner's conditions

The travel services in your trip are supplied by the operating partner and its suppliers under their own terms and conditions, which apply to those services in addition to these terms and are available from us on request. Services performed in mainland China are governed by the laws of the People's Republic of China, including its Tourism Law, which requires inbound group tours to be handled by licensed Chinese travel agencies.

If these terms and the operating partner's conditions conflict about a service on the ground, the operating partner's conditions govern that service; these terms govern everything between you and us.

Accuracy of information

We keep itineraries, visa notes and practical information current in good faith, but things change — Chinese entry policy especially. Anything marked TBA is preliminary and not a confirmed offer.

If you spot something wrong on this site, tell us and we will fix it.

Your data

What we collect, how we use it, who we share it with and how to have it deleted all live in the privacy policy. Short version: we collect the minimum, we share only what your trip needs — with the operating partner and its suppliers — and we do not sell it. If your settings allow it, we also share ad-measurement signals with Meta so we know whether our ads work; the privacy policy explains what is sent and how to turn it off.

Our content

The words, design and images on this site belong to us or are licensed to us. Don't scrape, republish or pass them off as yours without asking — the aunties would be disappointed in you.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and the courts of Hong Kong have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute between you and us — except where the consumer law of the country where you live gives you the right to bring a claim there and does not allow that right to be excluded.

If you are unhappy about anything, please email us first — in our experience a conversation resolves it faster than anything else, and we would rather fix the problem than win an argument.

Questions

Anything unclear, or anything you think should be in here? Email us — a human reads it, and "this clause is confusing" is genuinely useful feedback.