An insider's guide to China, including when to go, where to stay, the best tour operators, what to pack and recommended reading. With its high-octane energy, can-do drive, teeming population and challenging language barrier, China can be an exhausting destination…

Exploring China can rattle even veteran travelers. And understandably so. It's a huge country with enough languages and dialects to leave even many native Chinese flummoxed at the thought of communicating away from home. But when you travel away from the big cities, it…