Beyond the headlines and the hot takes — a week in Shanghai with the students, founders, and factories shaping the world's #2 economy. Meet local students, explore the city, get hands-on with frontier tech — and come home with a view that's truly your own.
We'll be in touch as soon as the next cohort opens. Watch your inbox.
The trek
Mornings in factories and founder offices. Afternoons with VCs and policy voices. Evenings with local university students — in the markets, temples, and street food the guidebooks miss.
Real connection beyond the tour bus: paired with local university students for shared meals, language exchange, and the everyday — from the WeChat economy to the Yuyuan night markets.
Walk the floor at EV and advanced-manufacturing plants in the Yangtze River Delta — Shanghai's gigafactory belt and the assembly lines powering the global economy.
Closed-door sessions with startup founders, operators, and VCs in AI, EVs, and fintech — and hands-on with the tech itself: test-drive an EV, see robotics and AI demos, and live China's super-app economy firsthand.
Side by side with local students — in the lanes, markets, and lantern-lit shopfronts no headline ever captures.
The city
China's financial capital and most global city — the single best place to understand where the country is heading. We base the whole week here.
Finance & the skyline — old trading houses facing China's tallest towers.
Tech & AI — Shanghai's science park: startups, chips, and R&D.
EV & manufacturing — Tesla's Gigafactory and the Yangtze Delta supply chain.
Suzhou & Hangzhou — gardens, canals & Alibaba, an hour by high-speed rail. (Select treks.)
Who it's for
Separate cohorts tuned to where you are — but the same access, the same ambition.
Career-relevant depth for future operators, investors, and leaders who'll be doing business with — or around — China.
A global-perspective experience and early exposure to one of the most important economies of your lifetime.
How it works
Tell us your school and level. No commitment.
We'll share dates, the itinerary, and pricing when applications open.
Short application, then lock in your place in the cohort.
Visas, logistics, and itinerary handled. You bring the curiosity.
Why now
China reopened and eased visas dramatically in 2024–25 — and almost no students have real, firsthand exposure. That gap is exactly the opportunity.
I'm Josh. I was born in China and studied in the US — and somewhere in between, I became convinced you only really understand a place through the people who live it. That clicked on a trek of my own: as a student I joined itrek, a peer-led trip to Israel, and it changed how I saw an entire country. CTrek is me building that same experience for China.
By day I'm an AI startup founder working on agent systems; CTrek is the project I'm building on the side, because I think my generation deserves a real, firsthand look at the most important country most of us have never seen.
It's early — and I'd love help. If you want to help build CTrek, come build it with me →
Questions
We're finalizing pricing for the first cohorts and working to keep it as accessible as possible (flights are typically separate). Join the waitlist and you'll be the first to see exact numbers when applications open.
The program is based entirely in Shanghai — China's financial and business capital — with select day trips to the surrounding Yangtze River Delta (Suzhou, Hangzhou) on some cohorts. You'll be paired with local university students throughout for genuine cultural exchange.
US passport holders: yes — China requires a tourist visa for a round-trip visit (the visa-free transit policy only applies if you continue on to a third country, which our trek isn't). It's a straightforward 10-year, multiple-entry visa, and we guide you through it as part of getting you trip-ready.
Visa-free for up to 30 days: as of 2026, citizens of ~50 countries can visit China without any visa — great news for many international students:
Europe: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK.
Asia & Middle East: Bahrain, Brunei, Japan, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, South Korea.
Oceania: Australia, New Zealand.
Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Peru, Uruguay.
This policy runs through the end of 2026 and can change — we'll confirm your exact requirement before the trip. The official, current list is on the China National Immigration Administration site.
We're still finalizing dates for the first cohorts. The plan is graduate treks over winter and spring break and undergraduate treks in summer — exact dates go out to the waitlist first, so join to be the first to know.
Currently enrolled graduate and undergraduate students — you don't need to speak Mandarin or have any prior China experience. We're also exploring a high school track and will add one if we see enough interest, so high schoolers are welcome to join the waitlist and help make the case.
Small and intentional — we cap each cohort at around 10–15. Small groups mean real access (founders and VCs will sit down with a dozen students in a way they never would with thirty), a tight-knit group, and a higher-touch experience from start to finish.
No. CTrek is an independent, community-led program. We're committed to a balanced, firsthand experience — the good, the complex, and everything in between.
Yes. Trips are fully hosted with on-the-ground support, vetted partners, and clear logistics from arrival to departure. Full details go to confirmed participants.
The most-talked-about country of your lifetime — and you can see it for yourself. Spots are limited and go to the waitlist first. Drop your email; that's it.
No spam, ever.
CTrek