Everonia
Design my tripTalk to a specialist
A giant panda eating bamboo at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
Experience · Chengdu

Pandas at first light,before thebus crowds.

Sichuan's research base, on the morning slot, when the bears are actually awake.

Design my trip

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding holds about two hundred bears across two campuses, the original site north of the city and the larger Dujiangyan extension. Pandas are sleepy. By 11 am most are asleep behind a rock and there's a wall of people watching nothing. We run the morning slot, base gate at opening, bears at breakfast, out before the day tours fill the paths.

Three moments

The base,
the way we run it.

  1. Out of Chengdu by 7

    Coffee on the road.

    Pickup from your Chengdu hotel at 7. Forty-minute drive out to the original site, pre-booked entry tickets already in the car. We're at the gate at opening; the bears are eating bamboo.

  2. The nursery enclosure

    Cubs, in arms.

    The Sub-Adult Nursery is the cubs' enclosure, six to ten panda yearlings at any time, climbing, falling off ropes, sleeping on each other. Active until late morning. This is the photograph everyone wants.

  3. The Moonlight delivery room

    Newborns through glass.

    The Sunshine and Moonlight nursery holds the actual newborns, pink, palm-sized, behind one-way glass. Quiet, briefly seen, the moment that changes the trip for most parties. Our guide knows the keepers' rota.

Why us, here

First-light
access, named keeper.

  • Pre-booked entry at the museum gate at opening, the cap is hit by 9 am most days; walk-ins are turned away on weekends.
  • Our Chengdu guide is a former panda-base volunteer. She can read which bear is which and when the keepers will refresh the bamboo.
  • We pace the morning so you see the active enclosures first, the sleeping bears second, not the other way around like the day-tour buses.
  • Lunch is at a Sichuan house restaurant in the old quarter, not a base canteen. Cold dishes, kung pao, two pots of jasmine.
Your visit

A morning at the base,
the afternoon yours.

Three hours at the base, opening to 10:30, then a long Chengdu lunch and the afternoon at the People's Park tea house or the Wenshu monastery. Most parties stay two nights in Chengdu for the pandas plus a Sichuan-opera evening. We arrange both, plus the airport transfer onto your next stop.

Often paired with

The cluster
around the river, all within easy reach.

Make this the start of your trip

Your Sichuan,
sketched,
by reply tomorrow.

Tell us your dates and how long you have for Chengdu. We'll send a draft, pandas booked for the opening slot, lunch named, the next leg routed (Chongqing, the Yangtze, or onward), and an all-inclusive price. No deposit, no obligation.

From US$360/day on a private 5-seater with driver.
Rolled into your journey quote.

Sketch my trip
Back to all experiences