photo of chinese rooftop gate with lanterns

an authentic Chinatown experience

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★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Five-time tripAdvisor 

“Travelers’ Choice” Award Winner
2020, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025


Also featured in Kayak’s Boston Travel Guide

Become a Chinatown Super-fan!
Travelers and locals alike have fun touring Chinatown with me. Leave understanding more, and feeling like this is your Chinatown! Go deeper with the one tour that covers all the bases from history, culture, immigrants’ resilience and joy. You’ll discover the diversity of cuisines, favorite legacy restaurants and my latest discoveries.
I can’t wait to share it all with you!

Student/school Tours

Photo of golden leaves and a chinese gate with lanterns

  • Fun, cross-cultural experience to introduce your students to sights, tastes, fables of this rich, historic immigrant enclave.

  • Please email for details and fee information. With proper certification, no tax is added for school groups.

Photo of shoes in a circle with a character in the middle in chinatown

Private Tours

  • Private & Corporate Groups - Customizable itineraries, team- building, girls’ night out. Light dinner and adult beverages, we can do that, too! Or, we can enjoy the standard Saturday tour on a different date.

  • Private tours generally begin at $130. pp. Please contact me for details and pricing.

photo of chopsticks holding fried dumplings

The original chinatown tour

  • Our most popular tour. Tasting, shopping, history, visiting an herbalist. Sampling sweet and savory treats, and enjoy dim sum at the end. Standard tours run on Saturdays for 4 or more people. If you are 1-3 people I will notify you when the next available Saturday tour is and rebook at no fee. Alternatively, if your tour does not reach the 4 guest minimum, you can opt to pay an additional $30. pp and enjoy a private tour.

    3+ Hours

    (Additional tours available)

  • Email me or use the contact form for more info.

Our Tours

Learn more

Go beyond the gate with an expert guide, you’re in good hands with me. New England Travel said, “Jacqueline has an insider/outsider perspective that makes her a great teacher and savvy guide…giving you a foundation to build on, while always leaving you hungry for more.”

We’ll learn about the rich history, the challenges overcome by our early Chinese immigrants, and the resilience of our current residents. We’ll cover the food, fun, and fables that make this neighborhood so unique.

We’ll explore Chin Park, and learn about the paifang, and design features of the park. We’ll enjoy gold ginkgo in the fall, cherry blossoms in spring, and maybe a lion dance if we’re near a lunar holiday. Learn how Yin and Yang are expressed in everything from food to architecture to medicine as we visit a traditional Chinese herbalist's shop.
We’ll nosh on treats while we get our bearings, and explore your take-home guide filled with facts and enough tips to build your own adventure the next time. Then we’ll explore and nibble our way through traditional pastries, and savory BBQ pork at a Cha Chaan Teng, and visit Tom our favorite fruit vendor on Beach Street.
We’ll see what’s live and seasonal at the grocery store, and get shopping tips and cooking advice. After your tour we sit down to enjoy dim sum, savor dumplings, learn etiquette, ordering, and more.

additional tours!

From time to time I’ll offer special private tours. Sign up today if you want to be notified when these are available.
For example, go behind the scenes with a Lion Dance/Kung Fu studio demo. Or take a bao safari, enjoying steamed buns from several restaurants and bakeries. A shop and cook tour. Parade and holiday tours are raucous fun!

These are limited and first come, first served.

Photo of Boston Chinatown Tour with owner Jacqueline in front of Boston Chinatown

Meet your guide

I’m grateful to be a bridge between cultures. Drawing on continued study and personal experience, I share insights to help you navigate Chinatown successfully.
My tours bring many passions together: cross-cultural learning, immigrant history, culinary delights. Imparting a bit of history and culture along with some fun stories and delicious treats, I host guests from all walks of life, different neighborhoods and countries. Everyone discovers something new and wonderful here in Chinatown.

What will you experience?

  • Explore and learn about historic architecture

  • Taste authentic pastries from local bakeries

  • Seasonal Lion Dance parades

  • Eat authentic dim sum just like a local

  • Learn about Traditional Chinese Medicine

  • Murals Old and new in Chinatown

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  • Masks help with pollen, and wildfire smoke from Canada. Guests should be vaccinated and boosted. We don’t want to be the asymptomatic carrier that puts one of our friends out of commission.

  • Standard tours can be booked up to 24 hours prior.

  • We’ll cover a little over a mile, including a secluded park, dramatic murals, secret food court, street vendors and more.

More FAQ

  • Masks help with pollen, and wildfire smoke from Canada. Guests should be vaccinated and boosted. We don’t want to be the asymptomatic carrier that puts one of our friends out of commission.

  • Standard tours can be booked up to 24 hours prior.

  • We’ll cover a little over a mile, including a secluded park, dramatic murals, secret food court, street vendors and more.

More FAQ

Testimonials

  • Food, Fun and Fables

    A truly enjoyable, educational, DELICIOUS tour! The wealth of knowledge that Jacqueline possesses concerning not only the history of Boston’s Chinatown area, but also ancient Chinese culture, fables and the delicacies associated with them, seems fathomless. She infuses that with humor and warmth to make this a most entertaining experience. I would highly recommend it! Thank you, Jacqueline!

    See Elyse P's Review on Trip Advisor

  • After taking the walking tour it’s easy to understand why everyone has given the tour a 5/5; the rating is well deserved.

    There is a great mix of history, culture, and food making this one of the more memorable walking tours we’ve ever taken. Three hours may sound like a long tour but the topics were interesting and the time flew by; even our two year old had a fantastic time…

    See Chris W's Review on Trip Advisor

  • WHAT A TREAT! If you are having any hesitation and not sure if this tour is for you, it is!

    First and foremost, she is SO knowledgeable about the area and has an in at every restaurant, bakery, and site you will visit. Wait in line for 50 minutes for dim sum? Not with Jacqueline -- you almost immediately sit down and she grabs food from the cart patiently explaining the history, ingredients, and talking about whats next. It's not all…

    See LGallagher983's Review on Trip Advisor

  • Great for locals and tourists, alike.

    A group of us just did Jacqueline Church's Boston Chinatown tour, in celebration of the Lunar New Year! We are all locals, and yet, it was a great learning experience, really engaging, and fun. Jacqueline is a brilliant guide: lots of interesting stories and information, knows the local vendors, shares market and foodie tips, and finished the tour with an amazing and very plentiful dim sum lunch at a great Chinatown restaurant…

    See Mike B's Review

  • Highly, Highly Recommend!

    Such a fun, interesting, entertaining afternoon! Jacqueline Church was the perfect hostess -- funny, smart, knowledgable, and comfortable in our surroundings. For my friend, who was from out of town, she was able to give a broad summary of the history of Chinatown. As someone with a passing familiarity with the neighborhood, I too learned a lot, thanks to Jacqueline's ability to share details on…

    See Emal33's Review on Trip Advisor