Tour vs. independent travel?

Help-we need your input. My husband and I are taking our first trip to China at the end of October. We want to visit Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, and Guilin. Our preference is to set our own schedule and travel independently, however because it's our first time we're wondering if it's feasible to do this, or better to join a tour. Any suggestions. Thanks for your help!

We pondered the same problem and decided to go it alone. I'm very glad we did. We had no problems. See our trip report: http://www.chinahighlights.com/tour/