North hallThe Forbidden Cityfrom $2 
West hallThe Great Wallfrom $6 Beijing is a palace city with a wall an hour up the road.
Which stretch of the Great Wall earns the longer drive, what a palace ticket costs once a guide is in, and where the hutong suppers hide. Reviews of the tours you can book in Beijing.
East hallTemple of Heavenfrom $5 
South gateInto the hutongsfrom $3 Four Beijing bookings to build the week around.
A wall day, a palace morning, a Monday park, a lane supper.
01The wall dayMutianyu Great Wall Tours with OptionsMutianyu, with the bus and the gate ticket handled. The cable car goes up; a toboggan run comes down.- 02The palace hoursForbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets IncludedThe entry ticket is included, which is the hard part. In at the Meridian Gate, out on the north side.
03The park afternoonThe Temple of Heaven or Summer Palace Entry TicketOne ticket for the Temple of Heaven or the Summer Palace. Both stay open on Mondays.
04The eveningBeijing Hutong Walking Food and Beer Tour at Hidden RestaurantsSmall kitchens down the hutong lanes, with local beer between the stops.
Which Great Wall? Five stretches within a day of Beijing.
Restored and busy, half-ruined and empty, or lit after dark above a water town. Each stretch is a different day, and most of the price gap between them is the drive.
1★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Mutianyu Great Wall Tours with Options · from $19
MutianyuRestored towers, a cable car up and a toboggan down.
BadalingThe nearest stretch to the city, and the busiest.
JinshanlingA half-restored ridgeline for a proper morning on foot.
JiankouCrumbling, steep and wild, with the hike ending at Mutianyu.
SimataiThe stretch you can walk after dark, above Gubei Water Town.
All 414 Great Wall days out →
Beijing’s imperial axis: palace, altar, lake garden.
Ming and Qing emperors left the Forbidden City at the centre, the Temple of Heaven to the south and a summer retreat on Kunming Lake. The three below are the bookings most first visits open with.
- 1Forbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets Includedfrom $4
- 2T-Square & Forbidden City Group or Private Tourfrom $17
- 3All-Inclusive Tour: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Great Wallfrom $128
The Beijing days out everyone books first.
Every Beijing tour review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the city, wall days and palace mornings at the top.
1
Mutianyu Great Wall Tours with Options
Beijing Mubus runs daily coach trips to Mutianyu with English, Spanish, or Russian guides, a visitor lounge, and several tour options. Expect a direct ride, included Wall entry and shuttle, then hours to explore at your own pace. Add a buffet lunch, a short architecture talk, a strenuous 5-kilometer hike, or a combined Summer Palace tour. Guides such as Jily, Helly, and John have helped visitors plan routes and make sense of the Wall.
From · $19
Read our review →
2
Forbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets Included
from $4
3
T-Square & Forbidden City Group or Private Tour
from $17
4
Mutianyu Great Wall Daily Tour with Ticket & Lunch
from $18
5
All-Inclusive Tour: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Great Wall
from $128
6
MuBus: Mutianyu Great Wall ENG/ESP/RUS Guided Bus Tour
from $20
7
4-Hour Small Group Tour to Forbidden City with Entry Tickets
from $15
8
Tiananmen Square Registration Service(Ticket)
from $3
Mondays
The Beijing palace museum shuts on Mondays. Save the wall for then.
The Forbidden City closes every Monday outside national holidays, and so do the National Museum and the Mao Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. The Great Wall, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple keep their gates open. Make the closed day the one you leave the city.
Beijing after the monuments: alleys, dumplings, a tea table.
The courtyard lanes around the Drum Tower are where the city eats. Walk them with someone who knows which doorway hides a kitchen, fold your own dumplings, or sit through a slow tea ceremony before the evening shows.
Every hutong tour →Beijing at night: acrobats, opera masks, a wall with the lights on.
Acrobatic troupes perform most evenings, the Liyuan theatre stages Peking opera and lets you watch the make-up go on, and a few Great Wall stretches stay open after sunset.
Four Beijing bookings that run on passports and quotas.
Most of the city can be arranged the day before. These four cannot: they sell against a daily cap, a real-name system that wants your passport number, or a train seat that is gone well before you fly.
- 01Beijing Forbidden City Ticket Booking (Optional: guide service)Palace tickets go on sale a week ahead, each tied to a passport, and the daily allocation sells out in summer and around holidays.
- 02Tiananmen Square Registration Service(Ticket)Even walking onto the square takes a timed reservation under your passport name. Without one, the checkpoint turns you away.
- 03Beijing to Xi’an See Terracotta Warriors with Bullet Train Round Trip TransferHigh-speed seats are sold on real-name tickets, and the early departures that make Xi’an possible in a day go first.
- 04Beijing Capital Airport Layover Mutianyu Great Wall Private TourVisa-free transit lets many travellers leave the airport between flights, but only with an onward ticket, and the tour has to fit the connection.
What a day out in Beijing costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. Gate tickets come in under the cost of lunch; private wall days with a driver sit at the top.
Gate tickets, the Mutianyu shuttle buses, tea and calligraphy sessions, the evening shows.
Small-group wall hikes, hutong food walks and the classic palace-and-wall full days.
Private drivers to the far stretches, Jiankou hikes and bullet-train days to Xi’an.
From the Ming Tombs to Xi’an: Beijing day trips, nearest first.
Ming Tombs
Gubei
Xi'anBy place — the city and the wall
By kind of day — wall, palace, lane or stage
Just reviewed in Beijing: the newest additions.
All the recent additions →
Jinshanling Great Wall Small Group self-hiking tour from Beijing
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Group Tour Including Mutianyu Great Wall And Buffet Lunch
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Small Group Mutianyu Great Wall and Ming Tombs Tour with Cable Car and Lunch
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Beijing Group Coach Tour to Mutianyu Great Wall Without Lunch
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Mini Group: Half-Day Great Wall at Mutianyu Hiking Tour
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Small Group Tours to the Jingshaling Wall with Options
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Private Tour: Beijing Hutong Night Walking and snacks Taste
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Small-Group Coach Tour: City Highlights of Beijing Including Lunch
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Small Group Beijing Temple of heaven and Summer Palace with Pearl market
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Tai Chi or Kung Fu plus Chinese Calligraphy Learning Class
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Private Layover Tour to Mutianyu Great Wall and Forbidden City
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4-Hour Private Forbidden City Walking Tour with Bird’s ViewOption
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Mutianyu Great Wall Private VIP Tour with Peak Restaurant Dining and Cable Car
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