Top Beijing Day Trips

This is a super and seamless way to get to this entrance of the Great Wall. We easily rode the MRT from our hotel to the meeting point. Communication prior to the meeting was clear and detailed. Because we were anxious 76-year olds, we chose to go with the private guide offered by MUBUS (I don't remember the price but it was very reasonable.) Our guide, Olive, was a treasure. She was incredibly kind and really watched out for our safety. We only managed to go to a couple towers because it was hot and crowded. Olive was also a great photographer! We chose to ride the cable car and she got us all squared away with that. We definitely recommend paying for the buffet lunch, which was excellent with many choices. Olive had time to join us and we really enjoyed our time with her. Her English is perfect and we were so surprised that she had spent a lot of time working in Seattle, Washington, which is where we live! We were completely happy with our sweet private guide, Olive, and the MUBUS company, lunch, and transportation. It's really a great way to go!

Insane experience of hiking part of the Jinshanling Great Wall section. Highly recommend, I couldn‘t believe how beautiful it was up there. It was very well organised, I was contacted in advance on WeChat with all the infos, and met the group outside a metro station. We then took a bus for 2 hours to the wall entrance. There is an uphill hike of about 30 minutes to get to the wall itself, then we had about 4 hours to get from the East Gate to General Tower to watch the sunset. I would recommend to wear shoes with good grip and to bring plenty of food. You should also have a good fitness and not be afraid of heights. Some downhill climbs can feel very exposed. There are also food/drink vendors in a few of the towers on the way, but the food usually consists of chocolate/crisps. It took us almost 3 hours to do the first half of the hike, which covered the unrestored section of the wall (we also took a lot of pictures) and then another hour for the restored section. The group then watched the sunset together and headed back to the bus.

This was an excellent tour and much more comprehensive than expected. Sally, our excellent guide, was very knowledgable and entertaining. She guided us through the various security checks, explained the history of the places we visited, told us many stories and was an absolute delight. Another thing we liked was being on a small group tour - there were 10 of us. It felt much more personal.