Anyone can get to the Great Wall. Getting to the good part takes a plan.
Which stretch of Wall is worth the drive north, and why the Forbidden City cannot be bought at the gate. Reviews of every tour you can book in China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Mutianyu, the Forbidden City, the warriors and a night on Victoria Harbour.
Four bookings that carry a first trip to China. What each one costs, and the catch on each one.
01The Wall dayMutianyu Great Wall Daily Tour with Ticket & LunchMutianyu sits ninety minutes north of Beijing, with a cable car up and a toboggan run down. Take the early bus and you are back in the city for dinner.
02The ticket problemForbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets IncludedThe Forbidden City sells a capped number of timed tickets each day against your passport number, and they go. This one includes the entry.
03The warriorsHalf-Day Mini Group Xian Tour to Terracotta Warriors MuseumThree pits of terracotta soldiers, forty minutes east of Xi’an. Half a day, and the reason most itineraries stop here at all.
04The harbour nightVictoria Harbor Symphony Unlimited Drink CruiseHong Kong from the water while the towers run their light show at eight. An hour, drinks included, and the best cheap thing in the city.
Mutianyu, Badaling or Jinshanling. The Great Wall is not one place.
Every Beijing itinerary says Great Wall, and then you find out there are a dozen restored stretches, an hour of traffic between them, and one that empties out by ten in the morning. Three sections, what each costs to reach and who each one suits.
Beijing for the Wall, Shanghai for the canals, Hong Kong for the harbour.
Six cities that carry a China itinerary between them, and the day out that justifies each stop.
Six hundred years of palace, and a queue at every gate.
The Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace and the hutongs that survived the ring roads. Almost all of it is ticketed, most of it is timed, and none of it likes a walk-up.
What everyone actually books in China.
The whole catalogue →These fill first, in every season and in every city on the list. Prices are per person and they move.
1
Mutianyu Great Wall Tours with Options
Compare Mutianyu Great Wall tour options from Beijing, with direct buses, expert guides, long Wall time, lunch, and flexible add-ons.
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
Victoria Harbor Symphony Unlimited Drink Cruise
from $10
8
4-Hour Small Group Tour to Forbidden City with Entry Tickets
from $15
Shanghai gets one evening of skyline and a full day of canals.
The Bund and the observation decks take a single evening. The rest of the good material is out of town: Zhujiajiao sitting on the water, and Suzhou’s gardens forty minutes away on the bullet train.
Every Shanghai day out →
Xi’an is eight thousand soldiers and a wall you can cycle round.
The warriors stand forty minutes east of the city and justify the whole detour on their own. Then there is the wall itself, still complete, wide enough to ride a bike along the top, with the Muslim Quarter cooking underneath it.
- 1Mini Group Xian Day Tour to Terracotta Army, City Wall, Pagoda and Muslim Bazaarfrom $49
- 2Terracotta Army Mini Group or Private Tourfrom $36
- 3Xi’an Evening Food Tour by TukTukfrom $73
China is cheap until suddenly it is not.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs a head. Tickets and city walks sit under fifty dollars; the private-driver days are where a budget goes.
Entry tickets, hutong walks, the panda base, tea ceremonies and most of the buses that run to the Wall.
Full days with a guide: the Wall plus a second stop, the warriors in a mini group, harbour cruises with dinner on deck.
Private drivers, multi-city runs, Li River charters and anything that needs a second day to work.
Three things China has that nobody else does.
Temples and skylines are everywhere. A hundred giant pandas in one valley, a forest of sandstone towers and a river running between limestone hills are not.
The Panda Base
The breeding centre on the northern edge of Chengdu keeps well over a hundred giant pandas, and they are interesting for about three hours a day. Feeding is early. By eleven they have eaten and gone to sleep in a heap in the fork of a tree, which is charming for ten minutes and then it is bears asleep in a tree. Book the first entry slot of the morning.
- 1Giant Panda Breeding Research Base Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 580 reviews
- 2The Beijing Zoo Entry Ticket with Pandas★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 368 reviews
- 3Private Half-Day Chengdu Panda Breeding Center Tour with Optional Volunteer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 353 reviews
The Avatar Mountains
Three thousand sandstone pillars stand in the forest at Zhangjiajie, most of them wearing a pine tree on top, with cloud sitting in the gaps for a good part of the year. The film borrowed the shape of them and the nickname stuck. The glass bridge over the canyon next door caps how many people cross in a day and puts a time on every ticket.
- 1Tianmen Square, Forbidden City & Royal Museum Tours★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,288 reviews
- 22-Day Avatar Mountain, Glass Bridge, and Mt. Tianmen Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 216 reviews
- 32-Day Mini Group to Avatar Mountain, Glass Bridge and Mt. Tianmen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 210 reviews
The Li River
The stretch between Guilin and Yangshuo is the landscape printed on the back of the twenty yuan note: limestone towers standing straight out of the paddy fields, buffalo in the shallows, bamboo rafts drifting down all afternoon. Four hours on the water, and the boats only run when the river is high enough to carry them.
- 11 Day Li River Cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo with Private Guide & Driver★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 148 reviews
- 2Longji Rice Terraces with Minority Village Private Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 122 reviews
- 3Classic Private Full–Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 113 reviews
Nine hours at Beijing Capital is enough for the Wall.
A lot of long connections run through Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and transit passengers can often leave the airport without a full tourist visa. What you get depends on your nationality and your onward ticket, so confirm it with the airline before you book anything. The tours are built for it either way: met at arrivals, back at departures with hours in hand.
Four things you cannot sort out on the day.
Most of China can be arranged the night before from a hotel lobby. These four run on daily caps, timed slots and animals that keep their own hours.
- 01Forbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets IncludedEntry runs on a daily cap of timed tickets, sold against your passport number. In summer they are gone days ahead.
- 02Mini Group Xian Day Tour to Terracotta Army, City Wall, Pagoda and Muslim BazaarThe museum sits forty minutes outside Xi’an and stops admitting people well before it closes. An afternoon arrival is a wasted trip.
- 03Giant Panda Breeding Research Base TicketThe pandas are fed in the morning and asleep by the middle of the day. The first slot is the only one worth having.
- 042-Day Avatar Mountain, Glass Bridge, and Mt. Tianmen TourThe canyon bridge limits how many people cross in a day and puts a time on every ticket. Turn up without one and you are looking at it from the rim.
Eight regional cuisines, and not one of them is the takeaway.
Sichuan numbs, Cantonese steams, and Beijing air-dries a duck for a day before it goes anywhere near the oven. Book the market walk before the heat arrives, the class that finishes as lunch, and one proper duck dinner.
By kind of day
The standard fortnight: north to south, and nearly all of it by train.
The newest additions, from Harbin to Hong Kong.
Keep going →
Terracotta Army Museum Walking Tour with Entry Tickets
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Xi’an Muslim Quarter Night Market Foodie Walking Tour
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Private Big Wild Goose Pagoda Buddhism Walking Tour
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3-Hour Shanghai Yu Garden &Old Town Private Tour with Tea Tasting
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Hong Kong Private Arrival Transfer Driver Meet and Greet: Airport to Hotel
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Chengdu Panda Breeding Base Ticket w/ Optional Transfer or Guide
Read our review →
Four Lakes Night Cruise with Round-trip Transfer
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Chinese Tea ceremony in Beijing Hutong courtyard
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Panda Research Base Ticket or Private Transfer Tour
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