Beijing Off the Beaten Path: 5 Day Plan
Five days is the point where a Beijing trip stops feeling like a checklist and starts feeling like an actual visit. The first four days cover the sights everyone flies in for. The fifth is for the two places that get bundled into a rushed half-day tour everywhere else and deserve better than that.
Book these before you go:
- Forbidden City real-name ticket (releases 8pm Beijing time, exactly 7 days ahead)
- Tiananmen Square’s separate WeChat reservation
- Your Mutianyu transfer or a small-group Wall tour
- Lama Temple’s mandatory timed-entry booking
| Day | Focus | Rough cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Jingshan Park | ¥150-250 |
| 2 | Mutianyu Great Wall, cable car and toboggan | ¥300-450 |
| 3 | Temple of Heaven, Houhai and Shichahai hutongs | ¥100-180 |
| 4 | Summer Palace, Lama Temple | ¥150-250 |
| 5 | Ming Tombs, 798 Art District | ¥100-200 |
Day 1: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City
Book both separately, well ahead. Tiananmen Square needs a WeChat reservation one to seven days out, passport required, plus airport-style security at the gate. The Forbidden City releases real-name bookings at 8pm Beijing time exactly seven days before your date, and weekend slots go within minutes. Enter through Qianmen, the fastest gate for security, and budget three to four hours inside. Peak season (April-October) is ¥60, low season ¥40, Treasure and Clock Galleries ¥10 each extra, closed Mondays except holiday Mondays.
Exit the north gate straight into Jingshan Park (¥2) and climb to Wanchun Pavilion for the best rooftop view of the palace anywhere in the city. Lunch on jianbing, a savory street crepe, ¥8-15, and dinner at Siji Minfu for Peking duck, ¥154-259 for the whole bird, no visitor markup, the better call over the tour-bus circuit at Quanjude.
Day 2: Mutianyu over Badaling
Badaling is closest and most famous, and that’s exactly why it’s also the most crowded, tour bus after tour bus from mid-morning onward. Mutianyu, about ninety minutes out, is the better first Great Wall: well restored, a cable car up (¥100 one-way, ¥140 return) and a toboggan run back down that ends up being the best five minutes of the day. Leave by 7:30am, give it the whole day, and unwind with copper-pot lamb hotpot at Donglaishun (¥100-150pp) once you’re back.
Day 3: Temple of Heaven and the hutongs
Morning at the Temple of Heaven, ¥15 park-only or ¥34 combined in peak season, timed for the tai chi and card games before the tour groups arrive. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is built without a single nail, worth lingering over rather than photographing and moving on. Afternoon and evening go to the hutongs, Wudaoying and Fangjia hutong, or the backstreets around Houhai and Shichahai, for a quieter version of old Beijing than Nanluoguxiang’s craft-beer strip. Dinner: zhajiangmian, noodles in fermented soybean paste, ¥20-35.
Day 4: Summer Palace and the Lama Temple
The Summer Palace deserves a genuine half day, ¥30 peak or ¥20 low, a lake ringed by pavilions and the Long Corridor, painted with thousands of individual scenes most visitors walk straight past. On the way back, the Lama Temple (Yonghegong), ¥25 flat, now requires a mandatory timed-entry booking online or via WeChat for every visitor, so sort it the night before. Close the day in Wangfujing (the shopping street, not the scorpion-skewer snack street, that’s a photo-op for tourists) or Sanlitun, for its Taikoo Li mall and bar street.
Day 5: Ming Tombs and 798 Art District
Every rushed one-day tour bundles the Ming Tombs onto a Great Wall trip and gives you forty rushed minutes at each. Give them a dedicated morning instead: general admission runs ¥60 peak or ¥20 low, with individual tombs extra, Changling ¥30-45, Dingling ¥40-60, or about ¥95 combined, no reservation needed, just buy on-site.
Afternoon, head into 798 Art District, a converted 1950s factory complex packed with contemporary galleries (UCCA is the anchor), free to wander and about as far from imperial Beijing as this city gets while still being Beijing. Close the trip with a low-key dinner and a walk around Houhai’s lakeside bars, watching paddleboats come in as the lanterns switch on, a better final night than another packed itinerary slot.
Getting around and staying safe
Tap a foreign contactless card directly at the metro turnstile, no top-up or app needed, and DiDi covers everything a metro line doesn’t reach, including the Great Wall and Ming Tombs transfers. Set up a VPN before you fly, since VPN providers’ own sites are blocked once you’re behind the firewall trying to install one, and Google, Maps, WhatsApp, and Instagram won’t load either way.
Where to sleep
Dongcheng, between the Forbidden City and Wangfujing, keeps four of the five days walkable. Compare rates on Agoda before booking, especially if any of your five nights fall near a national holiday week.
Carry your actual passport, not a photo of it, for the Forbidden City and Tiananmen. Near Wangfujing, the Tiananmen approaches, Houhai, or the Temple of Heaven gate, decline anyone offering tea or an art viewing; it’s a well-worn script and it always ends with a bill nobody agreed to.
Tighter schedule? The 4 day version skips the Ming Tombs day. Got a sixth day to spare? The 6 day plan adds a second, quieter Wall section at Jinshanling. Treating Beijing as a base for the wider country, see Offbeat Beijing and Beyond .