One Week in Beijing: Offbeat Itinerary
A week in Beijing is long enough to do the Great Wall twice, in two completely different moods, and still have a spare day to ride a Ferris wheel bolted onto the side of a bridge in a different city entirely. Here’s how the days stack up, ticketed sights first, unticketed ones woven in around them.
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 and Jinshanling transfers, or small-group Wall tours for both
- Lama Temple’s mandatory timed-entry booking
- Your Tianjin high-speed rail seat, booked a day or two ahead in holiday weeks
| 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 |
| 6 | Jinshanling Great Wall, the quiet section | ¥250-350 |
| 7 | Tianjin day trip by high-speed rail | ¥150-250 |
Day 1: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City
Book both separately, well in advance. 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, weekend slots gone within minutes. Go through Qianmen, the fastest gate for security, and budget three to four hours inside, ¥60 peak season (April-October) or ¥40 low, Treasure and Clock Galleries ¥10 each extra, closed Mondays except holiday Mondays.
Exit the north gate into Jingshan Park (¥2) and climb to Wanchun Pavilion for the best rooftop view of the palace in the city. Lunch on jianbing, a street crepe, ¥8-15, dinner at Siji Minfu for Peking duck, ¥154-259 for the whole bird, better value than the tour-bus circuit at Quanjude.
Day 2: Mutianyu, the easy Wall
Badaling is closest and most famous, and exactly for that reason it’s also the most crowded, tour bus after tour bus from mid-morning. Mutianyu, about ninety minutes out, suits a first visit best: well restored, a cable car up (¥100 one-way, ¥140 return) and a toboggan run back down that turns the descent into the day’s highlight. Leave by 7:30am, give it the whole day, and unwind with copper-pot lamb hotpot at Donglaishun (¥100-150pp) that evening.
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 show. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is built without a single nail. Afternoon and evening go to Wudaoying and Fangjia hutong, or the backstreets around Houhai and Shichahai, quieter 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 scenes most visitors walk past without noticing. On the way back, the Lama Temple (Yonghegong), ¥25 flat, now requires mandatory timed-entry booking online or via WeChat for every visitor. Close the day in Wangfujing (shopping street, not the scorpion-skewer snack street, that’s a photo-op for tourists) or Sanlitun, for Taikoo Li and the bar street behind it.
Day 5: Ming Tombs and 798 Art District
Give the Ming Tombs a dedicated morning instead of the rushed forty minutes most Great Wall day-tours allow them. General admission is ¥60 peak or ¥20 low, individual tombs extra, Changling ¥30-45, Dingling ¥40-60, or about ¥95 combined, no reservation needed. Afternoon, head to 798 Art District, a converted 1950s factory complex thick with contemporary galleries (UCCA anchors it), free to wander. Evening: Houhai’s lakeside bars, watching paddleboats come in as the lanterns switch on.
Day 6: Jinshanling, the Wall nobody else bothers with
This is the day that makes the seven-day trip worth it over the shorter ones. Jinshanling sits two to two and a half hours out, rugged and unrestored in patches, entrance ¥65 peak or ¥55 low, a cable car for ¥60 return and a three to four hour hike if you want it. The crowds here are a fraction of Mutianyu’s, and the difference in atmosphere between this and day two is the whole argument for doing the Wall twice: one polished and easy, one raw and quiet. If you’d rather see the Wall lit up at night, Simatai, further out again, is the only section that runs official night visits, paired with Gubei Water Town below it.
Day 7: Tianjin, a city that built a Ferris wheel onto a bridge
High-speed trains from Beijing South Station reach Tianjin in as little as 21 minutes for the fastest service, with departures running from 3am to 10pm and roughly ¥55-70 for the ride, easily the simplest standalone day trip from the city. Once there, the Tianjin Eye is the reason to go: a full-size Ferris wheel built directly onto a bridge spanning the Hai River, a piece of civic engineering nobody asked for and everybody’s glad exists. Pair it with a walk down Ancient Cultural Street and the Italianate Porcelain House, then take the evening train back into Beijing for a last dinner around Qianmen and Dashilan, the restored pedestrian street south of Tiananmen where century-old shops like Neiliansheng (shoes) and Ruifuxiang (silk) still trade under their original names.
Getting around and staying safe
Tap a foreign contactless Visa or Mastercard directly at any metro turnstile, no top-up or app setup needed. Link a foreign card to your Alipay or WeChat wallet before relying on DiDi, since cards added directly inside the app are often blocked by the home bank.
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 regardless. Carry your actual passport, not a photo of it, for the Forbidden City and Tiananmen both. Near Wangfujing, the Tiananmen approaches, Houhai, or the Temple of Heaven gate, decline anyone offering tea or an art viewing.
Where to sleep
Dongcheng keeps six of seven days walkable or a short taxi away, and it’s an easy run to Beijing South Station on Tianjin morning. Compare rates on Agoda before booking, especially around Golden Week or Spring Festival.
Only got six days? The 6 day plan drops the Tianjin day trip. Treating Beijing as a base for the wider country instead of the whole trip, see Offbeat Beijing and Beyond: 7 Days , or Beijing Hidden Gems for the guide version of this list.