Beijing - Where to stay

[beiji]

We're going to Beijing in a few weeks (I know, mad in this heat! But all booked) and it's our first time. We have a list of all the main places to visit, but what's a good, safe area to stay? Or avoid. Any recommendations for hotels or any tips would be appreciated.

I’ve stayed at the Unified Courtyard Hotel, it’s a small first class boutique style hotel, rooftop terrace, lovely courtyard with fish pond, reception speak English, restaurant on site that can do meals to order. And air conditioning! We stayed in June so yes, very hot.There’s lots of large more western-style hotels in the city but if you want something less bland, then this is a lovely hotel.
It’s about a 15 min drive to sights such as Forbidden City.
i loved China, so much to see and amazing scenery away from the cities. Pick which part of the Great Wall you want to visit, makes a huge difference to be away from the crowds. We went to Jinshanling, stunning, quiet.

We stayed in Dongcheng - Xinxiang Yayuan Siheyuan Hotel (though it was called something else when we stayed). Make sure your hotel has a/c!

Foodwise DaDong duck is unmissable (book!) and the the Uighur food (I think we went to crescent moon).

Do the main sights early, take fan, water, parasol, etc, and take solace in the malls! Beijing is huge with lots of open plazas.

Take a trip up to Badaling for the cooling effect of nature and views of Great Wall. We stayed for couple nights at the Commune and it was great to be able to be up early and enjoy the wall before the crowds as well as enjoy the cooling forest/pool.

I agree re the wall, we saw two other tourists and a lady selling tea up one of the towers during our whole day, it really was magical.

We also went to the Jinshanling section of the wall. Not in mid summer though - no shade! We stayed at the New World Hotel. I quite like modern clean hotels in some cities. If you take a taxi, make sure you have a card with the hotels address with you. Taxi drivers don’t speak English. Get the hotel to book them for you.

in Beijing we stayed at the Legendale Hotel in Dongcheng (eastern) - it’s a little expensive but worth it

We used DiDi everywhere - it’s cheap and convenient

don’t use spray can sun block, they will not let you enter with it security check at forbidden city - you should book these in advance on the palace museum website - you can pay and collect them at the ticket booth when you get there

tianamen square is I think not worth the time and the checkpoints

we did Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Note for the tickets you either have cable car up and down or chair lift up and toboggan down- you can’t mix and match as they are run by different companies

have more tips for rest of China too

@Sparklinggreen We found Tianamen Square underwhelming too. I think you went to another interesting section of the wall. The Huangyaguan section is he to the Great Wall Marathon. It’s certainly one of the most amazing structures I’ve ever seen. We had a misty start when we went and as the mist lifted it appeared stretching out forever ahead of us. Just incredible.

Thank you for these. @Sparklinggreen yes please I'd love more tips. We're going to Chengdu too, and might squeeze in Xi'an.

Isn't Tiannamen Square right next to the Forbidden City? I thought it'd be a short stop from there? No?

I'm wondering which part of the Wall to go to. Looks like Badaling is the only one to avoid and others are fine?

Xi’an is definitely worth it, the Terracotta Army is amazing to see in real life, and they’ve only unearthed a small portion of the army. I was blown away by the fact that the emperors tomb is still under the hillside and hasn’t been excavated, amazing to think of what else lies beneath. We also hired bikes and cycled the city walls, takes about 2 hours, lot of fun.
We also found the T Sq rather underwhelming and it’s the one place that we had to queue and theres a LOT of security. Yes, it is right beside the F City, you usually pass through the square to enter the City.

Forgot to add, we used sun parasols, many locals use them, it was so much easier (and cooler) than constantly reapplying sun cream, sweaty hat hair etc.

If you go to Xian (it’s fab) I recommend a cycle ride on the city walls, it was of my family’s trip highlights.

Dong chen. Wangfujing district has lots of shops and restaurants. Near to the Forbidden City. The main strip and the city in general will open your eyes to modern China - clean, modern and safe. I loved Beijing ten years ago and plan to return next year with DC.

We love Days Inn Forbidden City Beijing ‘cause it’s a hop and a skip through gentrified Hutongs to Tiananmen Square (go see the flag raising at sun rise) and the Forbidden Palace (prepurchase tickets on trip.com.)

The thing to know about BJing is that there are 5 ring roads, the immortals live within ring road 1, celebrities live within ring road 2, the high earners live within the ring road 3, well-to-do folk live within ring road 4 and the hoi polloi live outside of ring road 5!

Day Inn Forbidden City is within ring road 1! It ‘s well priced, clean, basic and the breakfast is good.

If you like BJing duck

https://www.thebeijinger.com/directory/liqun-roast-duck-restaurant

Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant 利群烤鸭店 Qianmen and Dashilan'r
前门大栅栏
11 Beixiangfeng, Zhengyi Lu (northeast of Qianmen)
Dongcheng District
东城区
前门东大街正义路南口北翔凤胡同11号
50-80 per person

authentic experience!

if you fancy posh BJing duck then Da Dong on the 3rd ring road is good!

Mutianyu Great Wall has a toboggan which is fun to get off the wall.

if you have already, download Alipay, WeChat ,Didi (like Uber), Trip etc.

it will be hot but just rest up from 11am - 5pm! Get out in the mornings and evenings xXx

@beiji The Forbidden city is huge with lots to look at. Even in late autumn it was teeming with people. Go and see the museums there - most Chinese people didn’t bother. Don’t just rush through. Tiannamen square is also huge and they take some walking! The square is built in Soviet style and in many ways, you could be anywhere.

Chengdu - we stayed at a heritage type hotel and it looked lovely. Until the wrecking ball started to demolish buildings on the other side of the road. This started at 11 pm! Yes, started! The Chinese don’t have quiet working hours. We contacted our travel company and they, together with our helpful guide, got us moved to the Ritz Carlton. Total bliss! Chengdu - choose a panda centre to visit, visit the giant Buddha and we went to the Mount Qingcheng unesco world heritage site.

I’d not leave out Xian either. There’s the famous warriors, but the city museum is great and there’s an earlier tomb with glass walkways and much smaller models of life under your feet. Hang yang ling i think. The pagodas and the walls (we cycled too) in Xian are brilliant and there’s the Muslim area for food. Somewhere you won’t forget.

Beijing is amazing but don’t under estimate how big (and crowded) it is! The metro is easy to use though. Random tips:

We went to the Mutianyu part of the wall and it was amazing - doable as a day trip and not as crowded as Badaling plus the slide down is quite an experience.

In case you haven’t yet, for most things you need to pre book tickets on WeChat even if they’re free.

Get a cheap e-sim from Trip.com that routes through Hong Kong or somewhere else so you can still access google and your WhatsApp. Google maps is pretty inaccurate so download Amap anyway. Also download the Google lens app so you can just take pictures and translate on the go - saved us so many times!

There are a lot ID checks throughout the city especially near tiananmen square and even in the metro randomly so bring your passport with you everywhere you go. One of those passport holders/ wallets were super helpful.
https://www.tribefeel.com/products/elegant-passport-holder-with-card-slots

Sure!

Chengdu is amazing the panda base is must see. Book tickets for the Sichuan opera as well. Sichuan hot pot is must try food if you like spicy food. We did Chengdu quickly (one night and one full day) - we went from the panda base (they say the pandas sleep in afternoon so go in the morning) to Leshan to see the giant Buddha (boat not the walk) - I wouldn’t recommend that though, we did DiDi for the 200km trip!!! And it was good but not worth the time effort imo. We stayed at the grand Hyatt Chengdu it was very nice.

Xian we didn’t do because I went in 1998 and we didn’t have time. I don’t regret not going back

We did:

beijing
zhangjiajie
Chengdu
shangrila
lijiang
Yangshuo
and HK

all were amazing and different to each other except HK which was ok

I forgot to mention, TS is next to Forbidden city, but you cannot go directly from FC to TS there are a lot of checkpoints.
I am not sure if it’s easier to go from TS to FC, but we wanted to spend more time in the Forbidden city so we focussed on that. We went through a couple of check points for TS and gave up. Again I don’t really regret not seeing TS

Badaling was framed as the very touristy section of the wall, and Jinshangling the less busy but longer walking hikers part of the wall and Mutianyu was somewhere inbetween. I don’t think you can go wrong here the wall is stunning so pick which ever fits your itinerary.

Also make sure you get set up with Alipay WeChat, DiDi, Amap, Trip.com and a translator (not google translate) in good time - they take up a bit of phone memory and you need to upload identity documents for Alipay and WeChat so don’t leave it to the last minute. Trip.com has cheapest and best esims too.

On WiFi there is no google or meta, but on esim you can access these

You will need your passport to book everything / it becomes your ticket to many places, so carry it with you at all times

We were on a guided group tour of China in April this year.

Best tip I can think of is to get to places early before the queue builds up too much. We got to the Mutianyu section of the wall fairly early and for the first hour as we walked along it wasn't very busy at all. By the time we were making our way back to the cable car it was heaps busier.

We did Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. They are next to each other but Forbidden City is huge and, even with a relatively early start, the queue was big. It did move relatively quickly though. Security at Tiananmen Square is very vigilant. They do bag searches and we were advised not to have anything with non-Chinese writing on. The Summer Palace is good to visit too.

Janshing Park is also nice if you have time.

We loved Xi'an. The Terracotta Warriors are obviously a must see, but we liked the rest of the city as well. The Muslem Quarter is interesting to wander round. Also in the evening there is a light and water show at the fountain near the Wild Goose Pagoda. I thought Xi'an a much nicer city to wander around than Beijing actually

If you are in Chengdu then I strongly recommend the Panda Breeding and Research Centre. Just loved watching them. We spent a few days in the Chengdu area actually because we then went up to the Emei Shan area, via the Giant Buddha of Leshan (as PP said definitely get a boat trip for the best view) and visited the Golden Summit of Mount Emei and several temples and monasteries. We actually spent the night in a monastery which was... interesting!

We visited a few other places too (Yangtze cruise, Yangshuo and Hong Kong) as we were there for three weeks.

Hope you have a lovely time!

Other tips:

• get an eSim, we found it more effective than a VPN
• Download payment apps - we got Alipay and WeChat but never needed WeChat it was Alipay all the way
• Something like Google translate app useful, especially for menus
• Definitely take toilet paper with you!

Take toilet paper?! Not for the hotel hopefully, do you mean for public restrooms?

On a 10 day trip is 5 days too much for Beijing? 5 in Beijing and 2.5 each in Xi'an and Chengdu. Does that split sound OK?

For Beijing you need prob 2.5 - 3 days:

day 1 forbidden city and temple of heaven (you could also squeeze in Tianamen Square before or after Forbidden City)

day 2 Great Wall and summer palace

If I had 10 days in China I would try and squeeze an extra place (so 4 in total) but that’s my travel style.

We found the Papago translation app brilliant in China, South Korea and Japan. Much better than Google translate.

I found 3 nights in Beijing worked well.

I agree with this, I had 11 nights plus 2 nights traveling and went to 5 places. In your case 4 places would be good.

Oh wow I didn't realise that I could do 4 places!

Pulls up map of China

What is a good place to add to this itinerary? Shanghai seems a bit out of the way? We have to arrive in Beijing and leave from Chengdu.