Beijing takes four days. Then China starts.
Which stretch of the Great Wall is worth the drive out. What the Forbidden City ticket actually gets you. Whether a bullet train to the warriors beats a night in Chengdu. Reviews of every tour you can book in China.
MutianyuMutianyu Great Wall Daily Tour with Ticket & Lunchfrom $18
Hong KongNgong Ping 360: Cable Car Return Tickets & Combosfrom $30
GuilinLi River Cruise with Transfer to Yangshuofrom $82
Zhangjiajie2-Day Mini Group to Avatar Mountain, Glass Bridge and Mt. Tianmenfrom $109
ShanghaiZhujiajiao Water Town and Shanghai City Private Day Tourfrom $246
The wall, the palace, the warriors, the pandas.
Four bookings a first China trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The first morningMutianyu Great Wall Tours with OptionsMutianyu by cable car, up before the coaches. The restored stretch, with a toboggan run back down to the car park.
02The palace dayForbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets IncludedTicket-included entry to the Forbidden City, which sells a fixed number of slots each day and then stops selling.
03The Xi’an dayMini Group Xian Day Tour to Terracotta Army, City Wall, Pagoda and Muslim BazaarTerracotta Army, the Tang city wall and the Muslim Quarter, run as one day from the bullet-train station.
04The Chengdu morningPrivate Half-Day Chengdu Panda Breeding Center Tour with Optional VolunteerThe panda base at feeding time, which is early. By eleven every animal is asleep in a tree.
Four stretches of the Great Wall, and they are not the same day out.
Every Beijing hotel desk sells “the Great Wall”. The section is what decides whether you spend the day on restored stone with a cable car, or on collapsing rampart with nobody else on it.
Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Hong Kong — and two places worth the extra flight.
An imperial capital, a river city rebuilt in glass, a clay army under the loess, a harbour that runs on ferries, a panda nursery in Sichuan and limestone towers on the Li. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
The palace, the altar and the lake, in one Beijing week.
Six centuries of court architecture sit inside one loop of the second ring road. The Forbidden City caps its entries, the Temple of Heaven fills with dancers before nine, and the Summer Palace is a lake with a marble boat moored at the end of it.
- 1Forbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets Includedfrom $4
- 2T-Square & Forbidden City Group or Private Tourfrom $17
- 3All-Inclusive Tour: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Great Wallfrom $128
China’s most-booked days out.
Every Chinese tour review →More travellers book these than anything else in China. Each one holds its place on the strength of the day it delivers.
1
Mutianyu Great Wall Tours with Options
Review of Beijing Mubus Mutianyu Great Wall tours, with transport, guide, lunch, hiking, cable car options, timing, and practical tips.
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
4-Hour Small Group Tour to Forbidden City with Entry Tickets
from $15
8
Tiananmen Square Registration Service(Ticket)
from $3
What a day out in China actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A palace ticket comes in under the price of lunch; a car and a driver for the wall costs more than the flight to Xi’an.
Entry tickets, hutong and Bund walks, acrobatics seats and the tourist buses out to Mutianyu.
The full days: the wall with lunch, the warriors from the station, a Li River cruise, Zhangjiajie.
Private guides, a car for the day, and the two-day mountain runs that genuinely need one.
Three things that only happen in China.
Mountains and old towns exist everywhere. An army of clay soldiers guarding one tomb, a nursery full of giant pandas and a river of limestone towers do not.
The Terracotta Army
A well-digging team hit the first head in 1974. Three pits later there are thousands of figures, no two faces alike, still standing in the formation the First Emperor wanted around his tomb. Pit One is the view everyone has seen; Pit Three is the command post and takes ten minutes.
- 1Mini Group Xian Day Tour to Terracotta Army, City Wall, Pagoda and Muslim Bazaar★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,320 reviews
- 2Terracotta Army Mini Group or Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 926 reviews
- 3Terracotta Army Ticket & Guided Bus Tour with Options★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 579 reviews
The Panda Base
The breeding centre north of Chengdu opens at half past seven and the animals are awake for roughly the first two hours of it. Start at the nursery where the cubs are, work outwards, and be finished by the time the coach parties arrive and everything with fur climbs a tree to sleep.
- 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 Li River
The karst towers between Guilin and Yangshuo are the hills printed on the back of the twenty-yuan note. Cruise boats take about four hours downstream past bamboo rafts and water buffalo. Morning light is the good light, and the small rafts sit close enough to the water to feel it.
- 11 Day Li River Cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo with Private Guide & Driver★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 148 reviews
- 2Li River Cruise with Transfer to Yangshuo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 89 reviews
- 34 Star Luxury Li River Cruise with Buffet Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 80 reviews
Four Chinese bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a hotel lobby. These four run on daily caps, feeding times and train seats that are gone weeks before the date on your ticket.
- 01Forbidden City Tour(Group/Private)-Tickets IncludedEntry is capped for the day and sold by timed slot. Once the day is gone there is no queue to stand in instead.
- 02Mini Group Xian Day Tour to Terracotta Army, City Wall, Pagoda and Muslim BazaarThe Xi’an day runs on bullet-train seats. Book the train and the tour together, or watch yours leave from the platform.
- 03Giant Panda Breeding Research Base TicketThe pandas are awake early and asleep by late morning. A tour that collects you at nine has already missed the reason you came.
- 042-Day Avatar Mountain, Glass Bridge, and Mt. Tianmen TourZhangjiajie sells the glass bridge and the Tianmen cable car by timed ticket, and both shut in ice. Weather cancels more of these than anything else.
Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong all let you out of the airport.
Transit passengers get a visa-free window at the big mainland airports, which is why a layover tour here is a real product and not a consolation prize. The clock starts at immigration: a run to the wall needs most of it, a hutong lunch or an hour on the Bund needs half.
Hutong kitchens, Sichuan markets, and dumplings folded in front of you.
Eating is the cheapest thing you will do here and often the best of it. Walk a night market with somebody who can order, fold jiaozi in a Beijing courtyard, or find out what actually goes into mapo doufu in Chengdu.
- 1Authentic Local Food Tour in Central Shanghaifrom $79
- 2Beijing Hutong Walking Food and Beer Tour at Hidden Restaurantsfrom $80
- 3Xi’an Evening Food Tour by TukTukfrom $73
Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Shanghai: the run almost everybody does first.
Xi’an
Chengdu
Shanghai
Hong KongBy city — where the tours leave from
By kind of day — wall, palace, kitchen or river
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