4 Great Wall Day Trips From Beijing
Pick the wrong Great Wall section and you’ll spend the day shoulder to shoulder with a tour group instead of standing on ancient stone with the wind in your face.
Mutianyu: restored ramparts and a toboggan run down
About 70 kilometers and 90 minutes out, Mutianyu is the one to pick if you want the wall AND the ride: CNY 45 to get in, a cable car up, and a 1,580-meter toboggan track back down. Moderate crowds, dramatically restored towers, the best all-around first Great Wall experience going. Search Mutianyu Great Wall tours on GetYourGuide for current combo pricing.
Badaling: closest, and packed because of it
Badaling’s proximity is both the draw and the drawback. A bullet train gets you from Beijing North or Qinghe to Badaling Great Wall Station in 20 to 30 minutes, CNY 40 peak or CNY 35 low to enter, but it’s also the most tour-bus-heavy section by far. Public bus 877 now leaves mainly from Beitucheng Metro Station rather than the old Deshengmen stop, and touts in fake uniforms at either stop will tell you the bus is cancelled to steer you toward an overpriced van. It isn’t cancelled. Walk past them.
Jinshanling: the rugged one, and worth every extra minute
At 130 kilometers and a genuine 2 to 2.5 hour haul, Jinshanling costs more, CNY 65 peak or CNY 55 low plus CNY 60 for the cable car, but it delivers a partly-unrestored wall with real solitude, the section serious hikers and photographers actually pick on purpose.
Simatai: the only section you can climb after dark
Simatai runs CNY 40 to enter plus a CNY 40 night-visit supplement, the single Great Wall section in the whole system with an official after-dark visit. It sits beside the rebuilt Gubei Water Town, and a combo ticket covering both runs roughly CNY 180 to 220. Climbing ancient stone under floodlights instead of sunlight is worth planning a whole evening around.
Ming Tombs and Tianjin, the underrated add-ons
The Ming Tombs, CNY 60 peak or CNY 20 low, get rushed into the same day as Badaling or Mutianyu by most tour operators; giving them a dedicated half-day does the site more justice. Tianjin, a 30-minute bullet train ride for CNY 55 to 70, delivers the Italian Style Town, the Five Great Avenues’ colonial mansions and the Tianjin Eye as an entirely standalone day. Book rail tickets through 12306.cn .
Check the sky before you commit
Winter, December through February, is the season most likely to turn a full day on the wall hazy, with typical AQI readings of 50 to 150 and occasional spikes past 200. Pull up a real-time AQI app like aqicn.org or IQAir the morning you’re deciding between a full circuit and a shorter loop.
The verdict
Mutianyu for a first-timer who wants the whole package, Jinshanling for anyone chasing quiet, Simatai for the after-dark experience nothing else in the cluster offers. Anyone with more than a weekend should also weigh these against the multi-day trips guide , since Xi’an and Chengde reward a longer stay that a single Great Wall day can’t match. Search Tianjin day trips from Beijing on GetYourGuide to compare current pricing, and read Beijing’s own transport notice on the 877 relocation before relying on the old Deshengmen departure point.