7 Days in Beijing: First-Timer Plan
Seven days is enough time in Beijing to stop rushing entirely. You still hit every headline sight, the palace, the wall, the temples, but now there’s a second wall day thrown in and a full afternoon to just wander wherever looks interesting. Six days works nearly as well, see our 6-day plan ; building a trip beyond the city, our 7-day Beijing-and-beyond itinerary swaps a day for Tianjin instead.
Book these before you go:
- Forbidden City tickets release online exactly 7 days ahead and sell out for weekends
- A Mutianyu Great Wall tour for day two, or a Jinshanling tour for day six
- A hotel in Dongcheng near Wangfujing; check rates on Agoda before September and October fill up
| Day | Focus | Time needed |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiananmen Square + Forbidden City + Jingshan Park | Full day |
| 2 | Great Wall at Mutianyu | Full day (incl. drive) |
| 3 | Temple of Heaven + hutongs + Qianmen | Full day |
| 4 | Summer Palace + Lama Temple + Sanlitun | Full day |
| 5 | Ming Tombs + 798 Art District | Half day + half day |
| 6 | Great Wall at Jinshanling | Full day (incl. drive) |
| 7 | Panjiayuan Market + Olympic Park | Half day + half day |
Day 1: The Imperial Core
Tiananmen Square opens the trip, and it needs its own advance reservation through the WeChat mini-program, one to seven days ahead, passport ready at the gate. The scale of the open ground is startling, Mao’s mausoleum on one side, the National Museum of China on the other.
Why Can’t You Just Buy a Forbidden City Ticket at the Gate?
The Palace Museum sells every ticket online, real-name and passport-required, released at 8pm Beijing time exactly seven days before your visit date. There is no ticket counter and no walk-up entry under any circumstances, and weekend dates vanish within minutes of release, so book before you plan anything else.
Walk north into the Forbidden City next. Give it three to four hours, it’s closed Mondays outside holiday weeks, and watch for the bronze fire vats standing in every courtyard and the glazed roofline figures marking each hall’s rank as you move through. Finish at Jingshan Park just behind the walls, where the climb to Wanchun Pavilion delivers the best rooftop view in the city for a couple of yuan, ideally at sunset. Grab dinner on Wangfujing or in a nearby hutong.
Day 2: The Great Wall at Mutianyu
Give this its own full day, the drive alone runs about ninety minutes each way. Mutianyu is the smart first Great Wall stop: well-restored watchtowers, a cable car up (check current hours on the official Mutianyu site ) so you’re not exhausted before you even start walking, and a toboggan run back down that ends up being the best part of the whole day. Badaling sits closer to the city but pays for the convenience in tour-bus traffic, the single most crowded stretch of wall near Beijing. Budget three to four hours actually on the stones, and here’s my one real opinion for this trip: get there right at opening. It beats both the crowds and the midday heat, and the light on the old brick is better before the tour buses arrive in force anyway. The same logic applies at the Forbidden City the day before, early beats late every time.
Day 3: Temple, Hutongs, and Old Streets
The Temple of Heaven opens the morning, its round Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests rising off tiered marble terraces unlike anything else in the city. The park around it fills with locals playing cards, practicing tai chi, or moving through slow fan routines, worth ten quiet minutes on a bench.
Spend the afternoon in the hutongs, the famous but commercialized Nanluoguxiang or, better, the quieter lanes around Wudaoying and Houhai for grey-brick courtyard homes without the coffee-shop crowd. Close the day at Qianmen and the Dashilan alleys, a restored pedestrian street lined with century-old shops selling silk and handmade shoes, polished but genuinely old underneath.
Day 4: Summer Palace and Lama Temple
Spend the morning and early afternoon at the Summer Palace , the sprawling lake-and-pavilion retreat where Qing emperors escaped the summer heat. Climb Longevity Hill for the view over Kunming Lake, then walk the painted Long Corridor along the shore, easily a half-day-plus stop on its own.
Head to the Lama Temple (Yonghegong) in the late afternoon, a working Tibetan Buddhist monastery thick with incense and striking statuary, including a towering Buddha carved from a single piece of sandalwood. Book the mandatory timed entry online or via WeChat the night before, it applies to every visitor now. Close the day in Sanlitun, where Taikoo Li’s glass towers and the bar street nearby make for an easy dinner and a drink.
Day 5: Ming Tombs and 798 Art District
Give the Ming Tombs a proper half-day rather than the rushed stop most tour buses turn it into. Walk the Sacred Way first, lined with stone animals and officials guarding the approach, then visit Changling, the largest tomb in the complex, no reservation needed here, just buy on-site.
Spend the afternoon at 798 Art District , a former 1950s weapons factory now packed with contemporary galleries and street art across its old brick walls, free to just walk around. This past spring the district hosted Beijing Art Season, pulling in art institutions from roughly twenty countries with UCCA running a major cross-disciplinary show tied to the Year of the Horse, a good reminder that the galleries here rotate constantly and whatever’s up when you visit will be different from what a guidebook describes. Ride the metro to Wangjing South on Line 14 and finish with a short taxi or walk.
Day 6: A Second Great Wall Day at Jinshanling
Use this extra day for a second, rougher section of wall rather than more shopping. Jinshanling runs a longer drive than Mutianyu, two to two and a half hours, and the restoration is patchier, watchtowers crumbling at the edges in places, but that’s what gets you three to four hours of hiking with a fraction of the crowds. Bring more water than feels necessary and proper shoes, the footing gets uneven fast in the rougher stretches. Head back into the city for a final big dinner, duck again if you haven’t had enough of it yet.
Day 7: Panjiayuan Market and Olympic Park
Spend the morning at Panjiayuan Antique Market, one of the largest antique markets in the country, stalls piled with old porcelain, Mao-era memorabilia, and jewelry of wildly varying authenticity. The permanent stores run daily, but the outdoor street stalls only set up on weekends, so time this for a Saturday or Sunday if bargaining through the full spread matters to you. Bargain hard and expect the first price offered to be a starting point, not a real one.
In the afternoon, head to Olympic Park to see the Bird’s Nest stadium and the Water Cube up close, both still striking a couple of decades on from the 2008 Games. It’s a fittingly modern bookend after a week spent mostly among dynasties, temples, and stone. Wrap the trip with any last souvenir shopping and one more dumpling dinner before heading to the airport, and keep your passport handy right up until you’re through the gate, this city has asked for it more times than you probably expected by now.