4 Days: Beijing and Beyond
Four days is where Beijing stops feeling like a checklist and starts feeling like a city you’re actually visiting: the imperial core, the wall, the old neighborhoods, and now a full day for the parts most two-day tourists never get to. Sort your entry logistics first, then dig in. Skipping the visa talk, our 4-day Beijing itinerary covers the same four days in-city only.
Book these before you go:
- Forbidden City tickets release online exactly 7 days ahead and sell out for weekends
- A Mutianyu Great Wall tour if you’d rather skip arranging your own driver
- A hotel in Dongcheng near Wangfujing; check rates on Agoda before you land
| Day | Focus | Distance from center |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiananmen Square + Forbidden City + Jingshan Park | In city |
| 2 | Great Wall at Mutianyu | ~90 min / 73km |
| 3 | Temple of Heaven + hutongs | In city |
| 4 | Summer Palace + Lama Temple + 798 + Sanlitun | In city |
Before You Land
If you’re from one of roughly 55 eligible countries and hold a confirmed onward ticket to a third country, the 240-hour visa-free transit scheme lets you skip the visa entirely through an approved port like Beijing; the ten-day clock starts at midnight the day after you arrive, so four days barely touches it. Install and test a VPN before you fly, since the Great Firewall blocks Google, Maps, WhatsApp and Instagram, along with most VPN providers’ own sites once you’re already inside. Link Alipay or WeChat Pay to a foreign card ahead of time, passport plus international phone number is all it takes, because you’ll want it working from the first taxi, not fumbled with at the hotel desk.
Day 1: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City
Clear the airport (Airport Express to Sanyuanqiao from PEK, or Daxing Express to Caoqiao from PKX, ¥25-35), pick up a Yikatong card or activate the transport QR in your payment app, and head straight for the Forbidden City if you booked it. Real-name, passport-required, released online at 8pm Beijing time exactly seven days out, no gate tickets, closed Mondays except holiday Mondays. Tiananmen Square next door needs its own separate WeChat reservation and its own security line. Afterward, climb Jingshan Park, ¥2, for the best rooftop view of the palace anywhere in the city, then eat at Siji Minfu for Peking duck, which beats the more famous Quanjude on both price and quality without the tour-group formula.
Day 2: The Wall
How Do You Choose Between Mutianyu and Badaling on a Short Trip?
Pick Mutianyu. Badaling is the closest section and also the one buried in tour buses by mid-morning. Mutianyu runs about the same ninety-minute drive, gives you a cable car and a toboggan run down, and carries a fraction of the crowd for the same stretch of history.
Skip Badaling, the closest section and also the one buried in tour buses by mid-morning. Mutianyu, about 90 minutes out, gives you a cable car up (check current hours on the official Mutianyu site ), a toboggan down, and a fraction of the crowd for the same wall. Go early, before the heat and the groups both build. And no, you genuinely cannot see it from space with the naked eye.
Day 3: Temple of Heaven and the Hutongs
Start at the Temple of Heaven , ¥15 for the park, and watch locals doing tai chi under the cypress trees before the crowds show up. In the afternoon, choose Wudaoying or Fangjia hutong over Nanluoguxiang, which has drifted into coffee shops and souvenir stalls; the quieter lanes still feel like a neighborhood. Evening belongs to Houhai’s lakeside bars or a bowl of zhajiangmian somewhere unpretentious.
Day 4: Summer Palace, Lama Temple and 798
Give the Summer Palace the morning; it’s a genuinely huge complex of lakes, temples and covered walkways, ¥30 in peak season, and worth the unhurried stroll rather than a rushed hour. From there, the Lama Temple (Yonghegong) now requires its own mandatory timed-entry booking online or via WeChat, ¥25 flat, so sort that the night before, not at the gate. Spend the late afternoon at 798 Art District , a converted 1950s factory complex reachable off metro Line 14 plus a short walk, free to wander and a good counterpoint to three straight days of imperial architecture. Close the trip with dinner in Sanlitun, which covers both a solid meal and Beijing’s most reliable nightlife strip if you’ve got the energy left.
Getting Around
The metro, run by Beijing Subway , handles almost everything, around 27 lines with English signage and fares from ¥3. DiDi covers the rest, but link your card through Alipay or WeChat first, since cards added directly inside the DiDi app often get blocked by the issuing bank.
Where to Stay
Dongcheng, near Wangfujing, keeps the Forbidden City, the hutongs and Jingshan Park all within an easy walk, which saves real time across four days of moving around.
Watch For
The “tea ceremony” invitation from a friendly stranger near Tiananmen or Wangfujing ends in an inflated bill every time; the art-gallery version runs the same play. Buy Great Wall and Forbidden City tickets only through official channels, since touts working both queues sell fakes.
Four days is enough to see Beijing’s greatest hits without sprinting through any of them, which is really the whole point of giving the city more than a weekend. Weaving in the rest of China, our Beijing-and-beyond guide rounds out the entry rules and day-trip options this itinerary keeps to the essentials.