5 Days: Beijing and Beyond
Five days lets you slow down enough to add a proper day trip without cutting the greatest hits, and that fifth day is where this itinerary actually earns its keep. Get the entry logistics sorted first, because none of the rest matters if you land without a plan for the Great Firewall or a Forbidden City slot. Rather skip straight to the sights? Our 5-day Beijing itinerary covers the same five 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 | In city |
| 5 | Ming Tombs + Olympic Park | ~1hr / 50km + in city |
Before You Land
Roughly 55 nationalities, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and most of the EU among them, can use China’s 240-hour visa-free transit scheme to skip the visa entirely, provided you’re holding a confirmed onward ticket to a third country and entering through an approved port like Beijing. A separate 30-day visa-free entry scheme covers about 50 other countries but excludes the US, which is the detail Americans most often get backwards. The clock starts at midnight the day after you land, giving you ten full days, so five days leaves real slack. Install and test a VPN before your flight leaves the ground; the Great Firewall blocks Google, Maps, WhatsApp and Instagram, and it blocks most VPN providers’ own websites too once you’re already inside, so downloading one on arrival isn’t an option. Link Alipay or WeChat Pay to a foreign card in advance, passport plus international phone number, so it’s working from your first taxi ride rather than your third day.
Day 1: Tiananmen and the Forbidden City
Clear the airport, Airport Express to Sanyuanqiao from PEK or the Daxing Express to Caoqiao from PKX, ¥25-35 either way, and grab a Yikatong card or set up the transport QR code in your payment app. The Forbidden City is real-name, passport-required booking only, released online at 8pm Beijing time exactly seven days ahead, closed Mondays except holiday Mondays, and there is no gate ticket if you skipped this step. Tiananmen Square next door needs its own separate WeChat reservation and its own security screening. Climb Jingshan Park afterward, ¥2, for the single best rooftop view of the palace in the city, then have dinner at Siji Minfu, whose Peking duck beats the more famous Quanjude on price and quality without the tour-group routine.
Day 2: The Wall
Skip Badaling, the closest section and the one most buried in tour buses by mid-morning. Mutianyu, roughly 90 minutes out, gets you a cable car up (check current hours on the official Mutianyu site ), a toboggan down, and noticeably fewer people on the same wall. Go early. And no, it isn’t visible from space with the naked eye, regardless of what you’ve been told.
Day 3: Temple of Heaven and the Hutongs
Start at the Temple of Heaven , ¥15 for the park, watching locals do tai chi under the cypress trees before the tour groups arrive. Spend the afternoon in Wudaoying or Fangjia hutong rather than Nanluoguxiang, which has largely become coffee shops and souvenir stalls; the quieter lanes still read as an actual neighborhood. Evening is Houhai’s lakeside bars or a bowl of zhajiangmian somewhere unglamorous.
Day 4: Summer Palace, Lama Temple and 798
Give the Summer Palace the morning, ¥30 in peak season, and let yourself wander the lakes and covered walkways rather than rushing it. The Lama Temple now requires its own mandatory timed-entry booking, ¥25 flat, so reserve it the night before. Spend the late afternoon at 798 Art District , a converted factory complex off metro Line 14, free to walk and a solid counterpoint to several days of imperial architecture. Dinner in Sanlitun covers the meal and the nightlife both.
Day 5: Ming Tombs and Olympic Park
Do the Ming Tombs Need a Reservation Like the Forbidden City Does?
No. The Ming Tombs run on ordinary walk-up entry with no real-name booking or passport check, unlike the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Buy on-site and give the complex a genuine half-day rather than the rushed hour most bundled Great Wall tours squeeze it into.
This is the day most shorter trips skip, and it’s worth the extra time. The Ming Tombs, the burial complex of 13 Ming dynasty emperors, run ¥60 in peak season for general admission with individual tombs extra. In the afternoon, head to Olympic Park for the Bird’s Nest stadium and the Water Cube, both still striking a decade and a half after the 2008 Games. For dinner, Donglaishun does a copper-pot lamb hotpot that’s a good change of pace after four days of duck and noodles, around ¥100-150 a person.
Getting Around
The metro, run by Beijing Subway , covers nearly everything, around 27 lines with English signage and fares from ¥3. DiDi fills the gaps, but link your card through Alipay or WeChat first, since cards added directly inside the DiDi app frequently get blocked by the issuing bank. Taxis exist but few drivers speak English, so have your destination written in Chinese characters or ready in a translation app.
Where to Stay
Dongcheng, near Wangfujing, keeps the Forbidden City, the hutongs and Jingshan Park within walking distance, which matters more over five days than it sounds like on paper.
Money and Language
Everything here runs on the Chinese yuan. Alipay and WeChat Pay cover nearly every sit-down restaurant and shop, though small stalls and rural spots sometimes only take cash, so keep some on hand regardless. Mandarin is the official language, and while hotel staff and major attractions generally manage some English, a translation app closes the gap fast everywhere else.
Watch For
The “tea ceremony” invitation from a friendly stranger near Tiananmen or Wangfujing ends in an inflated bill every time, and the art-gallery pitch runs the identical scam. Buy Great Wall and Forbidden City tickets only through official channels, since touts working both queues sell fakes that won’t get you through the gate. Carry your actual passport, not a photo of it, since the Forbidden City, Tiananmen and the Lama Temple all check it at the gate, and a phone screenshot won’t satisfy the guard checking names against a booking list.
If you land in September, you’re arriving in the month locals themselves rate as Beijing’s best: clear air, comfortable temperatures, and none of the coal-heating haze that settles over the city in winter. Avoid booking around National Day Golden Week, October 1-7, 2026, if you can, since hotel prices run two to five times normal and every sight on this itinerary mobs out at once.
Five days gives you the full arc: imperial Beijing, the wall, the neighborhoods, and a real day trip, without anything feeling rushed or skipped. For the version of this trip that pushes on to Tianjin, see our 6-day Beijing-and-beyond itinerary .