6 Days: Beijing and Beyond
Six days is enough to treat Beijing as a launchpad rather than just a destination, and the extra day here is a genuine day trip that most itineraries never mention because it only makes sense once you understand how the entry rules actually work. Not interested in leaving the city? Our 6-day Beijing itinerary swaps this day for a second Great Wall section 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 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 |
| 6 | Tianjin day trip | ~30 min by rail / 120km |
Before You Land
China’s 240-hour visa-free transit scheme covers roughly 55 nationalities, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and most of the EU included, letting you skip the visa entirely if you’re holding a confirmed onward ticket to a third country and entering through an approved port like Beijing. The clock starts at midnight the day after arrival and runs a full ten days, so six days still leaves room. Install and test a VPN before you fly, since the Great Firewall blocks Google, Maps, WhatsApp and Instagram, plus most VPN providers’ own websites once you’re already inside the country. Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay against a foreign card in advance, passport plus international phone number, so it’s live from your first taxi rather than day three.
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, and grab a Yikatong card or the transport QR in your payment app. The Forbidden City is real-name, passport-required, released online at 8pm Beijing time exactly seven days out, closed Mondays except holiday Mondays, no gate tickets. Tiananmen Square next door needs its own separate WeChat reservation and security line. Climb Jingshan Park, ¥2, for the best rooftop view of the palace anywhere in the city, then eat 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; it’s the closest section and the one most buried in tour buses. Mutianyu, about 90 minutes out, gets you a cable car up (check current hours on the official Mutianyu site ), a toboggan down, and far fewer people on the same wall. Go early. It is not visible from space with the naked eye, whatever you’ve heard.
Day 3: Temple of Heaven and the Hutongs
Start at the Temple of Heaven , ¥15 for the park, watching tai chi under the cypress trees before the crowds arrive. Spend the afternoon in Wudaoying or Fangjia hutong instead of Nanluoguxiang, which has drifted into coffee shops and souvenir stalls. Evening is Houhai’s lakeside or a bowl of zhajiangmian somewhere unpretentious.
Day 4: Summer Palace, Lama Temple and 798
The Summer Palace , ¥30 in peak season, deserves an unhurried morning among its lakes and covered walkways. The Lama Temple now requires its own mandatory timed-entry booking, ¥25 flat, reserved the night before. Spend the late afternoon at 798 Art District , free to walk, then have dinner in Sanlitun.
Day 5: Ming Tombs and Olympic Park
The Ming Tombs, burial site of 13 Ming dynasty emperors, run ¥60 peak season with individual tombs extra, no reservation needed, and deserve a real half-day rather than a rushed bundled-tour hour. Afternoon belongs to Olympic Park, the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube still worth seeing well over a decade after 2008. Dinner is copper-pot lamb hotpot at Donglaishun, ¥100-150 a person.
Day 6: Tianjin, Because You Can
Does a Tianjin Day Trip Use Up Any of Your Visa-Free Time?
No. Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are grouped together as one connected zone under the visa-free transit rules, so moving between them doesn’t touch your entry clock or require a separate check-in. It counts as a single continuous stay, the same as if you’d never left Beijing.
Here’s the part that makes six days worth it: a high-speed rail trip to Tianjin, about 30 minutes each way and somewhere around ¥55-70, is an easy standalone day, walk the old European concessions along the river, try Tianjin’s goubuli baozi, and be back in Beijing in time for dinner. If a bullet-train city doesn’t appeal, swap in Jinshanling instead, a rugged, thin-crowd stretch of wall about two hours out that suits hikers who found Mutianyu still a little too polished.
Getting Around
The metro, run by Beijing Subway , covers nearly everything, around 27 lines, English signage, fares from ¥3. DiDi fills the gaps, 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 within walking distance, saving real time across six days of moving around the city.
Watch For
The “tea ceremony” invitation near Tiananmen or Wangfujing ends in an inflated bill every time, and the art-gallery pitch is the same scam in different clothes. Buy Great Wall and Forbidden City tickets only through official channels, since touts near both sell fakes. Carry your actual passport, not a photo, since it gets checked at every one of these gates.
Six days turns Beijing from a checklist into a base, imperial sights, the wall, the neighborhoods, and a genuine trip out of the city, all inside a window that barely touches your visa-free clock. Have a full week, our 7-day Beijing-and-beyond itinerary adds a market morning before you fly out.