Gloria Yu, PhD
Beijing is where most China journeys begin, and for good reason: it holds the country’s imperial core, its most famous wall, and a living old-city fabric that the guidebooks only half explain. The trick is not seeing everything. It is seeing the right things at the right hour, and leaving room for the parts no itinerary can name.
When to go
Spring, April into early May, and autumn, late September through November, give you clear dry days and the best light on the wall. Summer is hot and crowded. Winter is quiet and sharp, with a beauty of its own if you pack for it. Avoid the first week of October, when the National Day holiday puts the whole country on the move and every icon is at its worst.
The icons, and when to do them
The Forbidden City is best before opening, when the courtyards are empty and the light is low. Tickets are released up to seven days ahead through the Palace Museum’s official channels, one per passport, and you will need your passport number to book; entry is through the Meridian Gate on the south side. The Great Wall is busiest mid-morning, so a dawn visit to a quieter stretch is worth the early start. The Temple of Heaven rewards the early riser too: the gates open at six, the locals are out practising, and the park is doing what it was built for.
The old city
The hutongs are where Beijing still lives at human scale. Walk them in the morning, eat breakfast with a family, sit a while with a calligrapher. The Drum and Bell Towers anchor the northern edge of the old city, and the lanes around Shichahai reward wandering; Nanluoguxiang is the busiest and the least rewarding by afternoon. This is the city the towers replaced, and the part most visitors never see.
Where to sleep
A restored courtyard house in the hutongs of Dongcheng puts you inside the old city and within walking distance of the Forbidden City. The international hotels along the East Chang’an Avenue corridor are efficient and entirely generic. Choose them for meetings, not for a sense of where you are.
How to move
The subway is extensive and costs a few yuan a ride, and you can pay at the gate with the transit QR inside Alipay or WeChat. A car and a driver who knows the timing of the sites is still the better instrument on a designed day. For the onward leg, the high-speed train to Shanghai is the point rather than the technicality: about four and a half hours through the country you came to see, booked on the official rail app or a platform such as Trip.com, with your passport as your ticket at the gate.
What to eat
Peking duck is the obvious one and worth doing properly, in a private room rather than a queue. Past it, the regional kitchens that pass through Beijing are the real story: a market at six in the morning, a private dining room in a lane house, tea with the person who grew it. Eat the city, not the menu.
A note on entry
Many passports are not on China’s visa-free list, and the route is worth establishing before you design a single day. The Entry and Routing Plan sets out your route, documents and timing in writing, and it is yours to keep, with us or without us.