The Great Wall

The section everyone has heard of and the one with a high-speed railway station under it: 60 km northwest of the centre in Yanqing, restored in the 1950s and opened to visitors before any other stretch, now a 5A site whose north side climbs to the 12th tower and whose south side stops at 'tower seven and a half'. It is the easiest wall to reach without a car and, on any holiday, the most crowded place you will stand in China.

The first-timer's wall: 73 km northeast in Huairou, a restored stretch with 20-odd towers open by day, a cable car up, a toboggan down, and — since the operator's own rules list passports alongside Chinese ID — the section whose real-name booking works most predictably for foreign visitors. Fewer people than Badaling, no railway, so it is a bus-and-shuttle or a car day.

The wall you can see at night and sleep under: Simatai keeps its unrestored Ming brickwork on a knife-edge ridge 120 km northeast in Miyun, and since 2014 the resort company that runs it has put a purpose-built 'ancient' canal town at its foot. To be clear — the town is a 2014 replica in the Wuzhen mould, the wall is the real thing — and the combination is the only realistic way to spend an evening on the Great Wall.

Get the wall ticket first, then the train: Badaling is booked online by session (morning or afternoon, up to 7 days ahead, no ticket window), so the slot you win decides which train you need — book the ticket before the train, not after. This page covers getting to the wall: three official ways to reach Badaling without a tour, plus what the official site itself points foreigners to. The three are the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed line to Badaling Great Wall station (the deep one under the mountain), the suburban S2 railway from Huangtudian, and buses 877 / 880 / 919 from Deshengmen. Which one you take depends on whether you can buy a train ticket on 12306 with a passport, so that is the first question here.

The hiker's wall, and technically not in Beijing: Jinshanling runs 10-odd km along the Hebei side of the Miyun border, 130 km from the city, with the densest run of watchtowers on the Ming wall — nearly a hundred, averaging 140 m apart — most of them left as the 1570s left them. Built under Qi Jiguang; the brickwork is stamped with the regiments that laid it.

The fortress in the pass, 50 km out on the Badaling road: Juyongguan is the walled garrison town (1368, Xu Da) that Badaling was built to guard, with 4 km of wall climbing both valley sides and, in the middle of the road, the Cloud Platform — a 1345 Yuan gate carved with Buddhist texts in six scripts, a national monument in its own right. Closer and emptier than Badaling; you climb straight from the car park.

The founder's tomb and the biggest: Changling holds the Yongle emperor (r. 1402-24), builder of the Forbidden City, and its Ling'en Hall — 60 nanmu hardwood columns, the largest surviving nanmu hall in China — is the finest Ming timber building outside Beijing's palace. Nothing is excavated here; you see the ceremonial front, not a vault.

The one Ming tomb you can go down into: Dingling, the tomb of the Wanli emperor (r. 1572-1620), was excavated in 1956-58 and its underground palace — five stone chambers 27 m down, empty thrones, replica coffins — is open. The finds are in the museum above ground. Of the tombs open in the Ming valley (seven by late 2025, four of them walk-in), this is the one that justifies the 50 km trip.

The approach the emperors' coffins took: a straight ceremonial road from the 1540 stone gateway through the Great Red Gate and the stele pavilion to a double file of 1435 stone figures — 24 animals and 12 officials — ending at the Dragon-and-Phoenix Gate. It is the most photographed part of the valley and the one drivers skip because there is nowhere obvious to stop.