Great Wall of China🏯

The Great Wall of China is one of the top five most impressive sights I have seen in my life, if not the most. If you are going to China, the Great Wall cannot be missed, we didn’t realise how incredible it would be, until we saw it in real life.

From Beijing there are around ten to twelve sections of the Great Wall that you can visit, with Badaling, Mutianyu and Jinshanling being the most popular spots. Mutianyu is the main place that most people go to from Beijing, with it being the closest and the most scenic. It is also famous for being able to toboggan down the Great Wall from Tower 6. However, as this is the most popular spot to go to, it is also always completely overcrowded. Throughout the year this spot is flooded with tourists, and with the time of year that we went (August), it is also local holidays, meaning it is ten times busier. We heard stories of it being like sardines, huge queues and sadly unbearable, especially with the heat, so we really wanted to avoid that as we knew it would ruin the experience for us.

As our phones like to listen to us talk, a reel randomly popped up on my Instagram with a girl sharing her experience of visiting the Great Wall. So big up @beckonhols and the original person who shared their itinerary with her, because we basically copied them both and had a pretty incredible time!

Jinshanling Section

We chose to go to the Jinshanling Section of the wall, which is a two and a half hour journey away from Beijing. One of the reasons we chose this spot is because it is one of the only places where you can go up the Great Wall for sunrise and sunset. To get there, you can either get a private taxi or the train. However, a private taxi is very expensive, with it costing between £50-£70 one way, so we would recommend not doing that! The best way is to get the slow train from Beijingbei Station to Gubeikou Station, which practically takes the same time as a taxi. It is also considerably cheaper, at less than £2 a ticket each, with an incredible, scenic journey the whole way there. We could spot parts of the Great Wall as we went by, so it was a pretty cool experience! We booked the earliest train on Trip.com, leaving Beijing at 6:55am and arriving at Gubeikou at 9:25am. If you don’t book tickets online, you can also book them in person at the station.

Once arriving at Gubeikou Station, to get to the Jinshanling entrance, it is roughly a twenty minute drive, so our hotel kindly picked us up for 60 Yuan (£6.60), which is a little pricey considering we got the train for less than £2. However, the taxis there are tourist prices and DiDi is pretty hard to book out there. For our accommodation, we booked a room at Jinshan Wangping Farmhouse, which is the same place recommended on the Instagram reel. There are a few different hotels around the Jinshanling entrance, so definitely check them all out as you might prefer a different one!

The hotel as a whole is in an ideal spot. It cost us only £15 for the night, which is incredible value as the entrance to the Great Wall is only a two minute walk away and we could also see views of the wall from our hotel. Aside from that, the staff there are incredibly helpful, kind and just overall very accommodating answering all of our questions. They also gave us a free upgrade, which was a nice added bonus! The room was amazing, considering the low price, we had two large queen beds, aircon and a fancy bathroom with a really nice shower and heated toilet! They also have a restaurant, so you can easily eat there in between exploring, which we made sure to do. Highly recommend them as the place to stay at for your Great Wall of China experience!

Tickets

The Jinshanling entrance is a two minute walk away from our hotel, and you can buy tickets at the office there. Tickets can be bought everyday from 4:00am to 5:00pm and they cost 65 Yuan (£7.15). Our host at the hotel told us to make sure we mentioned wanting to go up twice, as you are allowed to visit the Great Wall two times, with the same ticket within 24 hours. As we were planning to go up for sunset, we made sure to mention this and the price of the ticket was the same.

After purchasing tickets, you can either walk up to the Great Wall, via two walking routes or you can get the Cable Car up. As we were going up in the midday heat, we chose to get the Cable Car, which cost 60 Yuan each for a round trip. The Cable Cars are very cramped only fitting a maximum of two people and sadly don’t offer a proper clear view of the wall, as well as being very stuffy. However, they were a lot nicer than walking up in thirty eight degree heat! From the Cable Car exit, you just follow the path to the Great Wall before choosing between two routes, east or west, that take you along the top of the Great Wall.

As we went during prime time in the day, the queue for the Cable Cars took about twenty minutes, and then it took fifteen minutes to reach the top. Once we made it, it wasn’t that busy, we saw and passed a lot of people walking, but we were never on top of each other or pushing to see the views. As soon as you get off you are graced with the spectacular view of the Great Wall, you will see it go on for miles from all different directions.

For our first visit, we followed the path, taking us along the east side of the Great Wall. We spent three hours, stopping at different viewpoints, going up to the top of all the towers along the way and taking in the spectacular views. I don’t think any of the pictures do it justice at all! We also had such good weather, the sun was shining, it was blue skies and extremely hot, we were very lucky. Make sure to bring a lot of water and snacks with you, you will need it. If not, you can buy some at different stalls, however, they will be a little pricey.

We walked all the way to the little shop at the top, grabbed some refreshments before we kept going. We made it to an original and untouched section of the wall, before we turned around and made our way to the Cable Cars to head back down. We then relaxed at our hotel for a few hours, had some food, before going back up again for sunset.

Sunset 

As mentioned the Jinshanling entrance is one of the only places where you can see Sunset or Sunrise. If you want to go up for sunset, last entry into the Great Wall stops at 5:30pm. However, the Cable Cars from the bottom stop running at 5:00pm so if you want to take them up and not walk, make sure to get there beforehand. Once you are in, you are allowed to stay for as long as you want, however, to exit you will have to walk back down as the Cable Cars will be closed by then. We went back at 5:00pm and had to wait till 7:30pm for sunset, so we made the most of walking along different parts of the wall whilst we waited.

Sadly for us we had no sunset, the clouds rolled in and covered the view so we didn’t get to see anything. However, we still made the most of it, brought some snacks up with us, having a little picnic at the top as the sky began to dim. We then walked down twenty minutes to the bottom to the exit, taking the east side route down. The Cable Cars take you up the middle and there is a walking path on either side, which both take you back down to the entrance.

Sunrise

We also decided that we wanted to go up to the wall for sunrise. When are we ever going to get this opportunity again?! The tickets are pretty cheap for a Wonder of the World, so we wanted to do it all and were hoping for a beautiful sunrise!

The entrance to the Great Wall opens at 4:00am, and you can buy tickets on the door. The ticket office isn’t open, but you can purchase tickets through a QR code. As we had already used our second visit for sunset the previous day, we had to buy tickets again at 65 Yuan each. For this, make sure to have WeChat set up as buying tickets through there is cheaper than through AliPay. Alipay works with Trip.com so tickets through them cost £15 instead of £7.15. Obviously, doesn’t break the bank, but if we can save a few pennies here and there we will!

Once buying them online, we walked up to the Great Wall as the Cable Cars don’t start running till 8:00am. The walk took around twenty minutes and took us up the west side of the wall, the opposite side we took going down the previous night. It is a pretty easy walk, with a few steep set of stairs along the way. When we made it to the top, we were spoilt with different spots to watch the sunrise. We chose one of the towers, giving us a direct view to the sunrise in front of us. 

Sadly we didn’t have a perfect sunrise. Although the morning haze was actually really atmospheric and made the views even better, it covered the bottom, blocking the beginning so we couldn’t see anything. However, thirty minutes later, once it had risen above the clouds, we got to see the beautiful sun, lighting up the surrounding clouds and hills, it was worth the wait! We were here for about an hour before we made our way back down to leave.

Once we were at our hotel, we chilled, had some breakfast, before checking out and making our way back to Beijing. Sadly, we were told by the staff that our slow train had been cancelled that morning due to rain. If you know me, you know I was internally panicking, as we had a second train from Beijing to Xi’an that afternoon so we had to get back to Beijing! After going back and forth with ideas, we decided to bite the bullet and get a DiDi all the way to our train station. We had originally managed to book one for 300 Yuan, but when we got in, he said that we had to accept a return charge. I think we got scammed, but he said as he was driving us two and a half hours to Beijing, he would have to drive all the way back to Jinshanling without customers, so the return fare would cover that cost. We ended up paying him 500 Yuan (£55), which in London would be pretty cheap for a two and half hour taxi. If we weren’t in such a hurry we would have looked at other possible options but we didn’t want to risk missing our second train. 

Overall

Overall, the Great Wall of China was an unforgettable experience for us. It was our fourth Wonder of the World together and it topped all of them with how amazing it was. Definitely do your own research on which section you want to visit as it can vary what time of year you decide to go, but for us the Jinshanling section was perfect!