Beijing: Forbidden City, Tiananmen & Great Wall Private Tour

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.98 (230 reviews) 99% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/22

Duration8h–9h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN · DE +3

PickupAt your hotel

Three Beijing landmarks in one day—without the crowds or the logistics

You visit three of Beijing's most significant sites in a single day without managing tickets, transport, or timing yourself. Your English-speaking guide meets you at your hotel, drives you to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, then takes you an hour outside the city to Mutianyu Great Wall, where you choose between a cable car or chairlift up and either a toboggan or cable car down. Lunch at a local restaurant and all entry fees are included, and you're back at your hotel by evening.

8h–9h

Step-by-step itinerary

Beijing highlights and Great Wall visit

Pick up at hotel lobby
Visit Tian’anmen Square
See Tian’anmen Rostrum and Mao portrait
Enter Forbidden City through Meridian Gate
Explore Forbidden City for 1.5 to 2 hours
Drive 1 hour to village near Mutianyu Wall
Have local Chinese lunch
Drive 30 minutes to Mutianyu Great Wall
Take cable car or chairlift up the Wall
Hike and explore Mutianyu Wall for 1 to 2 hours
Return down by toboggan or cable car

The Experience

You're picked up at your hotel in the morning, and your guide is already waiting with a car that's quiet and cool. Tiananmen Square comes first—the world's largest public square, and the kind of place where you understand why it's been photographed so many times. You stand in front of the Rostrum with Mao's portrait behind it, and the scale of it hits differently when you're actually there. Your guide points out the sightlines, the history, the way the space was designed. It's not rushed.

Then you walk through the Meridian Gate into the Forbidden City, and you've got 1.5 to 2 hours to move through it at your own pace. The palace complex is enormous—imperial gardens, temples, courtyards that open into other courtyards. Your guide explains the architecture and the dynasties without turning it into a lecture. You can ask questions or just walk and look. After that, you drive about an hour out to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, which stays less crowded than the closer sections. Lunch happens at a local Chinese restaurant on the way—the menu is ordered to your budget, and you eat what the locals eat.

At Mutianyu, you choose: cable car up or chairlift up. Either way, you spend 1 to 2 hours hiking the wall itself, walking the watchtowers, understanding how it was built and why it matters. On the way down, there's an option for a toboggan ride—a fast, winding descent that feels like a small adrenaline hit after hours of walking. Or you can take the cable car back down if you'd rather not. The whole day is eight hours, and everything is included: the tickets, the transport between sites, the guide, the lunch, the cable car or chairlift. You don't arrange any of it yourself.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel pickup and drop-off in a private air-conditioned vehicle with an English-speaking guide and driver.
You get entrance tickets to both the Forbidden City and Mutianyu Great Wall, roundtrip cable car or chairlift access at the wall, and the option of a toboggan descent.
Lunch is at a local Chinese restaurant with a menu chosen to your budget.
All transport between sites is covered.

Good to know

Easy physical level

Operated by Catherine Lu Tours

Is this one for you?Book this if you want Beijing's three main sights in one day without arranging separate tickets, transport, or timing—the fixed itinerary and private guide handle all of that, leaving you to focus on what you're seeing.