TIPS: Planning a visit to Beijing
I frenetically started planning for Beijing the week before my trip, and here is what I found!
Beijing is a big city (compared to SG at least haha) and is easy to navigate around via public transport, but if you want to visit the tourist sites or need to take the trains some advance planning is indeed needed as tickets sell out fast! But once you settle the apps and have your tickets booked, everything else should be fairly straightforward.
Tips for planning
Install Wechat Pay or Alipay ahead of your trip
Perhaps the most important thing you need to do in advance! Bring some cash along in case, but you should be able to use these payment methods most of the time. (There was only once when my payment through Alipay failed)
Use Trip.com for your accomodation bookings
I found that Trip.com is cheaper than both Booking.com and Agoda for China hotels. Remember to also make sure that the accomodation that you book for can accept foreigners! You can usually find this stated, or check to make sure there are recent reviews from foreigners. e.g. in Hostelworld, certain high rated hostels have it stated under their description that they only accept Chinese nationals
For budget solo travellers: It is important to note that hostels in Beijing aren’t as common as in other parts of China - there are some but they aren’t very highly rated, so I ended up staying in hotels for this segment of the trip.
I stayed at Peking Yard Hotel and Read & Rest Hotel in Beijing. More pricy than my typical but I loved the stays in these. Peking Yard Hotel in particular was very nicely designed (e.g. curtains that automatically close once you pull them, toilet flushes the moment you close the door), and also came with coffee and breakfast every morning. Read and Rest Hotel was right by the last stop of the airport express, and also has a laundry machine and dryer you can pay to use, so was a handy stop at the tail end of my trip. I would have loved to stay at Beijing Downtown Travelotel which has really good reviews, but unfortunately their availability did not make my dates. For those who are looking to visit the Great Wall, the Travelotel has a day trip to the gubeikou great wall which seems like a pretty good option.
Remember to install an esim and VPN in advance
I used Trip.com for my esim (much cheaper than airalo for China esim) and LetsVPN for when using my laptop on wifi. Both of these worked great.
You can navigate around Beijing using Apple Maps, or input the locations in an itinerary on trip.com and it can link to Baidu Maps and show you the route (this is sometimes more accurate than apple maps in showing the subway routes)
Beijing metro also now let’s you tap in to the airport express and subway using a mastercard (youtrip card works!) so you don’t need to buy seperate tickets.
The two main tourist sites I visited in Beijing were the Forbidden Palace Musuem and Summer Palace. The Forbidden Palace needs to be booked in advance! I booked the ticket for this first and arranged the rest of my itinerary around that. Sales open a week in advance and run out quickly. You can easily book the tickets online here: https://bookingticket.dpm.org.cn/
A ticket to the Forbidden Palace also gives you access to Tiananmen Square on the same day.
For the Summer Palace, tickets can be booked via the wechat app if you have a China number. Otherwise, you can easily buy tickets on site the day itself, just remember to bring your passport with you.
These sites are huge so be prepared for a lot of walking!
How to visit the Great Wall of China? The common locations on the Great Wall for visiting are Badaling (most crowded), Mutianyu (some of my friends recommended this, you can do it via a tour with Klook), and also Jinshanling (further away, if you would like to do a hike!).
I visited the Jinshanling Great Wall and stayed at Gubeikou for this. I booked a train ticket from Beijing North to Gubeikou, and was picked up by the guesthouse owners for my stay at the Gubeikou Great Wall Yunyeshu Boutique Guesthome. All tickets on the suburban railway from Beijing North to Gubeikou are labelled as standing tickets, so not to worry as if you are going end to end you should not have any issue getting a seat. The guesthouse is small and cozy with 4 rooms, and the hosts help guide you through your entire stay, from tips on how best to hike the great wall, providing transportation services, breakfast and dinner, as well as karaoke at night! Transport and food come at additional but very reasonable costs. Definitely a good option to consider if you want a more adventurous visit to the Great Wall! As it is a smaller guesthouse, the people you meet will depend on who else is staying at the time. I met a another Singaporean girl (who happened to be my age) and a french couple. On the second night it was just me at the guesthouse but the owners were lovely and hospitable all the same.
Another option if you are looking for a more hostel dorm vibe is the Great Wall Boxhouse, which I did not go to but also found online.
Other points to note
One thing I only realised while there - Shopping malls in Beijing differ from those we have in SG! The shopping malls are very much for shopping of retail items. They do not have supermarkets in the mall, and I also did not find pharmacies. Search for these seperately on maps.