25 Best Things to Do in Beijing (2026): A Local's Honest List

The Forbidden City — the walled palace complex at the heart of the city, home to 24 emperors across the Ming and Qing dynasties; book tickets days ahead, it sells out.

The Great Wall — Mutianyu or Badaling for most visitors, a half-day-minimum round trip from the city.

Temple of Heaven — a circular complex of altars and halls where emperors prayed for good harvests; architecturally distinct from the Forbidden City's rectilinear palace design, and far less crowded.

Summer Palace — Empress Dowager Cixi's lakeside retreat, built around the vast Kunming Lake; a genuinely different pace from the city-center sites.

Lama Temple (Yonghegong) — Beijing's largest functioning Tibetan Buddhist temple, with a 26-meter sandalwood Buddha statue in its final hall.

Hutongs — the old courtyard-house lane neighborhoods, best explored around Nanluoguxiang, Shichahai lake and the Drum and Bell Towers; a rickshaw or e-bike tour covers more ground than walking alone.

798 Art Zone — a former military-electronics factory complex converted into Beijing's contemporary art district, with galleries, street art and a noticeably younger, more design-forward energy than the historic sites.

Wangfujing and Qianmen Street — Beijing's classic shopping streets, good for a sense of the modern city without leaving the center.

Beijing Hutong, Drum Tower & Fortune Temple — a half-day guided loop that strings the lane neighborhoods together with a stop at a lesser-known fortune-telling temple most visitors never find on their own.

Peking duck — book a restaurant specializing in the wood-fired roasting method, not a hotel buffet version.

A dumpling or home-cooking class — consistently rated by past visitors as the single best half-day activity in the city, because it's hosted in a real home rather than a commercial kitchen.

Paper-cutting and tea tasting — a traditional craft workshop with a local artist, a quiet counterpoint to the big historic sites.

National Art Museum of China and the China Science and Technology Museum — both excellent, both chronically under-visited by tourists racing between the Wall and the Palace.

Chairman Mao Memorial Hall — a sobering, free-entry site requiring ID and advance online reservation, still visited daily by long lines of Chinese citizens — worth seeing for what it reveals about how modern China relates to its own history.