3 Days in Beijing

How to see everything in Bejing in 3 Days

We went on a trip to Beijing, China last Thanksgiving. Yes, I took me a while to upload everything but better late than never. We love taking short trips, usually 3 - 4 days with as much sightseeing as possible. I am a master in organizing trips from the start to the end.

China might not be your top choice on your bucket list or this country did not even make it to your bucket list but it is definitely a place worth visiting.

China was just a random and spontaneous trip that we booked. Long story short I am on the internet and I check out current flight deals and Beijing was one of them. Disclaimer: Turns out China is a lot more expensive than we expected.

You might think we are crazy (family, friends, and co-workers at least thought that) but let me tell you that 3 days are enough to visit Beijing! Keep on reading to find out how!

I organized a private tour for us. I booked the tour via Chinatours.net.com. Yes, the web address looks sketchy but they have tons of great reviews on the internet. So we took our chance and book a tour with them. We got picked up from the airport and our tour started right away. We arrived around 6 AM at the airport - perfect timing!

Day 1 Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City and Jing Shan Park

On our first day, we visited Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. We strolled through the Jing Shan Park and hiked all the way to the Temple of Heaven. In the afternoon we arrived at the hotel. The hotel was in a top location - downtown - and it looked super nice. Our room was on the 8th floor so the view was not too shabby either. I can strongly recommend the Hotel Sunworld Dynasty. We took a quick nap and started our evening tour. I booked a Food Tour for us because what would visit China be without trying their local dished. Four hours and over 20+ dished and snacks later we made it back to the hotel. If you ever plan on doing a food tour, do not eat before! We ate a lot of noodle dishes, soups, dim sum, and donkey burger.

Day 2 Badaling Great Wall and Ming Tombs (Dingling)

We started our day with leftover food from yesterday because nobody has time for a real breakfast. I always say we need to prioritize and my makeup, hair, and outfit definitely beats food.

We visited the Ming Tombs. I don’t have anything spectacular to tell you about this besides that they were tombs and Chinese people don’t take images there because they think that the evil gets capture in their photos. Which brings some sort of bad vibe to their house.

After that, we had a tasty Chinese lunch. Gosh, I love all their dishes and sides you get - makes me want to go back just to eat their food. Traditional Chinese food is not fatty or oily like the Chinese takeout you get here. After we stuffed our faces we drove to the Great Wall. We had around 2h to just walk around, hiked the wall, take photos. The photo opportunities are amazing. It is even more stunning in person! The history of the wall provides tons of information and history but I am not going to talk in detail about this because otherwise you will be still sitting here tomorrow reading my post. I want to let you know that the Great Wall is the “the longest cemetery on earth” because everyone who died trying to build the wall was buried under it. That is actually quite creepy when you think about it. They estimated that around 1 million people died building this wall.

It was exhausting to hike the wall because the steps are all sized differently. It takes some serious power to hike this beast.

Back at the hotel we change and discovered Beijing Downtown on our own. We were looking for souvenirs and let me tell you they are expensive. “Made in China but prices like you are in the US”. Overall we spent a horrendous amount on souvenirs but we bought things like silk bedding, jade, tons of tea and other souvenirs.

We had dinner at Da Dong but I wouldn’t recommend going here. The duck was tasty but nothing out of this world - I grew up eating duck so it’s hard to impress me. This place is quite overpriced and overrated. The service was horrible and this was not only because we had a language barrier. Our table was in an extra room which made me feel like they just put the foreigners in one corner and let them wait. The only good thing about this place was the German Hefeweizen that was super affordable.

Day 3: Lama Temple, Bell and Drum Towers, Zoo and Summer Palace

Our last day in Beijing arrived. Honestly, I felt like we already spent an entire week here. On our last day, we visited the Zoo. A must - do for us since we love zoos. Afterwards, we stopped at the Summer Palace. The summer palace was used by the emperors during summer. You will see a huge man-made lake, during summer you can take boat rides from the zoo to the summer palace.

Our last stop was the Lampa Temple. This is Buddha temple is huge and stunning! You have to experience it for yourself to get the full experience. The entire place smelled like incense and it just feels so spiritual.

My end resume is that Beijing is amazing. I did not expect it to be that great! The people are super friendly and I took a bunch of pictures with random people who came to me to take a picture. The food was so tasty that as soon as we got back I bought a Chinese cookbook ever since we are cooking Chinese dishes 4 out of 7 days during the week. I love how different their culture is and how much we’ve learned. We are definitely coming back! Below I put a China Checklist together in case China is on your list.