How to Be A Tourist in Beijing, China: 10 Things To Do

I spent 3 months living in Beijing teaching kindergarten last summer, and loved it! Living there for several months allowed my roommates and I to see pretty much all the tourist spots in the city on the weekends: here's 10 touristy attractions that are definitely worth your time.

Hopefully this post will help you find these spots effectively and in the least cost efficient way--and not miss any little details we loved! Be on the lookout for more posts about 7 less well known things to do in Beijing, as well as 8 wacky, off the wall things to do and a whole separate post on the Summer Palace and How to See the Great Wall! You can also check out 25 Things to Eat here.

1. The Forbidden City

The great thing logistically about these first four is that they are geographically quite close: you can walk from Tianamen Square (which is bordered by the National Museum) through the Forbidden City and up to Jingshan Hill. I would recommend doing all four together: it makes for a longer day (it gets HOT in Beijing in the summer) but it's a way to see a lot in a short amount of time. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace (aka home of the emperor) from 1420 to 1912--from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. (It's "forbidden" because the emperor dictates who can enter and exit, and "city" because this place is HUGE).

It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and for good reason because the place is gorgeous! It is also swarming with tourists--we enjoyed everything much more once we embraced the chaos and the energy and the fun of being in big pushy crowds and in all the selfies! It's only 60 yuan to enter (about 8USD) so just do it.

To get there, take Subway line 1 and get off at Tiananmen East Station (exit A or B is fine, but sometimes one or the other is blocked off since security is HIGH around Tianamen). Once you exit you can't miss it!

2. Tianamen Square

Speaking of Tianamen—you will pass through this square if you are headed to any of these attractions. Before you go, make sure to read about the square’s history, because you won’t see anything posted or mentioned there. The square was the site of the “June Fourth Incident”: student-led demonstrations as a part of larger Democracy Movement in China in the 1980s that ended in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 when troops killed several hundred demonstrators.

3. National Museum of China

I would recommend taking the time to think really deeply about government and government systems while in Beijing, and one thing that helped me better do that was the National Museum of China. You will certainly realize that China is a communist country when you need a VPN to use even extremely popular platforms like snapchat and facebook (or try to access non-government news outlets) but if you are not a Mandarin speaker, you might not really be in conversation with what that means if you skip the museums.

The National Museum is INCREDIBLE and ENORMOUS. You will take a separate “foreigner” line to enter and will need your passport or a copy of it to get in, but then the main exhibits are free. You can pay as you go for the rest, and they’re not crazy expensive. The entire bottom floor is Ancient Chinese history—seriously, we spent an entire day here, opening to closing time, and I could have gone back again. You are reminded while there just how long China’s history is, and how much of modern technology stems from here. With 48 exhibit halls there are also all kinds of special collections that rotate: jade, African art, currency from different dynasties, calligraphy and china to mention just a few. There is a whole wing of art with “revolutionary themes” or the introduction of communism, and an exhibit of “state gifts” or all the gifts Mao Zedong and the Chairmen that followed him received from world leaders—as an American it’s fun to go through and see what each president brought (stay on the lookout for Nixon’s!) The “Road to Rejuvenation” was the most striking and memorable to me (as a public history nerd and an American) which details attempts at “rejuvenation” including the Cultural Revolution and the achievements of communism. I encourage you to go and decide how you feel for yourself—it was certainly a reminder of how critical you have to be of any narrative that is presented to you, deciding for yourself how much is true and how much is propaganda. (I’ve been to my fair share of Civil War history museums in the American South//any American museum so this isn’t just a dig at China!) I think visiting this museum is essential to a trip to Beijing!

4. Jingshan Park

Continuing on through Tianamen Square and through the Forbidden City, you can cross the straight and head to Jingshan Park, and up the Jingshan Hill. It was originally an imperial garden with the Forbidden City, and it is still gorgeous to walk through! The main attraction is the view from the hill itself: you can get a glimpse of ancient Chinese history (the Forbidden City from above) juxtaposed with the smog and glitter of modern China, the skyline in the distance. Its only 2 yuan to enter; definitely worth it even to just take a picture.

5. Olympic Park

You may have seen the eerie photos of abandoned Olympic stadiums around the world—China is not on that program! They kept up the massive complex built for the 2008 Olympics and turned it into a serious tourist attraction. You might be surprised (if you’re dumb like me) that Beijing is also a tourist attraction for Chinese people—like visiting DC as an American. That being said, you might find if you are fair skinned that you are also a kind of anomaly/thing to see for people that don’t live in cities with larger expat communities like Beijing, so lots of people may ask to take photos with you or just take photos of you regardless. It can be a lot of fun, and a good time to think about “whiteness” and the privileges it comes with, and decide for yourself how you want to approach these moments.

Anyway, there are several options on the subway Line 8 that will get you closer to each attraction: “Forest Park” if you want to walk around the park and join in the fun outside exercises, “Olympic Park” if you want to walk along the main pedestrian road (most central stop) or the “Olympic Sports Center” if you want to start at the furthest end from the park. I recommend starting there and working your way towards the park, coming across the National Stadium or “Bird’s Nest” first: it’s a crazy architectural sight! It’s directly across from the Aquatics Center or “Water Cube,” which is also crazy. You can pay to enter both, but really steep—50 yuan—so we opted to walk along. The Ling Long Tower is just down the way, the tallest building along the strip. This whole area looks completely different at night all lit up, so I would recommend going twice or coming with enough time to see it before and after sunset. There are also unique art installations and gardens along the way towards the park, so you can definitely make an afternoon of it before hopping back on the subway!

6. Peking Opera

Ok so this will 1000% be expensive (like 25 USD) and both a tourist trap and arguably a rip off BUT ITS COOL OK. The shows are offered at tons of places around the city, and tickets are sold at tourists booths in any of these tourist areas. We saw ours at a random hotel—and I thought it was fun and interesting! If you come with a western conceptions opera, prepare to be very surprised by Peking Opera; the sounds are very high and tinny, also shrill in their oscillations, and the costumes are elaborate. Dance is also incorporated, and it is a cool 45 minutes to an hour that you could add to finish off an evening Beijing.

7. CCTV Tower

The CCTV Tower is another expensive tourist trap—around 15 USD—but hey, do it for the views. You can also learn about television and broadcast in China, which is cool. Hopefully your evening up in the tower will be less smog-laden, but coming around sundown is cool regardless since you can watch the city come alive as night falls!

8. Cooking Class

I always drag my feet about going to cooking classes since they’re both time consuming and expensive (and I can cook at home) but IN CHINA IT’S WORTH IT. The cuisine and preparation are so different from what you’re used to if you’re a Whitey McWhite star like me, and it’s honestly a whole lot of fun. We went to one in the hutongs—Beijinger Kitchen—and I highly recommend it! After months of eating jiao zi (dumplings haha, look I learned one Mandarin word in 3 months), it was so fun and cool to mix the pork, ginger and scallions and carefully fold the little dumpling papers. We also each got to cook a dish, and the food is incredible afterwards so yea, worth the 20 USD and four hours for sure if you have a week or so in Beijing!

9. The Temple of Heaven

USE THE BEIJING SUBWAY. It’s cheap, insanely efficient and can get you anywhere you need to go. Take Line 5 to Tiantan Donmen and take Exit A and you’ll be right at the Temple of Heaven! One of the most famous attractions in Beijing, it really is pretty. Emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911) used these temples for the “Heaven Worship Ceremonies” so there are some interesting ceremonial exhibits throughout the temples! Be careful when entering and exiting areas of the complex though: it’s only 10 yuan to enter (2 USD) but you have to pay to enter areas beyond the main/famous temple and once you leave to go to a different area you can’t return unless you pay again. (If you’re a wanderer like me and get locked out from your friends I warned you haha) We went early in the morning, which was nice both heat and number of tourists –wise, and you can join in some fun morning exercises going on in the surrounding park as well.

10. Take photos of everything

Chinese culture gives US consumerism and selfie culture a run for its money--and it can be a lot of fun! We loved engaging in the quirkiness of Beijing, as well as its touristy sites with historical significance. I absolutely loved Beijing and hope you do too (and all the photos!) (Also y'all come visit me)

Notice something missing?? Check out my two other individual posts on the Great Wall and Summer Palace (both are INCREDIBLE), or if you still haven’t seen enough, be on the lookout for upcoming Beijing posts: “Off the Beaten Path: 7 Lesser Known Things To Do in Beijing, China” and for the wild expat in us all, “ 7 Insane Things to Do in Beijing.”