For anyone that is deciding between Mutianyu or Simatai to Jinshanling, think carefully about what "challenging" means to you. My husband and I are 49 and 50 years old, in good shape and not overweight. Mutianyu was just right for us for a good walking work out. We had to stop for water and deep breath breaks but did not... more

We had an amazing experience viewing sunrise on the Great Wall. For about 3 hours we had this section of the wall all to ourselves! People started arriving around 8:30 and it was much different with everyone else there. The views from this section were amazing! The wall has been beautifully restored and maintained. I would not recommend it if... more

What an absolutely beautiful place. I'm very glad we came to this section of the great wall. We took the ski-lift up and tobaggon down. If I had to do it all over again, I'd take the Cable Car up, walk to the left up the hill and then return, pass the cable car and take the tobaggon down. Even... more

I highly recommend visiting Mutianyu. We went in winter and it was snowing. The views are stunning and the climb provides excellent views. My sister has also visited Badaling and said Mutianyu was far better to visit because Badaling is overcrowded with tourists and has lost its authenticity due to reconstruction of the wall to make it easy for tourists... more

Having visited both entrances accessible to the Great Wall from Beijing, Mutianyu is the only way to go! The nice touristy entrance (whose name I can't remember) was just that, nice, but several hundred steps (of varying depths) before you get onto the wall is not my idea of a pleasant experience. Mutianyu on the other hand has a chair... more

Mutianyu is beautiful. We were there December 23, 2007. We also went to Badaling. Mutianyu is superior in every way. I'm happy that we did both, but if you can only do one, my advice is to go to Mutianyu. We rode the cable car up and back and went to the left, to the end of the restored section,... more

We took a tour with Beijing Xinhua International Tours. It was a great visit to the wall at a really quiet spot, but it was riddled with shopping I wanted no part of. We were taken to a Jade factory first and given a tour of that and left in a showroom where you feel obligated to buy something, then... more

After looking at reviews from Tripadvisor decided this would be the best part of the wall to see. Arranged a regular taxi to take us for 700RMB (could've haggled it down to maybe 400 we found out later but didn't as thought it was fair price anyway). Taxi took just under 2 hours from the centre of Beijing and the... more

Not only is this the best part of the wall to visit, it has the greatest decent of all the other sites. As you have heard from other reviews, Badaling is not the place to go. They are building 5 star hotels near Badaling so that should give you an idea of how crowded that section of the wall is.... more