I shall be travelling to Beijing,China soon. Any ideas on how I can do it on a budget?

My airline tickets are free, so I'm just concerned about the tours. I'm thinking of going around the city myself. Thanks in advance.

You won't be spending much on food. I'll bet you lose weight on this trip. (no kidding) By yourself in Beijing? Are you a world-traveler? Have you been to any other Pacific rim countries. Do you speak any of the dialects? I'll bet you have a blast. Be careful though.

Eat lots of rice....Maybe you can work for a bowl of rice ...like they do

Beijing is very inexpensive. There are now a number of hostels now in Beijing (they used to be far and few between). The best area to stay is in one of the hostels located between Qianhai/Houhai area and the Drum Tower. This way, you are a walk/bike/bus ride away from Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City and the place you are staying at is in the center of the most interesting part of town to explore--- the old hutongs.

For getting to the Great Wall, don't do a tour through a hotel-- even if it's your hostel. Just go to the bus stop in front of the Southern Cathedral at Xuanwumen. You can go to a less touristy part of the Great Wall for a local bus price, but its still a comfortable tourist bus.

For getting to the Summer Palace, take a bus to the zoo and then another bus to the Summer Palace. Again, you can go anywhere without a tour.

I would suggest going on tours because they are very convenient and relatively less expensive than running around the city yourself. Tours take you to all of the major destinations: Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Great Wall, Tiananmen, etc. The good thing about a tour is that it provides transportation and pays for your admission tickets. Those along can cost you more that the price of the tour. The bad thing is that it's very schedule oriented. If you have a lot of time, you can go to them individually and spend the whole day at that site. The average tour cost less when it's Chinese. But if you don't speak the language that won't help you. Since Beijing is a tourist city, you won't have any trouble finding English speaking tours, although they might be a little more expensive. Shopping would best be done just traveling around the city. Food wise--whatever looks good and it's cheap, get it. Street food is the best, the cheapest, and the most filling.

hi there, if yr tix are free, then u can take up a land transfer package fr tour agency. Another thing u shld worry abt is hotel. Try directrooms.com, wotif.com, asiarooms.com for great deals and save on hotel. Hope this helps. I spent weeks searching them for my trip to HK :P

Unless you can speak Mandarin, otherwise I recommend that you take an escorted tour. Because you could easily being ripped off by the cab driver taking you around, not to mention you will gain much less from touring all the sights by yourself as most signs are not in English.

I know you are on a budget, however an escorted tour is not as expensive as you think, specially if you already have air ticket taken care of. One suggestion is: you can book a two - three day tour in Beijing, which should cover all the high lights, and leave the rest of the time free if you stay longer than three days. This way you won't miss anything, at the same time you can still explore more on your own after you get the basic idea and good suggestion from your tour guide.

One more suggestion is don't join a tour group, but have a private guide just for you. This way, you don't have to compromise everything to the group and the quality is much better since your voice is heard and it's much more personal.

If you are interested in such a tour, you can contact me through our website: Jia@Jiasdreamtours.com.