Beijing Family Tour: Heritage & Local Life

★ Transform into Ancient Chinese Royalty

After breakfast at your hotel, your guide and driver will pick you up and accompany you to an ancient-costume experience studio to embark on a royal cultural adventure. There, dress in China’s most distinguished imperial attire: dad as the emperor in a bright yellow dragon robe, mom as the empress in a phoenix crown, daughters as elegant princesses, and sons as handsome princes. Moreover, your facial features will be artistically reinterpreted with Eastern makeup by professional makeup artists, blending in the majestic elegance of an ancient court. Just capture unforgettable family memories in this unique cultural immersion.

In gorgeous traditional costumes, let’s make a beeline for the real imperial palace, the UNESCO-honored Forbidden City, once home to 24 emperors and their families from 1420 to 1911 AD. With your guide, follow the central axis to visit magnificent halls and palaces, and chambers tucked away in the two wings. Looking up, your view will be dominated by the brilliant yellow of the rooftops. Why this particular color? In traditional Chinese culture, yellow symbolizes the land. Since all the country’s land belonged solely to the emperor, the color was granted supreme status and became the exclusive and noble color for the imperial power. Not only the roofs, but also many other daily items in the royal palace that you can imagine, including the emperor’s sedan chairs, cushions, clothes, hats, and even porcelain kitchenware, were all yellow.Out of it, we’ll return the costumes and head to the iconic Tiananmen Square, where many national edifices are neatly arranged and stand in harmony, including the National Museum of China, the Great Hall of the People, and the Tiananmen Tower.

Next, continue our visit to the Temple of Heaven, where emperors held national sacrificial ceremonies for nearly 5 centuries since 1420 AD. Here, with your guide, you’ll learn that for ancient dynasties, the annual Winter Solstice sacrifice to Heaven at the Temple of Heaven was regarded as the highest-level national ritual - before dawn, the emperor, dressed in ceremonial attire, accompanied by solemn guards of honor, led the officials to go there. After arriving at noon, the complex ceremony was held on the Circular Mound Altar, featuring the emperor’s devout recitations and prostrations to Heaven, as well as the rich offerings of the country’s most precious products. Afterward, the emperor would return to the imperial palace to host a banquet for his ministers and bestow rewards.

★ Evening Treat: A Breathtaking Acrobatics Show

Let’s make tonight more exciting with a tour to the Red Theatre for an acrobatics show. In just 70 minutes, your children’s eyes will be wide and fixed on the amazing stunts: over a dozen actors riding a single bike around the stage, heavy porcelain jars flipping like butterflies above the performers’ heads, contortionists bending into impossible shapes... Behind every perfect move are hundreds of failures and grueling practice - a powerful lesson in perseverance that will quietly plant a seed in your children’s hearts.

Finally, your guide and driver will escort you back to your hotel. 

Meals: Breakfast
Accommodation: Xinxiang Yayuan Courtyard Hotel, Beijing (4 stars)

This morning, accompanied by your guide and driver, jump in our private vehicle for a comfy 1.5-hour ride to the Mutianyu Great Wall. Completed in the 15th century and surviving almost intact to this day, this section occupies a strategic position and offers you the most beautiful perspective of the entire military project.

★ VIP Privilege Experience of the Great Wall

1. Fast-Track Access: You’ll receive a commemorative postcard entrance ticket, a dedicated shuttle bus directly from the parking lot to the foot of the Great Wall, a private sightseeing shuttle within the scenic area, a round-trip cable car for going up and down the Great Wall, and priority access through an exclusive queue-free channel.
* We can also provide you with more exciting rides on a chairlift up and a toboggan down. But note that for safety reasons, children under 10 without an adult’s company, visitors aged 60 and above, and those with acrophobia, high blood pressure, or heart disease, are not allowed to take the toboggan. They can take the chairlift down.

2. VIP Lounge & Summit Tea Break: At the foot of the Great Wall, you may use the private VIP lounge at the Mutianyu Great Wall International Reception Hall, and at the summit, enjoy a tea break with cakes, cookies, seasonal fruits, and beverages.

3. Exclusive Souvenir Package: Prepare to get some rewards celebrating your Great Wall achievement, such as a Summit Hero Medal. Other options include a Mutianyu Pass 3D puzzle + a cultural creative popsicle your kids may love, a Tsingtao Beer co-branded gift box, or a delicate Great Wall-themed notebook + a fridge magnet.Once on the Great Wall, fasten your shoelaces and conquer as many of its 20 watchtowers as possible. The path on it is undulating and even steep sometimes, but you will see it’s worth the effort as you imagine the vicissitudes the Wall has witnessed and stand in awe of this winding man-made wonder. Moreover, the most iconic No. 4 Watchtower, aka Zhengguan Terrace, will impress you. As a large hollow watchtower designed by a famous general who witnessed the plight of the soldiers stationed in harsh climates, it could not only accommodate several hundred people, but also serve as a storage facility for provisions and military supplies.

For lunch, we’ll accompany you to a popular restaurant perched on the hilltop directly facing the Mutianyu Great Wall. From its terrace, you can enjoy delicious Chinese food while overlooking the Great Wall winding like a dragon through the lush green ridges. This is truly a one-of-a-kind ‘Great Wall View’ meal with an unmatched setting.

In the afternoon, after returning to downtown Beijing, we’ll head to the China Science and Technology Museum, a hands-on wonderland where science comes to life. No dull lectures here, only interactive exhibits for your kids to touch, take apart, and play with. Encourage your children to spin a replica of the ancient water-powered spinning wheel or explore models of papermaking and the compass to discover the brilliance of ancient Chinese inventions. A sound visualization device will turn their laughter into bouncing light pillars - the louder they shout, the higher the lights jump. A crowd favorite is a realistic reentry capsule model where kids can climb in and feel a gentle shake, experiencing a hint of astronaut weightlessness. And don’t miss the smart robot team - they can draw, play chess, and even catch balls.

At the end of the day, enjoy a private ride back to your hotel with your guide and driver. As we drive past the National Stadium and the National Aquatic Center, also known as Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, two iconic national sports venues, stop to spot and photograph their ultra-modern design.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Accommodation: Xinxiang Yayuan Courtyard Hotel, Beijing (4 stars)

After meeting your guide and driver at your hotel, start the day with a visit to Panda House of Beijing Zoo, one of China’s first dedicated panda exhibits. Look, a black-and-white giant panda is grabbing a green bamboo stalk to eat. Curious how it holds things? From your guide, your children will learn that the panda has a special ‘fake thumb’ on its paw, helping it grip bamboo just like we humans hold utensils! Watch how skillfully it peels back the green bamboo skin with its canine teeth, rolls the tender core into its mouth, and chews with contented crunching. When tired, it rests its head on its round belly, gazing drowsily at the crowd - puzzled, but endearingly simple.The following is an interesting rickshaw ride through old Hutong alleys flanked by quadrangle courtyards. During your visit, various types of transportation may catch your attention. From the outmoded bicycles by the walls, to the small electric bikes weaving through the pedestrians, to the occasional cars struggling to pass through a narrow lane, they present the changes of time in Beijing. To give you a deeper insight into local life, we’ll also invite you to pay a family visit in one of these traditional houses. More surprisingly, we’ve prepared fun cultural activities for the kids, including calligraphy, Peking Opera face painting, and paper cutting. They can pick their favorite one to try. After that, let’s learn to make Chinese dumplings and share this delicious homemade lunch together.

★ Ride into the Future with a Driverless Robotaxi Adventure

Let’s go to Yizhuang and experience a true driverless ride. A futuristic ‘time-travel pod’ with a laser radar on its roof and no one in the driver’s seat will glide quietly up to you. As you get in and the door closes, the steering wheel starts moving on its own, as if an invisible, seasoned driver is at the controls, braking steadily at red lights, yielding at crosswalks, and even smoothly avoiding a suddenly darting e-bike. It's more than just a novel experience, but a chance for you and your children to witness the tangible future of technology on real roads.

This is the end of your 4 days Beijing family tour. Your guide and driver will escort you to the airport or train station and assist you with boarding. Thank you for travelling with us!

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch► Extension Inspirations:
Consider adding 1 or 2 free days to relax on your own or have us help you arrange visits to Universal Studios, Shaolin Martial Arts School to learn Chinese kung fu, or Qianmen Dashilar Street to try traditional crafts like fan painting, seal carving, and herbal sachet making. Or visit more kid-friendly museums like the Paleozoological Museum of China, National Museum, and Capital Museum. Zhongguancun National Demonstration Zone and some tech companies are also worth a visit. Feel free to contact us for your tailor-made itinerary.