Beijing guide – the in’s and the out’s! (mostly the in’s)

There’s a saying that goes “If you’re not getting lost, you’ll never find what you’re looking for”.
This is something I highly believe in – in most aspects of life, and specially in traveling.
Now – obviously you don’t need to literally get lost, but what harm will it cause if you’ll go a day without planning? You can set your mind in general where you want to be, but once you’re there, just walk.
So – here are some places I think it might be cool to just walk in, even on “non marked” paths, let’s start:

798 map

Beijing famous 798 art area:
A beautiful art area which has a lot of galleries (You’ll probably won’t be able to purchase there though:)), a lot of small Café’s, hip restaurants, very cool cloths stores, music and even cool graffiti store!
Worth going there when the weather is good, that way you can take advantage of the day.
See more here.

Summer palace

Beijing summer palace:
A beautiful huge area with ancient buildings, a vast lake and in general – beautiful nature.
I recommend going a little “off track” – go climb tracks, checkout the buildings and the scene.
Even though this post “underlying” message is get lost, I suggest taking a map:P as it’s a very big place and you don’t want to go the wrong direction.
Just pick a nice day and go there walk around the big lake.
And take a camera!
See more here.

Beijing Sanlitun:
A very hip place, check out my post about it here.

Temple of heaven

Beijing Temple of heaven:
A very nice area with a few temples and very old buildings.
There are vast gardens and a few small parks / groves.
If you will go there at noon time you will find groups and groups of people who play ancient musical instruments and a lot of groups dance old dances.
See more here.
Beijing Nanluoguxiang:
This is a very big open area which has got 1 major street (hotung) with a lot of small food stands and small stores, and once you go out of the street, after a short walk, you will reach a beautiful lake with a lot of small shops, coffee places and restaurants.
But more importantly, your eyes will have a feast!
The lake at evening time is full of different colors all around and the atmosphere is truly calm and relaxed.
I recommend buying “naicha” and just walk around.
This is one of my favorite places in Beijing
See more here.

And of course – you can always just go to any park, they are very nice here!
Mostly recommended are Tuanjiehu and ChaoYang.
Well, that’s all for now.
Beijing has so much to offer! Depending on the time you arrive, the attractions / places recommended are different.
Most of the things listed above are recommended to go between April to June and September to mid December – otherwise it will be too cold / polluted.
Have fun!

Temple of heaven

Sanlitun

Tuanjiehu park

Chaoyang park, Beijing

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