09:00 – 09:30
Starbucks Coffee
Breakfast
4.2(100)· 100051
Welcoming coffeehouse with handcrafted coffee, espresso & tea, plus breakfast, lunch & pastries.
4 Days in Beijing: The Classic First-Timer Itinerary
Beijing · 4 days · First trip
Beijing is not a city you can improvise. The headline sights sit kilometres apart, each one is big enough to eat half a day, and the difference between a great first trip and an exhausting one comes down almost entirely to sequencing: what you tackle before lunch, what you save for tired legs, and how much park you leave in between.
This is the classic version, stretched over four days so nothing has to be rushed. Two of those days are built around a single monumental complex, one heads out to the city's northwest at a much greener pace, and the last is pure neighbourhood walking. Roast duck turns up more than once, on purpose. Nothing here is a deep cut — it is the unhurried first trip you would plan for a friend.
You can open this exact trip in the Wayfaro app and regenerate it for your own dates, your travel party and your pace: the shape stays, the timings adjust to how you actually travel.
This is a real itinerary generated by Wayfaro. Open it in the app to regenerate it for your own dates and preferences.
Day 1: Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square and a hutong food walk
The morning starts with the least romantic coffee on this itinerary and the most useful one — a Starbucks Coffee, quick and predictable — because Temple of Heaven rewards an early arrival. The circular halls are the postcard, but the park around them is the real introduction to the city: locals playing cards, dancing and singing under the trees long before the tour groups appear.
Lunch is the city's signature dish served without ceremony, at Deyuan Roast Duck Restaurant: crisp skin, thin pancakes and a bill far kinder than the dish's reputation suggests. Tiananmen Square comes after that, deliberately rather than up front. The square is vast, flat and exposed, with a 37m obelisk anchoring the middle of it, and it reads better once you already have the measure of Beijing's scale.
From there the day narrows down. A break at Alley Cafe resets your legs before the Beijing Hutong Walking Food and Beer Tour at Hidden Restaurants, which closes the day in the oldest neighbourhood in the city and in the one format that still works when you are tired: small family-run eateries, short walks between them, and someone else deciding what you eat.
Day 1
6 stops- 9 min by transit · 2.9 km
10:00 – 10:45
Temple of Heaven
Free4.6(3.9K)· 100061
Renowned temple complex from 1420 featuring distinctive circular buildings set in a popular park.
- 9 min by transit · 3 km
12:15 – 13:15
Deyuan Roast Duck Restaurant
Lunch4.4(270)· 100031
- 8 min by transit · 2.5 km
13:45 – 14:15
Tiananmen Square
Free4.4(6.8K)· 100051
Historic, sprawling city square & cultural center, featuring a 37m-tall obelisk.
- 9 min by transit · 3.1 km
16:15 – 16:45
Alley Cafe
Café break4.8(67)· 100006
- 9 min by transit · 2.9 km
18:00 – 21:30
Beijing Hutong Walking Food and Beer Tour at Hidden Restaurants
€705(1.4K)
Get off the beaten path and eat where the locals eat on a walking tour in the oldest neighborhood of Beijing! We only eat at local, family-run eateries that yo…
Day 2: The Palace Museum, a watchtower view and the climb up Jingshan
Another Starbucks Coffee opens the day for the same reason as yesterday: The Palace Museum is enormous, and the queue rewards people who turn up early with a coffee already in hand. Give it the whole morning, and pace yourself through the courtyards instead of trying to tick off every hall — the scale is the point, and nobody finishes it.
Lunch at Siji Minfu is the second duck of the trip and the honest way to judge the first: same dish, different kitchen. Afterwards, 北京鼓楼和钟楼 hands you a view at the level of the grey-tiled roofs, plus performances on replica Ming dynasty drums inside the reconstructed red watchtower.
Jingshan Park is held back on purpose. Its hill looks straight down over the palace complex you spent the morning walking through, and that view only pays off in this order — first the courtyards from the inside, then the whole thing laid out beneath you. Dinner at TRB Hutong ends the day nearby, a deliberately dressier finish after a lot of hours on your feet.
Day 2
6 stops
09:00 – 09:30
Starbucks Coffee
FreeBreakfast4.4(38)· 100006
Welcoming coffeehouse with handcrafted coffee, espresso & tea, plus breakfast, lunch & pastries.
- 22 min walk · 1.7 km
11:00 – 12:15
The Palace Museum
€34.6(17K)· 100009
Massive palace complex & museum featuring tours, art exhibits & restaurants.
- 18 min walk · 1.3 km
13:00 – 14:00
Siji Minfu
Lunch4.4(742)· 100006
- 12 min by transit · 4.2 km
15:00 – 15:45
北京鼓楼和钟楼
Free4.5(347)· 临9号 邮政编码: 100009
Red watchtower reconstructed in 1420, offering views & performances with replica Ming dynasty drums.
- 33 min walk · 2.4 km
17:30 – 18:15
Jingshan Park
Free4.6(1.5K)· 100009
Historic 57-acre park located on a hill & offering views of the Forbidden City.
- 15 min walk · 1.1 km
19:00 – 20:00
TRB Hutong
FreeDinner4.5(48)· # 23 Shatan North Street 邮政编码: 100009
Day 3: Lakefront palace grounds and the ruins at Yuanmingyuan Park
Day 3 trades the centre for the city's northwest and starts slowly at Soloist Coffee Co., because the morning stop is a long one: an imperial lakefront palace of ornate temples, painted corridors and lavishly landscaped grounds that you walk rather than tour. Budget more time than feels reasonable — the grounds are far bigger than the buildings.
Lunch at Mystic South Yunnan Ethnic Cuisine is the deliberate change of register: mushrooms, herbs, chilli and sour notes from the far southwest of the country, nothing at all like the duck of the previous days. Yuanmingyuan Park is only a short hop from there, which is exactly why the two stops sit back to back in the plan.
Yuanmingyuan Park is the quiet counterweight to the rest of the itinerary: colourful gardens, water and the scattered stone ruins of a palace that burned and was never rebuilt. Where the rest of this trip shows you what survived, this stop shows you what did not. Dinner returns to familiar ground at Jingzun Peking Duck Restaurant, closing a long day out with the dish that carries the city's older name.
Day 3
5 stops
09:00 – 09:30
Soloist Coffee Co.
FreeBreakfast4(40)· 100031
- 1 h 2 min by transit · 20.5 km
11:00 – 12:30
Summer Palace
Free4.6(9.9K)· 100091
Lakefront palace renowned for its ornate temples & artworks plus its lavishly landscaped grounds.
- 27 min walk · 2 km
13:00 – 14:00
Mystic South Yunnan Ethnic Cuisine
Lunch4.7
- 9 min by transit · 3.1 km
14:30 – 17:00
Yuanmingyuan Park
Free4.4(1.2K)· 100084
Park featuring colorful gardens & ruins dating from 1707 & burned during Second Opium War of 1860.
- 1 h 0 min by transit · 20.2 km
19:00 – 20:00
Jingzun Peking Duck Restaurant
Dinner4.5(279)· 100027
Day 4: Lama Temple, dumplings and Prince Gong Mansion
The last day is the walkable one. Alba Cafe eases you into it, then Lama Temple gives you the most atmospheric hour of the trip: an ornate Tibetan Buddhist complex of bronze statues, incense burners and courtyard after courtyard of smoke and prayer. It is the one stop here that is still as much a working place of worship as a monument, so go in quietly.
Mr. Shi's Dumplings is the cheap, excellent lunch that keeps the day light, and it sets up Prince Gong Mansion perfectly. The mansion is a grand, remarkably well-preserved courtyard house with gardens, now run as a museum, and it is the stop that finally makes the hutongs legible: it shows you from the inside what a good address in these lanes actually looked like.
The evening is deliberately loose. Morel's Restaurant & Café comes first and Liu's Family And Restaurant after it, which in practice means you choose on the night: one proper sit-down dinner, or a second, later stop if the day has left you with an appetite. Either way the trip ends at a table rather than in front of a monument, which is the right way round.
Day 4
6 stops
08:30 – 09:00
Alba Cafe
FreeBreakfast4.3(39)· 100009
- 25 min walk · 1.9 km
10:00 – 10:45
Lama Temple
Free4.7(1.2K)· 100011
Ornate Tibetan Buddhist temple complex built in 1694 & featuring bronze statues & incense burners.
- 28 min walk · 2.1 km
13:00 – 14:00
Mr. Shi's Dumplings
Lunch4.4(215)· 100009
- 31 min walk · 2.3 km
14:30 – 15:45
Prince Gong Mansion
4.4(1.1K)· 100035
This grand, well-preserved 1777 mansion with courtyards & gardens now houses a museum.
- 18 min by transit · 6 km
17:00 – 18:00
Morel's Restaurant & Café
Café break4.8(136)· 三里屯新中街5号楼1层 邮政编码: 100020
- 12 min by transit · 3.8 km
19:00 – 20:00
Liu's Family And Restaurant
Dinner4.7(185)· 100009
- That's the trip — time to head home. Safe travels!
Good to know
- Carry your passport every day. Entry to the big sights — The Palace Museum, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven — is tied to your identity document, and security will ask for it.
- Book The Palace Museum ahead. It is the one stop across these four days that can genuinely fail at the door, and the whole of Day 2 is built around it.
- Set up mobile payment before you arrive. Cash still works, but linking a card to a local payment app makes taxis, tickets and small eateries dramatically easier.
- Three duck meals is the plan, not an accident: Deyuan Roast Duck Restaurant, Siji Minfu and Jingzun Peking Duck Restaurant differ in style, and comparing them beats hunting for one legendary version.
- Use the metro for the long hops and walk the neighbourhoods. Beijing's distances flatter the map — what looks like one block is often a fifteen-minute walk, and Day 3 sits a long way out from the centre.
Best time to visit
Beijing is at its best in spring and autumn, when the air is dry, the light is clear and the parks look their finest. Summer brings heat and humidity that make long walking days harder, while winter is cold and bright, with noticeably thinner crowds at the big sights. If you have the choice, the shoulder seasons are the safe bet. That said, this itinerary works year-round — the pacing simply shifts toward longer indoor stops when the weather turns.
Questions travelers ask
Is 4 days in Beijing enough?
For the classic version of the city, comfortably. Four days let you give Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square a full day, hand The Palace Museum and Jingshan Park an unhurried second one, spend a third out at Yuanmingyuan Park without watching the clock, and still keep Lama Temple and Prince Gong Mansion for a walkable last day. You are trading depth for coverage — this plan skips the deep cuts on purpose — but nothing in it is rushed, and every day has green space in it so your legs survive.
How much walking does this itinerary involve?
A fair amount, but it is paced. Every day pairs a heavy sight with green space: Temple of Heaven with the park that surrounds it, The Palace Museum with Jingshan Park, the lakefront palace grounds with Yuanmingyuan Park, Lama Temple with the courtyards of Prince Gong Mansion. Comfortable shoes matter more than anything else you pack, and the metro handles the long transfers between neighbourhoods.
Do I need to book anything in advance?
The Palace Museum is the one booking you should not leave to chance. The Beijing Hutong Walking Food and Beer Tour at Hidden Restaurants is worth reserving because group sizes are small, and TRB Hutong is worth a table. The rest — Deyuan Roast Duck Restaurant, Mr. Shi's Dumplings, Alley Cafe — you can walk into, though an early lunch beats a queue.
Can I use this itinerary for my own trip dates?
Yes. Open this exact trip in the Wayfaro app and regenerate it for your own dates, group and pace — you keep the same shape, and the plan rebuilds around when you are actually travelling, how far you want to walk and what you want to eat.
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