Originally Posted by
chipmaster
My experience is you can speak do it yourself. I driver to the sites outside of Beijing make sense, but traffic in Beijing is simply terrible, I'd do public transportation, DiDi for inside the city.
If you need someone to feed you information a guide can be useful and nice to have a second person with you, but than again sometimes guides limit freedom, YMMV.
Speaking or reading are not necessary for the Great Wall. But, you do need to get there, and I would not use Didi for this mission. As you mentioned, traffic is awful, so I advise leaving after 10a, and returning before 3p.