Originally Posted by
UA_Flyer
Thanks for your detailed review, information and good set of photos!
Based on your information, I may need to consider whether I should stay at this property. I have no car, so I was hoping to be able to find trails to walk on less crowded sections of the Great Wall. It looks like there is no access or limited access to the Wall, and I need to access the Wall using the crowded tourist entry areas. If there is nothing else to do, I may be bored for a long weekend stay.. My partner and I are both hikers and enjoy taking photos in less touristy areas.
Are there anything (of the wall) interesting to see on the side of the Wall where you took the photo above that I may spend better part of the day to hike and take photos? Any surrounding areas worth hiking around the hotel within 5 miles radius?
Again, great review!
Glad to help.
There's not really anything for the wall from the Hyatt property besides what I posted above.
The public entrance is Shuiguan, and even though we drove there, I would estimate it to be about a 25-30 minute walk from the hotel entrance (maybe less). While we were there, we only saw ONE other group. Even the kiosks selling drinks were closed, and the (one) photographer kiosk was also closed. There might have been a few reasons (in order of my view of importance):
1) Mid-June is before the Chinese schools get out
2) Less visited section of wall (near Badaling, but not really, and not connected in terms of being able to walk there)
3) Weekday
I would say it was really awesome in terms of going to a tourist place in China, without any other tourists.
So I would say you can still have an enjoyable experience without a car, depending on when you end up going. From the Shuiguan ticket entrance, you can go in either direction. Both are UP. Left seems to be easier, but both directions require strenuous climbs, but have really good views (better than what I posted above). So if you are strong you can actually go to the end of one direction one day, and the end of the other direction another day. I would say it might take 2 hours for each.