My wife and I are taking our first trip to China and are starting in Beijing. We have a free day with no plans. All other days are full of the typical tourist stuff. Does anyone have any recommendations for an off the grid, local experience that we'd really enjoy? We're seasoned travelers and enjoy getting native when traveling. Thank you.

-Chaoyang Park
-Check out Beijinghikers.com if you want to go to an interesting Great Wall site (I hate plugging these guys because their prices are sky high now, but their trips are top notch)
-Xiangshan (week days only!)
-Wudaokou

Feel free to PM me if you want more info any of these options or other ideas. I really like Beijing, and know it quite well.

Choayang Park is like Central Park in Beijing, not sure I'd call that off-grid.
If you want something a bit different and see people's daily life then get lot in hutongs. You could go to Liulichang and make you way towards Qianmen walking through the hutongs. Except for the starting and end points, you probably won't see many tourists if any.
There are also a number of "wet markets" all over town but they are buried in residential districts and hard to find.
One seldom visited tourist attractiuon is the Marco Polo bridge (Lugouqiao: http://www.lugouqiao.org.cn/). You have also the nearby Japanese War Memorial. Short of going to Nanjing, this will help you understand why Chinese dislike Japanese so much.
Obviously, another way to rub shoulders with locals is to go to any major park in early morning or after dinner. Early morning at the Temple of Heaven is great for people watching.

Take a trip on the Batong line if you really want to 'go native'

Outside of the main tourist attractions things are really much of a muchness, and the city is becoming more and more homogeneous.

The hutongs are neither here nor there imo- you have a choice of the recently renovated areas around Houhai that are full of hipster boutiques and touristy shops. More like a themed shopping mall rather than a cultural experience.

Or there are the traditional hutongs where 'those of small means' actually work and live. These are pretty grim and grotty in general and not in an interesting or romantic sense.

Chaoyang Park is great and well worth a half day. A few other good local parks are Jiangfu and Side which are smaller but a lot more 'local'. The Birds Nest and Olympic Park also worth a visit if only to see the 'white elephantness' of it all.


The China Nationalities Museum (open air) is also highly recommend, that is just to the south of Olympic Park.

You will most likely get a native experience during eating, so just wander into any restaurant or pull up a stool at the nearest Chuanr place. There are quite a few pop up outdoor BBQ places around town and these usually have a great atmosphere with lots of Beijing Bikini's on show!

A day at a hot spring like Jiahua is also worth the one off experience.

Is there a place to purchase Peoples Army surplus and other assorted Stuff? I would love some military maps of the U.S. and California. Cold War era? It needs not be authentic

While lacking in the tactile aspect of the shopping experience, Taobao is likely to lead you to better product than you'll be able to find at the mainstream markets. Hongqiao is the best mainstream market I can think of for this specific mission; just don't expect to find anything really nice there.

If you are in Beijing on a weekend, you can find some interesting old stuff at Panjiayuan.

Yes, I like the China Nationalities Museum-- it has reconstructed buildings from all over China. Not many tourists go there.

Another option which I haven't seen mentioned is the Urban Planning museum. Yep - Urban Planning. This was recommended to me by someone that I met in the lounge last night, but it was the surprise highlight of my day (OK - Jingshan park was nicer, but that I expected to be nice!). The scale models of the city which span most of an entire floor are truly incredible. The people there are all looking to see where they live and how they got here. There was almost nobody there (and certainly no foreigners or tour groups) but everyone was super-engaged in all of the exhibits.

It is located just SE of Tienanmen square, but if you only had an hour I would pick this museum over the other sites that I saw today.

Dr. PITUK

I have a long list of Beijing secondary sights and activities/experiences that I sometimes recommend, but there just doesn't seem to be enough interest to warrant the effort to write it up and share without a specific request. Most of the locations are little touristed and particularly not by foreigners. The Urban Planning Museum mentioned above is on that list, particularly for the large scale model of Beijing. The Nationalities Museum, also mentioned above, is not on my list, due to the fact that it is extremely fake (Hans dressing up like minorities).

As for Army surplus stuff requested by #5, there is the 3501 PLA Army Surplus Store on the near east side of Chaoyang District. Not sure if you'll find maps there though. It's on the north side of Chaoyang Beilu just west of the East 3rd Ring Road and not far from the Chaoyang Acrobat Theatre. Use Hujialou station (Lines 6 and 10), Exit E. One story white building right by the subway exit, should have a yellow sign with red lettering: "北京三五零一销售中心"

When I was there, in the part that is meant to look like Lhasa, I met a staff member dressed up in Tibetan style robes, who said he was from Tibet. He had been recruited there to go and work in the museum. So definitely not all the staff are Han Chinese.

I just did a hike with Beijing Hikers today. I was specifically looking for something that was more a hiking trip in the hills that happened to go along the Great Wall rather than heading with the crowds to the Wall.

I had a great time. The weather was good, the fall colours were great and I thought that service from start to end, from asking for info to the bus, the guides and the hike destination were (as moondog says) top notch.

To be fair, I don't have too much to compare with in terms of guided trips. In terms of 'value' I don't know if the prices are sky high. Using Google I didn't find many similar alternatives. As a benchmark, the prices mentioned in this forum for a private guide to go to the standard Wall sites was 2+ times as much (I paid 400 RMB today). Now I had to get to the bus myself (3 subway stops) and couldn't add the Summer Palace (for example) if I wanted. I thought that I got good value, but as with any of these reviews, YMMV .

Dr. PITUK.

As a single traveler, joining this kind of tour (and not one with shopping stops) makes a lot of sense. In terms of economics, once there are two of you, it gets cheaper to hire a driver (not a guide) who will also pick you up at your hotel and return you home when YOU are done.

I didn't realize that Chinese tours did these 'shopping' trips as well (I had the pleasure in Thailand once) but you are right. With more people it might not be the best plan. We did meet two other people on the wall (the only people we saw) and it looked like one foreigner with a private guide who was explaining some of the history.

Thanks

Dr. PITUK