Full-Day Small-Group Great Wall Hike: Simatai West to Jinshanling

Phenomenal day of hiking the great wall. This is the area of the great wall to go to! Very few tourist, You will have the wall to yourself at times for great pictures. Danny was our guide and the touring company was Great Wall Hiking. Dany was fantastic. He spoke great English and was extremely knowledgeable. You can tell he truly enjoys taking people on the hike of the wall. He also packed some snacks to keep our energy up during the hike. There were only 6 people in my group. I will say, this hike involves some work. I calculated that I walked 110 floors that day! Be prepared to get some exercise. I would not recommend for elderly or for people not comfortable walking non-flat surfaces. That being said, it was a day I will never forget! You have plenty of time during your hike to take in the beauty of the wall and the surrounding views. We finished the day with a fabulous farmers style meal. Many dishes of fresh food. Perfect tour for someone that wants to feel like they truly hiked the wall and just didn't go there to look at it.

I booked four of us for this adventure and was convinced it would be great because of all of the positive reviews. We were all more than thrilled with the hike. It is a reasonably strenuous hike but done at our own pace, it was no problem. I'm 75 and had no trouble as long as I looked down, and made sure my footing was good. You need rubber soled sneakers, or shoes. The ride to the jump off location was about 2 hours. The bathroom at the beginning of the trip was the cleanest public facility I have seen in all of my 70 visits to China. The trip was great, but Peter Cao, our guide was more than fantastic. He was knowledgeable, well spoken English, and entertaining. The food at the end of the trip was typical Chinese and went down easily as we all were famished. Great trip with a fantastic guide!

Such an impressive experience to climb this section of the great wall! Very small group (only the 3 of us) and almost no other groups there! For the first 1,5 hour we only met local persons, no other tourist. This made it a very unique experience. I loved the combination of unrestored and restored section. Mark, our guide, was very very knowledgable and he took all the time (we were even quite a bit longer on the wall) no rush at all so could very well enjoy the scenery and take very nice pictures (in which Mark could also give good tips on the most photogenetic spots)!

This great wall walk was the best tour i have ever done. We had the best tour guide and a perfect day to see the wall and how far it stretched! The food that was also included was so delicious, youll want to take some home! This was the best day we had in China!

Very nice trip, well organized. The focus was on the wall, no fluff (no tea factory, museum or farmers market). We spent about 3h hiking on the wall (lots of up and downs). November helping, we did not see many people, which makes for nice pictures and a cool experience having sometimes to wall for ourselves.Our guide (Peter) was very knowledgeable and very friendly.I would definitely recommend.

Weather was great and the view was amazing plus, a nice hiking exercise. The guide YaShi was great - knowledgeable and caring, which is very important, as I am comparing with other tours. I highly recommend this tour.

This section of the wall is quite hilly with lots of climbs and descents. Although the walking was quite tough we weren't rushed at all and were given plenty of time to pause and take in the views. In total there were seven of us in the group (plus the guide who was excellent).

The hike was long but well worth it, since we got amazing views with very little interactions with other tourists. Guide was informative

This small group tour was fantastic! We commenced our climb in a location where there were barely any tourists, we kept a comfortable pace and were allowed time to take photos. We didn't encounter many tourists on the part of the wall we walked, so that made it all the more special. Our tour guide had excellent English, was informative and fun. He also provided each of us with a USB of photos he had taken of us during the day trip. They were tailored personally which was a special touch!

I'd give this experience six stars if I could. A really well organised day out with a fantastic guide Yaxin who made sure we got to make the most of this fabulous trip. We did it on a Monday and pretty much had the Great Wall to ourselves, the group was small seven and we went along at an easy pace with plenty of breaks. Snacks were provided too, I suggest bringing a small backpack to carry water and remember to wear layers. The route wasn't too challenging, some of the older hikers we met used poles - but by no means all of them. The end came all too soon and no one wanted to leave however, the post hike lunch was really enjoyable, great food and plenty of it with great company. We took two teenage boys who loved it and I'd recommend this hike in a heartbeat. Rob and family Oxford, UK