The Great Wall, one of the greatest wonders of the world, was listed as a World Heritage by UNESCO in 1987. Just like a gigantic dragon, it winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching approximately 13,170 miles (21,196 kilometers) from east to west of China.

The Great wall is one of those attractions that is worth the hype, one of the amazing man made structures that make you stand in awe at the sheer magnitude of it. Its such an engineering feat that runs along the mountain peaks that formed a border protecting China from invaders.

When the weather is dramatic at such a location, it adds to the beauty

The wall makes an ideal day trip from Beijing, the wall itself was not built in one massive construction project as many believe, but different sections were built separately and joined together. China with a population of 1.3 billion plus and being a famous attraction, its thronged by loads of tourists and tour buses arrive by the truck loads, so how to beat the crowd in such a location.

A busy section of the Mutianyu Great Wall, it was a weekday and crowds were relatively low.

A few factors affect how crowded the wall gets, Weekends, chinese holidays and summer season affects the busyness of the site and also depends on which section of the wall you want to visit.

A nice hike on the Mutianyu Great Wall

Enjoy an aerial view of the Great wall captured using a Phantom 4 Quadcopter

While researching the different sections of the wall we got quite a lot of information and have listed the 2 sections that we visited, Badaling and Mutianyu sections are well restored and very easy to reach from Beijing city and the hikes are also very easy and doable with kids and is one of the busiest sections on the wall.

Mutianyu Great Wall

The wall itself is reached by cable car and if you want to add some fun coming back, don’t miss the toboggan ride down the slopes.

Mutianyu Great Wall

We wanted to visit some of the remote parts of the wall and were looking at a possible option of camping too, so we decided to visit the Huanghuacheng, this section is a beautifully preserved and relatively untouristy section of the wall stretching above a natural spring lake and adorned with wild flowers by the sides. Jinshanling section is also equally beautiful and worth a place to visit to beat the crowds, though we personally did not visit this section, our guide suggested it to us.

Great wall china seen from above, Huanghuacheng section

GPX log for the Huanghuacheng section great-wall-scenic (2016-07-18) The weather was quite bad on the day so we could not camp on the wall, instead we chose to stay at a farmers home stay, it was clean and had basic facilities, right on a secret path that takes you up the wall, we had the whole section to us and not a person in sight.

Great wall china seen from above, Huanghuacheng

The walls are slippery at various parts and some even had falling bricks at places, so take utmost caution if trekking this section, good shoes are a must. This section of the wall is an hour and a half outside of Beijing so you need to rent a car or take the public transport.   Suni was so happy to have the wall for ourselves and had enough time for a traditional chinese costume photoshoot 🙂

Traditional chinese attire and add a lovely umbrella to it

A traditional attire at the Great wall adds to the beauty