Walking the Great Wall

All breakfasts, 6 lunches and 6 dinners are included. Food is cheap in China and you can avoid the spicier regional food if you wish. The cuisine on this trip is fantastically varied with lots of new flavours and 'things' to try. Gastronomically the trip can be divided into two parts: 'tourist hotels' and 'local hotels'. In tourist hotels the breakfast is normally a buffet, with a huge spread of Chinese and western food, including coffee, juice, breads, cakes, fruit, eggs, bacon and a wide variety of noodle and stir fried dishes. Dinners are normally taken in the hotel or local restaurants, serving rice with assorted vegetables, pork, fish, chicken and duck dishes with flavours roughly approximating those you would find in a Chinese restaurant in the UK. In the local hotels, breakfast includes rice porridge, dumplings, eggs, noodles, etc, however, we tend to augment this with fruit and cakes where available. Dinners are taken in local restaurants where the food is heavily flavoured with ginger, garlic bamboo shoots and chilli. Lunches are taken in local village restaurants and will normally consist of noodle soup or stir fried vegetable noodles. Expect an audience most lunches as the locals crowd around to watch the 'big noses' trying to master the use of chopsticks! Vegetarians can be accommodated, though options are often quite limited. Vegans will find options are very limited. Not all food allergies and intolerances are well understood in China. Options that contain no gluten at all are very limited (soy sauce contains gluten and is very widely used). Peanut oil is also used widely.

The north of China has warm (25 deg C), quite humid summers, and cold dry winters. If you travel between June and August, it will be hot more or less everywhere, except in the mountains. Some rain must be expected, possibly heavy. If you travel in September/October, you will probably get less rain and the temperatures will be fairly warm (around 20 deg C) everywhere. The winter months in China are cold, so if travelling in March/April be prepared for temperatures to drop, below (10 deg C), at night, but with almost guaranteed dry sightseeing.

This trip is graded Activity Level 4 (Moderate & Challenging). For more information on our trip gradings please visit the Activity Level Guidelines page. If you have any queries about the difficulty of the trip please do not hesitate to contact us.  

There are six walking days, with full and half-day walks with vehicle support, and low altitude throughout; maximum 1044m.

Please note that the Chinese authorities can occasionally close off sections of the Great Wall at short notice, in which case your leader will try to offer an alternative walk.

We strongly recommend that you thoroughly read the Exodus grading system before booking this trip. You will need to be confident in your physical ability to attempt this trek.

Walking Conditions

Daily distances are not long but some sections are narrow and overgrown and there are some sections where you will need to use your hands. The wall has deteriorated due to earthquakes and heavy rain in recent years and some parts may vary from trek to trek. There are a couple of hilly days and most days will involve some up and down. Some of the restored areas have very steep steps and therefore may not be suitable for inexperienced walkers or those with a significant aversion to heights.

Parts of the wall we walk on are generally in good condition, between about 5 and 7 metres high and approx. 4 to 5 metres wide but a lot of sections can be steep, and are in poor condition with loose rocks and flagstones.

Accommodation

We spend five nights in basic guesthouses/homestays, as the sections of wall we visit are well away from tourist style hotels. You should be prepared for these conditions and bad roads on this trip in order to get away from the usual crowds in China.