Last week the kids had Spring Break and we took a trip to Beijing. My husband and I were there in 2004, so this time we did Beijing with kids… which mean a slower paced-more kids friendly trip, AND it was great! I know not everyone can travel internationally {we are in a unique position for that} but once again I just want to say… you CAN travel with young kids! It may not be as relaxing, you may not see as much, but the experiences and memories for my kids are so worth the extra stress. 
I’ll be sharing our simple itinerary and what we did to keep the kids happy {most of the time}. The reason we choose Beijing for our spring break trip was that we had air miles expiring at the end of 2015 and Beijing was the place with could get flights and a hotel for our SB dates. We had enough miles for all 5 of us to get one-way flights so we chose to take the train from Hong Kong to Beijing. It’s a 24 hr. trip and we had a blast!
Here we are getting on the train..
Hanging out in our “room”. We packed books, games and a portable DVD player to help pass the time. We also ate dinner in the dining car, then ate our own food {instant oatmeal and noodles}. The dining car was great, but the selection not great for all the meals. 
When I woke up in the morning these two yahoos were looking down from their top bunks… love them!
Noodles for lunch…
My hotel tips…1. get one with a pool. What a great reward after a day of walking around.. a swim! 2. Bring your own swim caps. Beijing has a city law that you must wear one, the hotel will sell them {for a big price!} 3. Book a hotel that is close to a train station. We had a stop right out in front of our hotel and it made getting around SO easy! All the signs for the train are in English and Chinese and the hotel gave us a great map with train directions to all the major sites. We stayed the Swissotel Beijing Hong Kong Macau Hotel {awesome name, right! ha!}
Our hotel was also near food and grocery stores. We bought bread and yogurt and had breakfast in our room each morning. Lunch was while we were out and dinner was within walking distance for us each night.
Our first morning we hit up the Olympic sites. Last time I was in Beijing it was pre-olympics. The Birds Nest Stadium is absolutely amazing! Kids under 1.2M are free to most sited in Beijing and between 1.2-1.4 are 1/2 price. We had two in the free category and 1 -1/2 off, so that made entry fees very reasonable. 
The inside was huge!! They were just cleaning up a snow field that had been here for the winter. I think you can go tubing and sledding in the winter time on the field. The seats are all covered by the partial ceiling so rain or shine this is a great place to watch events. 
The water cube is right across the green from the Bird’s Nest and was equally as impressive! They built a water park inside part of it that opened 2010. When we were there the waterpark was closed and it looked permanent. There are still several pools open and the Water Cube will host the Curling events at the 2022 winter Olympics. Wow, love the looks on my kids faces here {ha!} Both the Bird’s Nest and Water Cuba are suppose to be amazing at night, but with kiddos we choose to skip that…
Day 2: We went to Tienanmen Square {through the heavy security} and then to the Forbidden City.
We went to the Forbidden City and a women approached us about being our guide. We negotiated a good price for a shortened tour. Regular tours {and the self-guided one available at the gate} will run about 3 hours… way to long for our kids. We had a great 1/1.5 hr tour that was perfect for the kids. Our guide did a great job of telling about things that the boys liked… these lions for example… fun!
The trees behind us are intertwined and the emperor and his bride used to come here after their marriage.
Near the Forbidden City is Wangfujing Street. At night there is a great food stall market, but we went during the day and it was still fun. The main street is just a bunch of malls {we did find a Dairy Queen} and the side streets are great markets for shopping {bargain hard!}. If you want a snack… you can always grab a scorpion kebab {ha!}
We had lunch of fresh dumplings.
More “fun” things to eat! Star fish, grasshoppers and centipedes. The boys found souvenirs in the markets, so it was a good day!
We went back to the hotel for a rest, then saw the acrobat show in the evening.. SO SO amazing! No pictures were allowed inside. There are a few options, but we went to the Chaoyang Theatre.
Day 3: We booked a budget trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Budget means we were on a packet tour bus with a guide who’s English wasn’t great, but it got us there! After about 2 hours on the bus we arrived. Our entrance ticket was included, but we had to pay for the Cable Car ticket. We found that even the more expensive tours had the same policy.. You can hike up to the wall, but we figured adding 40 min. of walking wasn’t a great option with the kiddos. We spent about 2 hours on the wall and the kids were great!
Wow, I love these three!
There’s LOTS of steps and ups and downs, but with an Ice Cream break and a backpack for the little one, we hiked several towers and then back to the cable car on the Wall. 
We had the best weather for our Great Wall day!
Some cherry blossoms, the Great Wall and my amazing husband!
After a Chinese lunch we took the bus back to Beijing. That evening we had delicious pizza and a “local” Beijing pizza chain.
Day 4: Beijing Zoo. Kids loved it… I felt bad for the animals.. I’ll not say more, but you get the picture. It was a fun day.
Look at these gorgeous trees I found at the zoo! LOVE!
During the trip we read the young readers version of Call of the Wild and Tom Sawyer to the kids. 
And that’s a wrap! We flew home on Friday… it was nice not to take the long train back, but I am glad we did it one way…. Want to see more of our travels? Here’s a few previous posts…
Some of these are posted over on our family blog – {which I’ve been horrible at keeping up lately}
Abu Dhabi, UAE {Part 1} {Part 2} {part 3} { Part 4} {Part 5} {Part 6}
Palau {part 1} {part 2} {part 3}
Kristi Andres says
We had our three little kids when we went to adopt Sam (so then four) and did similar stuff in Beijing. The only thing this momma had a hard time with was when Becka (then three) tried to look out a hole in the great wall and could have fallen through. That was hard! But otherwise we loved traveling with the kids.
Emily says
I know! we were freaking out a bit on the wall too ;o)
Kiss Marianne says
What a wonderful family! Thank you all the pictures and the interpretations – they are sooooo thrilling!
The two boys and the little girl are beautiful too. I think the first boy is cca. six or seven y.o. when you were in Beijing, the second is four or five y.o. and the little one is three y.o. Is that correct?
Thank you very much all your kind letter!
Marianne
Vineta @ The Handyman's Daughter says
I want to go to Beijing so badly! We just did our first big international trip with our six year old over the summer to Japan, and he loved it. Now we’re lining up all sorts of places knowing that he did really well on that trip. Beijing is high on the list! Thanks for the great guide. I’m sure it will be a big help when we start planning.
Mother of 3 says
How wonderful! I’d love to travel more with my kids…. but we usually settle for virtual trips. Thanks for sharing yours.
Christal says
Were the 5 of you allowed to stay on one hotel room at the swissotel? We are planning a trip in three weeks and I’m having trouble finding a hotel that will allow us to have all 5 of us in one room.
Sarah says
The very first time we went camping it rained the entire weekend. We really didn’t mind because we were in a camper and we played outside in the rain anyway. Turistvisum usa