Simatai Great Wall Guide 2026: How to Visit Without Crowds

The gate at Jinshanling was locked, the parking lot empty. A sign in Chinese and English said the section was closed due to dangerous winds. I couldn’t feel wind. I could feel disappointment. (And a clock ticking on a car I was paying for by the hour.)

We had booked a private transfer from Beijing. RMB 1100 for 10 hours. We had a plan to visit an uncrowded great wall of China.. The plan was gone.

Simatai, 120 km from Beijing, about 20 minutes further east, was the backup. We took it.

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Simatai Great Wall: What to Know Before You Go

How to Get to Simatai Great Wall from Beijing

Simatai is about 120 km northeast of Beijing. Roughly 2.5 to 3 hours by car, depending on traffic and which part of the city you’re leaving from.

Do not take a bus. Do not join a coach tour. Pay for a private car. It costs more but it saves you roughly four hours of waiting for other people to find their sunscreen, their hat, and their will to live.

We used https://www.beijing-carservice.com/. RMB 1100 for 10 hours including gas, toll, and parking. About $160 USD. The driver waited at Gubei Water Town while we were on the wall. No stress, no schedule pressure.

There are two daily public buses from Dongzhimen to Gubei Water Town (9:00 and 13:00) and one from the Zhongqing Travel Building (10:00). I do not recommend them unless you enjoy standing at a bus stop wondering if you will make it back to Beijing before midnight.

How Long Does It Take to Visit the Simatai Great Wall?

The open section of Simatai runs about 5.4 km with 39 watchtowers total, but only the eastern section (towers East No. 1 through No. 10) is open to visitors. That is roughly a 2-hour hike end to end. We spent about 2 hours on the wall, plus time waiting for the shuttle at Gubei Water Town and wandering the canals.

Plan on 4 to 5 hours from parking lot back to parking lot. Plan on a full day if you are coming from central Beijing. You are not squeezing this into a half-day between meetings. Do not try.

Best Time to Visit the Great Wall of China

Spring (April to June) and autumn (September to November).

Temperatures sit around 8 to 20°C (46.4–68°F). The air is clear. The hills are either greening or turning gold. Summer (July to August) is hot, humid, and crowded with domestic tourists. Winter (December to February) is cold, beautiful if it snows, and genuinely empty but you will need serious layers and decent shoes.

We visited in spring. The wind had other plans. (I am still not bitter. Mostly.)

Simatai Great Wall Cost: Car, Tickets, Cable Car

Item	Cost
Private car (10 hours)	RMB 1100 / ~$160 USD
Simatai admission	Note on Tickets & Gubei Water Town Access: Simatai Great Wall is geographically attached to Gubei Water Town. A standalone wall ticket costs RMB 40, but requires advance phone/online reservation. If buying on-site, you must purchase a Combo Ticket (Gubei Water Town + Simatai) for ~RMB 170. Budget accordingly.
Cable car one-way	~RMB 90
Total per person (2 people)	~$110 USD each

Compare that to a group tour that herds you through Badaling in 90 minutes for $80 and you are paying $50 more for an experience that is genuinely better in every dimension except convenience. And honestly, the private car made it more convenient, not less. You just have to book it yourself.

How to Reserve a Simatai Ticket Online (The Bureaucracy Part)

If you want the standalone Great Wall ticket, the RMB 40 one, not the Gubei Water Town combo that costs more than it should, you have to plan ahead. The system does not reward spontaneity.

Here is the exact drill.

Where to book: The official Simatai Great Wall reservation site. That is the only place that works.

The booking window: 1 to 10 days in advance. Do not show up at the gate and expect to buy a standalone wall ticket on the spot. The system will lock you out. (I respect a system with hard boundaries even when they inconvenience me. This one has hard boundaries.)

The catches: You need a Chinese phone number. A +86 number. The SMS confirmation code goes there and nowhere else. If you are traveling with a local SIM or an eSIM that only has data, this is where the plan breaks down. It will break down completely and there is no workaround.

Time slots: Three daily windows. 10:00 AM. 12:00 PM. 2:00 PM. Pick one.

Claiming your ticket: Arrive at the main ticket window at least one hour before your slot. Bring the text message confirmation and the exact passport you used when booking. Not a photo of the passport. Not a different passport. The exact one.

Realist take: If you do not have a mainland number to receive that text, just buy the Gubei Water Town combo ticket at the gate. It costs more. It saves you an hour of wrestling with a sign-up form you cannot verify. I am not above admitting when the easier path is the correct one.

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Simatai vs Jinshanling vs Badaling: Which Great Wall Section to Visit

Let me save you the research.

Badaling 

Badaling is closest (80 km) and has the best infrastructure. It also has the most people. You will be walking shoulder to shoulder with tourists taking selfies with the wall in the background while standing on the wall. This is not the experience you want. There’s literally a train station for Badaling, meaning there’s no barrier to the amount of crowd you will face.

Mutianyu 

Mutianyu is better. About 70–80 km out. Well restored. Cable car and toboggan ride down. Still crowded but less than Badaling. I would call it the safe middle ground.

Jinshanling

 Jinshanling is what we originally wanted. 130 km out. Original towers. Panoramic views. Low visitor numbers. The photography choice. Connects to Gubeikou for an 11 km point-to-point trek if you have the legs and the time.

Simatai 

Simatai is what we got. 120 km out. Almost no refurbishment. Walkable 2-hour section. Cable car. Night tours available. Gubei Water Town at the base.

If I had to choose again I would still try for Jinshanling first. But I would not be upset about landing on Simatai. It delivers the same core value: an uncrowded, authentic section of a world wonder that you can experience without a human being in your frame.

There are tours that cover both Simatai and Gubei Water Town as a day package. You can find options on Klook if you do not want to handle the logistics yourself. I prefer booking the car direct. But if you want someone else to worry about the timing, the tour route exists and it is fine.

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Hiking Simatai Great Wall: Hour by Hour

Here is how it played out hour by hour.

9:00 AM — Pickup, and a locked gate. Driver was early, car was clean. We got to Jinshanling at 11:30 to find the gate locked and the parking lot empty — a sign in Chinese and English blamed dangerous winds. I couldn’t feel any wind. (I took a photo. I needed proof I didn’t dream it.)

11:45 AM — Redirect to Simatai. The driver knew the road. Twenty minutes added to the drive, and suddenly we had a new plan.

12:30 PM — Gubei Water Town. A canal town built to look old, on purpose. Quiet, a little surreal, empty-ish streets with water running through them. It reminded me of the water towns around Suzhou. We ate at Lawson while waiting for the shuttle — not a destination meal, but when you’re in limbo between a closed gate and a backup plan, Lawson is a friend.

1:30 PM — Cable car up, wall by 1:30. Simatai has a gondola lift. We rode it up and walked down — worth doing if you have average mobility or just don’t want to start the day with a climb. From tower 2, the first thing you notice is the stone: not polished, not flat, genuinely 600 years old. Collapsed sidewalls in places. This isn’t the poster version of the Great Wall. It’s better.

The restored sections of the Great Wall are not the Great Wall. They’re a historical theme park built to look like a wall. If you want the actual thing — what Chinese soldiers stood on 600 years ago — you go to Simatai, Jinshanling, or Jiankou.

2:00-3:30 PM — Walking the towers. One other small group on the wall the whole time. We took pictures with no one else in them. Standing at the windows between watchtowers, looking out for miles in both directions, it wasn’t hard to imagine what it would’ve been like for the soldiers who actually manned these posts. Watching. Waiting. Probably bored. (Which, if you know me, I respect enormously.)

3:30 -5:30 PM — Back down and back to Beijing. Steps down to the cable car station — my knees filed a formal complaint, worth it anyway. Wandered the canals at Gubei once more, then the drive back.

On the trip: We used an Airalo eSIM the whole way — worked on the wall, worked in the car, no SIM hunt at the airport. I carried SafetyWing too, which felt like a good call the moment a gate closure turned our plan upside down.

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Is the Simatai Great Wall Worth Visiting?

Yes. Unequivocally.

But let me qualify that.

If your goal is to check the Great Wall off a list and move on, go to Badaling. It is faster, easier, cheaper, and you will get the same photo that everyone else has. The wall is still the wall.

If your goal is to experience the Great Wall, to stand on something that has been there for centuries without a gift shop in sight, to take a photo that does not have a stranger’s elbow in it, then Simatai (or Jinshanling) is worth the extra effort.

The cost difference is roughly $50 more per person than a group tour. You get a private car, empty watchtowers, and the freedom to leave when you want. I would pay that difference every time.

What to Pack for the Simatai Great Wall Hike

Good shoes. Not fashion shoes. Actual walking shoes with grip. The stone is uneven and the steps are inconsistent. You will be grateful for ankle support by step 400.

Layers. The temperature on the wall can be 10 degrees cooler than at the base, especially with wind. A light jacket or hoodie that packs small is the right call. I wore a merino base layer under a travel jacket and was comfortable.

Water. Bring more than you think you need. There are vendors at Gubei Water Town but not on the wall. We carried two 500ml bottles each and finished both.

Camera. The phone camera works fine but if you have a wide angle or a zoom lens, this is the place for it. (I use an Insta360 X4 and a Lumix G9 for most of my travel content. Got some great 360 footage here. Full gear breakdown on the gear page.

Sunscreen. The sun at elevation with no shade is aggressive even in spring.

Patience. You will wait for a shuttle. You will navigate a ticket system that may or may not make sense. You will climb steps. And then you will be on the wall and none of that will matter.

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Simatai Great Wall: Final Verdict

Simatai is not the most famous section of the Great Wall. It is not the longest. It is not the easiest to reach. But it is the most honest version of the wall I have seen. Unpolished. Uncrowded. Unforgettable.

The wall has been there for 600 years. It will be there when you decide to go. The question is whether you will see it with a thousand other people or with just the wind and a few watchtowers for company.

Pay for the car. Go the extra distance.

Simatai Great Wall FAQ

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