Where to eat, drink, sleep, and more in the world’s most populous capital.
Some cities inspire immediate devotion. You arrive, take one look, and you’re done. Beijing is not one of those cities.
That’s the contention of Jane Yang, the Chinese journalist and entrepreneur who helped us bring the League of Travelers to China and leads our journeys in Yunnan and Anhui provinces. “At the very beginning, you’ll probably dislike the city,” says Jane. “Because it’s chaos. There are a lot of people, and they aren’t elegant like in Shanghai. It’s more rock and roll, very authentic, traditional people of the ancient capital.”
Settled for over 3,000 years, Beijing is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. It’s also the world’s most populous capital, with around 22 million residents. It’s a sensory onslaught, immense in scale, intimidating upon first encounter in a way Shanghai just isn’t.
But that’s just the upper layer. Venture off the main streets and into Beijing’s tiny, winding hutong alleyways, and “everything changes—just in one moment,” says Jane. “You see old green trees and people just talking with each other in the local Beijing accent. It’s easy to start a conversation… like stepping into real life inside such a big, chaotic city. It becomes very vivid and very lovely.”
Though she’s currently based in Shanghai, Jane says she spent some of the best years of her life in Beijing and now finds joy in showing the city to visitors through her boutique travel company, WayBeyond. Yes, the city is staggeringly ancient, she says, with more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other city in the world, but it’s also “electric, unafraid, full of collisions and raw energy.”
Here are Jane’s suggestions for permeating the facade and finding the Beijing that it’s easy to love.
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