Welcome to Beijing! I’m Chen.

Now if it’s your first time visiting and you’re trying to figure out where to stay during your time in Beijing, it could be a little bit complicated since you have so many factors to take into consideration: the budget, the location, the community, the transportation, the service and so on… The truth is Beijing is a really large city and there is no such place as a perfect place for everyone, but you can still find the place that suits you most. So today I going to give you a bunch of areas and recommendations that I think could be a great choice depending on different focus and needs of you.

Different Zones of Beijing

First of all, I’d like to share with you about different zones and areas of Beijing so you could have an overall picture.

Beijing is divided by its inner-city highways called ring roads. In the city area there are 4 ring roads called 2^nd Ring Road, 3^rd Ring Road, 4^th Ring Road and 5^th Ring Road (Hey! But where is the 1^st Ring Road? I guess it is the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square Area). The 2^nd Ring Road area is the closest to city center. And generally speaking, the closer you’re to the city center, the more expensive it would be for the hotel. However, there are different areas and zones that we’re going to talk about. Please be noted that I will be giving some nicknames to those different zones so that you could understand them easier, but those nicknames are common terms. The commonly understood expression of an area in Beijing is usually the location and the Ring Road combination, like I live at the northwestern 5^th Ring Road area,

City Center Zone: right in the heart of city

The first area, I would call it must-visit arear or City Center Zone for visitors, which includes historical and famous buildings like the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, Shichahai Area (known for its lake-view scenery and hutong area), Beihai Park, Nanluoguxiang (South Luogu Lane or Nanluogu Lane, also Hutong area), Prince Gong Mansion, Lama Temple, Niujie Mosque (the area around it has become a halal food street nowadays) etc. This would be the area with most tourist sites. Picking a hotel in this area would help you save the time and trouble on the road. Also this area has some of the most busiest shopping and commercial zones in Beijing, that is, Xidan and Wangfujing areas, which could be good choices for you to visit in the evening.

Fancy Zone: foods, shopping, spas (and high expenses)

The second area, I would name it Fancy Zone of Beijing. That’s the area around the East 3^rd Ring Road to East 4^th Ring Road including the Guomao CBD area, Sanlitun Area and Liangmaqiao area. This zone is considered as one of the fancy, trendy and fashion places of Beijing where you could see the tallest buildings in the city, largest shopping malls and fanciest restaurants serving cuisines all over the world. This zone used to be one of Beijing’s earliest embassy areas so that also explains why it has the most international community presences here. You are going to find many exotic cuisines, modern shopping malls, spas, pubs, luxury brands and fine restaurants here. Also, that’s the area where you can find many familiar names which fall into the category of the expensive and luxury hotels, like Bvlgari hotel, Rosewood hotel, Park Hyatt hotel, InterContinental Sanlitun hotel, Four Seasons hotel, Rizz Carton hotel, Conrad hotel etc. Now let’s take a closer look at this Fancy Zone since there would still be some differences in terms of the specific areas inside this zone.

Sanlitun Area: it is probably the only region of Beijing, where never sleeps. It has the most pubs in Beijing, most of which would be open until 3 AM in the morning. Some may even open until 7AM, so for those who stay up all night. And also this area has all types of foods provided, like Mexican foods, taco bars, beer bars with hamburgers and so on. It is also a very nice shopping area, with Sanlitun Taikoo Li.

Liangmaqiao Area: this area has a famous shopping plaza called Solana aka Lan Se Gang Wan 蓝色港湾. It is known for its middle-class lifestyle there. With Liangma River crossing this region, a lot of citizens would joggle, take some walking, go fishing along the river and you may even see some kayaking on this river. You can find some decent river-view restaurants in this region.

Guomao Areas: it is the CBD area of Beijing. A lot of commuters during weekdays the traffic would be really crowded during rush hours. For visitors, it is more like a huge combination of a lot of shopping malls and areas. SKP and SKP-S (aka SPK Select) are in this region, which are considered as malls with highest annual sales all over the country.

Olympic Zone: closer to Beijing’s Central Park, closer to local residents’ lives

In 2008, Beijing held China’s first summer Olympics and the main venues to hold it, the national stadium, also known as the Bird Nest, the National Aquatic Center — the Water Cube are located to the north of 4^th Ring Road. But it is not only about the stadiums, unknown to most visitors, we also have a very huge and well-built city park next to these two architectures. It is considered one of the best parks for running and joggling in Beijing and is free for the public. It is the Beijing Olympic Forest Park. It is among the largest city park around the world. It is 3 times as large as the Central Park in New York. It is open from 5 AM to 10 PM during the warmer time of a year, and open from 6 AM to 9 PM during the winter and early spring of a year. The whole park is built around the dragon-head lake and has plenty of different landscapes in it, the hills, the swamps, the grassland etc. You can find plenty of jogglers and runners in the park no matter when you visit it. During the day time, there are a lot of bird lovers observing all kinds of birds in this park. And rest assured, the Park is very safe no matter when you visit it. Even if you are a solo traveler, you could still enjoy yourself at night time in this Park.

This region also has a lot of great restaurants but unlike the Fancy Zone, most of them are Chinese dishes. Chinese dishes have a wide range of varieties, and you can have plenty of choices in this region, Cantonese foods like dim sum, Sichuan spicy foods, Hunan Spicy foods, hot pots and so on. So by choosing hotels in this region, you actually could enjoy a more local resident’s lifestyle – busy in the daytime, having some rest at park after work, enjoy nice local dishes.

College Zone: Qing dynasty’s royal gardens and mansions into today’s colleges

Around Beijing’s northwestern areas of 3^rd Ring Road, 4^th Ring Road and 5^th Ring Road are Beijing’s college areas, where you can find a lot of universities and colleges including the top 2 universities in China, Tsinghua University and Peking University. Unknown to most people, the campus of these two universities is actually based on Qing dynasty’s royal family mansions and gardens. In the Qing dynasty, the royal family built a lot of royal or imperial gardens and mansions in the northwestern regions of Beijing, including Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace etc. In the late Qing dynasty, some of those royal gardens and mansions are turned into educational facilities like universities and Beijing Zoo (yeah, where you could see pandas). In today’s Beijing, this area also becomes the first choice for many technology companies and internet companies. You could also see a lot of corporate employees in this area, many of whom are engineers and programmers.

Thus, in this region, you could also find some pubs, restaurants since there are a lot of students both Chinese students and international students, and corporate employees in this region, which means a lot of demand for foods, entertainment and hospitality. Be aware they’re not like those you’re going to get in the Fancy Zone (and options are fewer) since most of them target students and company employees, but still, you can find some pretty decent options in this region. The transportation would not be as convenient as City Center Zone. But this area is closer to the Beijing North and West Railway Stations, where trains are heading to Badaling Great Wall and other popular trip destinations like Xi’an, Pingyao. So it’s really a combination of pros and cons.

Budget Zone: not only for visitors but also for residents

The southern part of Beijing including southern 3^rd Ring Road and 4^th Ring Road (5^th Ring Road in the south is too far away for most visitors) areas are more like budget zones of the city where not only the renting fees are cheaper, but the hotel costs are also cheaper. But cheaper prices don’t mean worse places. It is cheaper because most places in these areas are communities where people just spend the night sleeping. As we’ve mentioned, most fancy restaurants, fancy shopping malls and multi-national corporations are in the CBD area of Fancy Zone, which naturally make the hotels there more expensive. And there are a lot of IT, internet, high-tech and start-up companies in the northern part of Beijing, plus so many colleges and universities, which contribute the pricing of the hotels. With fewer entertainment and companies in this region, it naturally has a lower cost of living. And that’s why many local residents choose to live in the southern part of Beijing to save the cost. And for those who may have safety concerns to this region, there is absolutely no need to worry about that. Tier-1 cities in China like Beijing are very safe. You don’t really need to worry about it unless you’re at a very remote place of the city after midnight, let’s say 2 AM at the southern 6^th Ring Road region, which are not likely to visit by tourists (or even by most residents). And I would say just walk on the street and rest assured you would be fine even if it’s 3 AM in the morning or anytime around midnight (thanks to the widespread CCTV cameras around the city).

But being the Budget Zone doesn’t mean you lose every fun part of life. The Budget Zone is close the Niujie Mosque which locates at the southern edge of City Center Zone. It now becomes a famous food street for its tasty halal foods.

The Beijing South Railway Station is also around this area, where the bullet trains heading to southern cities of China like Shanghai and Nanjing depart. And naturally this zone is also closer to the largest airport of Beijing, Daxing airport.

Homestay Options (B&B type of things)

Talking about homestay, I would suggest against this option to most visitors to Beijing mainly for 2 reasons.

First, according to the law and local regulation of China, any families who host foreign visitors for the night at their homes are supposed to register at the local police station for each visit. And sadly most homestay owners just won’t do that for their convenience (or some just don’t accept foreign visitors to save the trouble), which could cause some trouble if the local police decide to pay a random check visit to the homestay providers. I’m not saying it is going to happen for sure but when that happens, it could be very troublesome for visitors and even more troublesome if you have to find another place to stay. I mean no one wants to find a new place to stay just at the first night you arrive after a long international flight. It could be exhausting.

Second, most homestay owners in China, they treat it not like a hobby or part-time but more like a full-time job, which means the place you stay is very likely to be just one of the 8 or 10 or even more places he or she manages. Generally, the owners would hire janitors to clean the rooms and they won’t even visit the homes themselves. So for those who want to have an interesting dialogue and communication with the homestay owners, you’re likely to be disappointed, because most of the homestay owners are just like an amateur version of the hotel managers.

Still there will be some great options for homestay, but I think you might have to spend way more time digging and checking the information and for most 1^st time visitors, it may just not be the good option on the table.

So today I’ve walked you through the different areas of Beijing and their unique characteristics. Remember the nicknames I gave them, and it could help you decide where you want to stay in Beijing. City Center Zone, Fancy Zone, Olympic Zone, College Zone and Budget Zone, all of them have their unique cons and pros and I’m sure you could find the perfect place to stay for you.

I hope you find that information helpful. Wish you a very happy journey in China! See you.