Great Wall Tours of Hiking, Trekking, Camping: Great Wall Adventure Club — Local services in Beijing

There are few recent 2024 and 2023 reviews of the Great Wall Adventure Club on Google and TripAdvisor. There were concerns about whether this company is still operating after Covid 19. We took a leap of faith and were not disappointed. We signed up for the 12 days Beijing and eastern section of the Great Wall of China trek to celebrate my husband's 60th birthday in September 2024. Angela Wang, the travel coordinator, and Terence Ou aka Terry are currently based in the U.S. We are based in Greece, and as such there is a time gap in communication. Angela Wang provided us with references of previous clients (albeit some are more than 5 years old), and tried to respond to our many questions as promptly as she could. We communicated using WhatsApp, and email. Terry has a team of tour guides and drivers on the ground in China who have worked with him for many years. Before leaving for Beijing, Angela Wang made sure that we have the personal mobile number of the tour guide, Oliver Zhao who was our assigned tour guide for the first part of our trek, and Barry Chen took over the last few days of our hike. Both Oliver and Barry speak good English. They are licensed tour guides of many years experience guiding international clients around Beijing city, and different sections of the wall. We found Oliver Zhao to be highly knowledgeable of the different treks along different sections of the wall. His passion and enthusiasm was infectious, and certainly made what is and can be a risky trek less daunting. In Beijing city, we covered the usual tourist spots for the first 2 days. On day 3, we started our trek of the Great Wall Ming Dynasty from LaoLongTou in ShanHaiGuan where the wall starts from the sea in the east, and made our way back to Beijing. We also trekked an East Qi Dynasty wall dating back to 1700 years ago, and visited the Eastern Qing tomb. On average we trekked at least 6 to 8 km, after breakfast and end with a late lunch. The longest trek was close to 12km. We stayed at hotels where possible and in the countryside at "homestay" hosted by local families. The rooms with exception of one homestay comes en suite, and is generally clean with modern Western style bed, and sitting toilets. We also experienced sleeping on a platform bed, not dissimilar to those in the Qing Dynasty, and a clean squat toilet on one occasion. As one would expect, the countryside in Hebei, and Liaoning is still very much authentic Chinese thus every meal is Chinese Northeast cuisine, which we found to be too salty. Breakfast is Chinese congee or a type of maize porridge serve with vegetables. The driver, Mr. Wang is competent and careful, but he does not speak much English. Mr. Wang went out of his way to help me order a Western style birthday cake (which surprisingly was delicious) for my husband when we were at a small town just inside of the Beijing Municipality. I would love to give everyone on the team 5 stars, but there are room for improvements. We recommend our family, friends and readers of this post to trek the Great Wall of China with the Great Wall Adventure Club and their team in China. It is, in my husband's words, an amazing holiday, and a trip in one life's time. Date of posting...

FABULOUS! I was hesitant to send a lot of money to an unknown (to me) company, but GWAC immediately soothed all my doubts. From start to finish, our experience was nothing but spectacular!! After booking 1 tour, then a 2nd, we splurged and used them for 4 tours, transfers, train, hotel, etc and were NOT disappointed. The transfers were life-saving and the easiest I've ever experienced. Each staff person seemed sincerely interested in making our experience the best it could be, (ummmm, including unplanned stops to a pharmacy and help finding allergy meds and help transporting luggage arriving late). But the best of all was the tours. We climbed Mt. Huashan and loved everything about the mountain, followed by Tour 3AA, 3 days on The Great Wall, which was everything and more that I hoped! There was an apparent itinerary mix-up when we compared, but Luis quickly got us the tour we were expecting. Luis was not only an extraordinary guide, but a walking history book, which is what I most loved. I was especially grateful he chose small, local places for us to eat for 3 days vs touristy areas, which I can do at home! Luis shared so much knowledge and concern. When he realized we TRULY prefer local, he shared extraordinary, teeny, cook-on-the-street places, which only the locals used. As a 5'10" blonde, I'm used to looks in other countries, but every place we went, looked me over, but also I felt instantly accepted after greeting all with a smile. Luis went overboard to make sure we never felt insecure. All in all, it was a trip-of-a-lifetime that truly was one of a kind for us and I just hope I have the opportunity to use GWAC again. I would do it with zero hesitation and with joy. Thank you for making my dream...

Fantastic tour group, highly recommend!! Helped our travelling group of three arrange private tours around Beijing for 2 days including a custom tour to include some items we wanted and others we didn't care for. We also did their Xi'an Terracotta warrior 1 day tour from Beijing with the bullet train ride back, fantastic! Great Wall Adventure Club was so helpful and knowledgeable, answering our many questions leading up to the trip; that we arranged another 1/2 day tour through them for when we were in Shanghai for a quick 3 days at the end of our trip. The drivers and guides we had in all three cities were very knowledgeable of the history of the cities and the subjects of the tours. They were able to answer all our questions. Their English was understandable which made communication easy and painless. They even helped with recommendations for things to do and places to eat after we were done with them for the day. Highly recommend and look forward to booking with Great Wall Adventure Club on our next...