Bus to Badaling Great Wall from Beijing

The 877 goes straight to Badaling with no transfer, which makes it the simplest public route to any Great Wall section, and it sits at the cheap end alongside the suburban train. What you trade for that is exposure to the expressway: the bus sits in whatever traffic the corridor is producing, which on weekend mornings is a lot.

Turn up, pay on board, ride out. The complications are the departure point, which moved recently and which most guides still get wrong, and the return, which thins out through the afternoon.

Where to board

The route no longer leaves from Deshengmen. The stand there closed in 2025 and the 877 now starts at Beitucheng metro station, on subway lines 8 and 10. Printed guides, blog posts and a good deal of what search engines still return will send you to the old gate tower; there is no Badaling bus waiting there.

Look for the marked queue and the staffed stand rather than accepting the first offer of a ride.

Two things decide the shape of your day, and neither is obvious at the stand. Outbound buses stop by the middle of the day — this is a morning route, and a late start means taking something else. And the timetable shifts with the season, so the last bus back is earlier in winter than the summer one most sources quote. Both sets of hours are in the note above.

It is also popular: on a weekend morning you may not board the first bus that arrives, which is an argument for getting there before the queue rather than with it.

The touts at the departure point

This is the one part of the journey that goes wrong, and it goes wrong the same way every time. People working the area approach visitors heading for the bus and offer a “direct tour bus to the Great Wall” — sometimes claiming the public bus is full, cancelled or does not exist.

The move to a new departure point gives that last claim more room to work: a visitor who has read that the bus leaves from Deshengmen is already unsure, and “this service doesn’t run any more” now sounds plausible. The service runs. It runs from somewhere else.

What they are selling is usually an unlicensed coach trip with shopping stops built in, at several times the fare. The defence is simple: ignore approaches, walk to the marked stand, and ask staff rather than strangers. The pattern and its variants are on Great Wall scams to avoid.

What the ride is like

A long-distance city bus rather than a tour coach: seated, straightforward, and busy in the morning. Much of the route is expressway, so there is little to see until the hills, and the last stretch climbs noticeably. Nobody will announce the stop in English — but this is a terminus route, so almost everyone gets off where you do.

Sit on the right on the way out if you want the first view of the wall on the ridge, and keep your ticket and passport where you can reach them: you will need both within minutes of stepping off.

If the queue is long

On peak mornings the line at the stand can run past several departures. Options, in order of how well they work: wait, because buses come round frequently and the queue moves faster than it looks; switch to the train, which leaves from a different part of the city and does not depend on the road; or take a ride-hailing car with someone else in the queue, which splits a much larger fare into something reasonable.

What not to do is accept an offer from someone working the queue — as above.

Paying, and what you need with you

City buses take a transport card or a mobile wallet, not foreign cards and not always cash. Set that up before the morning you travel — the apps you need for travel in China.

You also need your Great Wall ticket already booked. Badaling sells entry online only, under real-name rules tied to your passport, with a daily cap that fills on busy dates: Badaling tickets and how to book Great Wall tickets online.

Bring the passport itself. The gate verifies the document, not a photograph of it.

Arriving

The bus drops you in the visitor area below the wall, and the walk up to the entrance takes longer than it looks — before the wall’s own stairs begin. From there the section splits into the north and south routes, each with its own lift and its own character: what to expect at Badaling.

Getting back

Check the last departure before you leave the city, not from the wall — and check the figure for the season you are travelling in, because the winter last bus is earlier than the summer one. Afternoon services thin out, the queue at the wall end builds as the day closes, and the fallback — a taxi from Badaling back to central Beijing — costs many times the bus and is not guaranteed at the hour you would need it.

There is a matching quirk at the start of the day: return buses do not begin until mid-morning. Arriving on the first service and hoping to leave early is not an option the timetable offers.

The practical rule: decide your return time when you arrive, and start walking down thirty minutes before you think you need to. If the bus queue is long, the train station is the other way out of Badaling — see Badaling Great Wall by train.

Bus or train?

Take the bus for the lowest cost, for the freedom to travel without booking anything, and if you are starting from the north side of the city.

Take the train if your day has no slack, if you are travelling on a weekend, or if traffic reports look bad — rail is the option that ignores the expressway.

Either way Badaling remains the easiest section to reach without a car, which is its real argument against the quieter walls: the closest section to Beijing puts that in order.

What’s next

• The alternative route: Badaling Great Wall by train.
• The section itself: what to expect at Badaling.
• The shape of the whole day: the Great Wall day trip from Beijing.