Great Wall Walk Reviews

I want to thank you and your team for helping us completes our recent charity trek in China 2011. Your guides, Mr. Chaney, Vivian and Li made all the difference and went out of their way to help us complete this challenge. We couldn't have done it without your help.

You can be justly proud of the people that work in your organisation and on behalf of British Airways London Terminal 5 a big thank you.

I strongly recommend using Great Wall Adventure to any other organization and I will be honored promoting this company for further Treks in China.

I hope our paths we will meet again in the future.

Ray Mausolle
Health & Safety Co-ordinator
British Airways
T5 Baggage Services LHR
South Airside Report (Arrivals Level)
Terminal 5, Wellington Road Hounslow, London

 Just wanted to let you know that my team had a great time! They said the guide was really good!! :)

Mayumi Whitworth
Google, Inc., USA

Thank you for your help in arranging our hike. My husband and I had an amazing time. Aaron was very smart, the driver was on time and super friendly. Most of all - that route was unforgettable. I am posting on tripadvisor right now.   

--Kelly Calabrese, USA

I wanted to take a moment to thank you so much for asking Oliver to be my tour guide on these two tours. He is very knowledgeable, which I would expect from any competent tour guide. In addition he is very enthusiastic and obviously very much enjoys and takes pride in escorting his guests. He was a lot of fun to be with and I very much enjoyed our time together. Oliver is an excellent tour guide and brings honor to The Great Wall Adventure company. Also, I also very much appreciated our driver who, although he spoke no English, was very friendly. 

I will most definitely recommend your company to my friends who might travel to China, and hopefully will visit there again someday soon. 

-- C. Russo, USA 

Aaron did a fantastic job guiding us for 4 days on the wall. He was very informative and fun to talk with.
Joy was our tour guide in Xian. Joy also did a fantastic job and was very knowledgeable. Joy went above and beyond what a guided needed to do as she actually rode to the airport with us to make sure we got checked in okay. 

A big thank you to both Aaron and Joy for making my trip to China - a trip of a lifetime. A trip that was fun but also a great learning experience! 

-- Theresa (Teri) Hamer, USA 

 I am emailing to say thank you so much for the warm welcome we had in Beijing. I was very impress with Jack and the driver. Travelling with a child can be quite challenging but Jack made it easier for us. They really went out of their way by finding us KFC or a western toilet. I would definitely book a tour with this company again, it was worth every cent, please thanks Jack and the driver for being patient and awesome people!! Thanks again.

Rebecca, Leana and Summer:), New Zealand 

I just wanted to let you know that I had an incredible day hiking the Wall. Jack was so wonderful and the other two people you arranged for me to go with were so nice. The route was spectacular!! Thank you again and I'll be certain to recommend your company to anyone I know traveling to Beijing!

--Mary Birkhauser, USA 

My friend and I completed the 2day hiking/camping Great Wall trip in October this year. We had a fantastic time and would highly recommend this trip. Some parts of the hiking were quite challenging and I found myself very sore in the legs after, but once at the top the views of the Wall are amazing!!! We camped over night in a watch tower, which was a once in a life time opportunity. It was so quite and tranquil up there. We had a group of 6 which was just the right size. We all got along really well and it was great to meet some other travelers. We were served some delicious local cuisine at local restaurants, banquet style. These meals I have to say were some of the best meals I had on my 3 week visit to China. Very local and authentic.

It was great to see the UN-restored part of the wall on the first day, and the restored part on the second day. You can really see the difference in the 2. Our tour guide was Danny - he was FANTASTIC!!! He was very knowledgeable about the history of the Wall. It was really good to hear lots of interesting facts along the way, especially while stopping to catch your breathe LOL. Danny was also very good in keeping us informed on what was happening next and how far we had come and still had to go. He was also understanding when we needed to take a break to sit down or take photos. Overall this 2 day hiking/camping adventure was amazing and I would highly recommend it. :) 

-- Sarah Harper, Australia

Our trip yesterday with Oliver was so wonderful. I cannot begin to show my appreciation for his patience, knowledge and good humor. The trip was perfect in every way. The hike was magnificent, the meal was wonderful and even the transport was just fine in spite of traffic. Oliver was a fantastic guide from start to finish. He knows a lot of Chinese history of the Wall and seems very proud of his heritage. He has a terrific command of English, made even more sweet by his wonderful sense of humor. I wish we had more time to do more trips with your organization,

--Sarah Smedley and Tim Cole, USA 

We walked the Jiankou-Mutianyu and Gubeikou-Jinshanling with our guide Jack. Although the weather was not good it was a great experience, especially the night in tents in the watchtower with heavy rain, thunder and lightning- so amazing... 

--Charlotte Winding, Denmark 

Thank you for organising my recent trek. It was a great experience and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the hiking.

Please also pass along my sincere appreciation to my guide, Cheney Wu. As I'm sure you already know, Cheney was a fantastic guide and made the journey that much more enjoyable for me. He went well out of his way to accommodate my every need. He was friendly and polite and genuinely good company, especially as I was trekking on my own.

Cheney is a passionate history buff and was very knowledgeable about the history and geography of the Wall. I learned a great deal simply by listening to what he had to say each day. He is a terrific ambassador for your company.

-- Steven Horne, Australia

We just loved having Aaron in charge of our tour! He had very good English and he helped us with some of our Chinese. I know I will never mispronounce Hangzhou again! Or Guangzhou! He did a really good job at the Forbidden City explaining so much in detail.

But the best part of having Aaron is that he was so patient with us. I was sure I could hike the Great Wall (I'm 73). He was able to tell what my strength was like in 20 minutes of doing a prehike, and we both agreed that because of the heat and the condition of the wall, we would make other arrangements. He had to get the driver in on this--and he did manage to do that.

So, we hiked up at Jinshanling for the prehike (and down). We had a good and generous supper before we headed up about 20 minutes by van to our overnight hike up to the General's Tower. That was our second hike up. Aaron and my son, Mike, did a little hiking before "bedtime." The porters set up the tents, and put out the sleeping pads and the sleeping bags. Everything was clean and perfect. We slept well and the porter was there with breakfast in the morning.

Then Aaron and Mike, my granddaughter and I hiked a new section down until Aaron and Mike split off for their long hike. My granddaughter and I walked down and met a driver who took us back to the Jinshanling cable cars. Wow! And it was Aaron who laid this hike out for us. We went up in the cable cars and hiked on the restored section of the Wall until we found our going down point. It was a great hike.
Our driver met us, and Aaron and Mike had just come down from their hike. We even found time for lunch once we got back to Beijing.

Aaron was the greatest. But the best was his planning and his patience. Thank you for a memorable adventure. 

-- Donna Gorski, USA

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 vacation come true!

Pamela W., Dallas, USA

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 visit to China!

Darden P.,  USA

One of the best experiences of my life. We hiked for two days, one of which we were suppose to stay in one of the guard towers, but due to weather we decided to stay in a hotel. Our guide Weaver was awesome, and he also showed us around Beijing. I would highly recommend hiking the old wall and not the tourist plagued locations. Sleeping in a guard tower is on my bucket list, so I will be booking with GWAC in the future.

Alvin M., Canada

We visited the Great Wall in August 2018. I can't overstate how fantastic our experience with GWAC was. Everything from the original booking (online and communicating by email) to coordinating once we arrived in Beijing, to the tour itself, went as smoothly as it possibly could have. We only had 36 hours in Beijing, and we couldn't miss the wall! Our family of 5 (2 parents and 3 teenagers) chose to do the Simatai West to Jinshanling route. It's about a 2.5-hour drive from Beijing, but so worth it. No crowds, incredible scenery, and mostly original wall. It is a significant hike, but we're a hiking crew, so it was ok, but not for those looking for a leisurely stroll. Our guide, Oliver, was fantastic. So friendly, knowledgeable, and just a regular guy who was great to spend time with. The lunch after was also terrific and included in the tour. Because of our scheduling limitations, we asked that they drop us at the airport directly after our tour, and they were happy to do so. Would gladly recommend GWAC to anyone.

Angela H., Canada

GWAC arranged tours for our family group of 8 including 3 teens and one senior. All details were meticulous. Our tour guide, Oliver was knowledgeable and engaging. We have a wonderful two day tour with them. (we also used them for tours in Hong Kong and Shanghai and those tours were also excellent). We will return to China and will use GWAC again. We used them with confidence.

Heather Hill, Canada

This trip was the best decision of my life, hands down!

John M., USA