How I did it: I spent seven weeks in the summer of 2007 working with children in Beijing. I was sent to work with the U.S. embassy by Camp Adventure Youth Services, which is an organization through the University of Northern Iowa which sends U.S. university students to military bases and embassies around the world to provide summer child care. I actually went the the wall the first week and the fifth week that I was there. The first week we decided to go to BaDaLing. It is a section just outside the city and there are frequent tour buses from Tianenmen Square, which makes it the most touristy area. We had trouble finding the tour bus area, but it was nice once we found it. The fifth week we hired a black market cab to drive us about an hour outside of Beijing to Mutianyu, which was still a tourist spot but was far less crowded. It was very easy to get on the wall at BaDaLing... you walked up a road and some steps right onto the wall. At Mutianyu we hiked up a mountain trail for about half an hour before we got to the wall, but the view was worth it.

Resources: Camp Adventure Youth Services paid for my trip to China.

Nov 08, 2008, 10:25PM PST | 1 comment | 4 cheers