Layover in Bejing
 

I have a 7hr layover in Bejing next month. How far is the city from the airport? If I only have time to see one thing what should it be?

Just back from Beijing this weekend. Getting out of the airport (immigration, other inspection and collecting bags) was about a 1 hour process for us. Getting into the city central was another hour. So including your return to the airport and check in you are down to about 3 hours. Tianament Square and Forbidden City are right next to each other and obviously quite famous so that is an idea. I also enjoyed Prince Gongs Palace and the tea ceremony at the tea house in the gardens of the Palace.

plus getting out of the airport means that you already have the tourist visa that should have been purchased before your are in China.

Not real practical imho to get out of that airport for a couple hours at most, sorry.

Aloha!

There is no visa-free transit at PEK, unless something changed recently. So, the OP will need to have valid visa or whatever documents that can get him into China already.

7 hours is whole lot of time to hangout at PEK, so even though it's not a lot of time, I'll still go out to city center.

As HT and rkkwan said, you need to get a China visa first if you want to sightsee for a couple of hours at most. The one place you should see is Tiananmen Square and walk around a bit. Give yourself plenty of time to get back to the airport since rush hour traffic can be very heavy.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will have the China visa so that will not be a problem. I just figured that instead of looking at the inside of the terminal for 7 hrs I might as well try and see something in the city.

Well if you have the visa in hand then I would have the taxi take me to the Summer Palace.

Great place to spend a day or a few hours and hopefully you won't get caught up in the Beijing traffic depending on what time you arrive.

I liked it better here than the Forbidden City or any other site in downtown Beijing.

Another option is have the driver take you to the wall at Mutianyu for a couple of hours.

Aloha!

What time of the day will you be in Beijing? Which day of the week? You can check out my blog for various things to do:
* People watching in Jingshan Park (behind the Forbidden city)
* Visit to Mutianyu section of the Great Wall
* etc
My blog is at http://travel.chinafinds.com